"I was going to make it quick. But now?” He drove a sharp kick into her side that left her gasping. “Now I'm going to take my time with you. To savor every whimper, every scream until you’re beg—"
The ground beneath them erupted with a sound like breaking bones.
Massive thorns, each as thick as her waist and sharp as fresh-forged steel, burst upwards with violent force. One tore through the side of her dress at the hip, and she felt its edge draw a line of fire across her skin as it passed. Another exploded up between them, missing her face by inches. The scent of disturbed earth and something else, something green and growing and wrong, filled her nostrils.
But the fae—
The thorn caught him through the middle of his torso, punching through his abdomen and emerging from his back in a spray of dark blood that steamed in the cold air. It lifted him three feet off the ground, his feet kicking uselessly, his expression shifting from rage to complete shock.
She staggered back onto her elbows, unable to tear her eyes away from the gruesome sight.
More thorns burst upward around them in a rough circle, each one three to four feet of organic spear, their surfaces smooth as glass but pulsing with faint golden veins. Another erupted precisely where she'd been standing, and only her stumble backward had saved her. Another to her right, the edge of it catching her calf as it rose, leaving a shallow gash. The pain dropped her to her knees.
"What—" he gasped, his hands scrabbling against the thorn piercing him, unable to find purchase on its unnaturally smooth surface. Dark blood ran from the corner of his mouth, staining his perfect teeth. "You're human—you can't—what IS this?"
She didn't know. The warmth in her chest had transformed into something else entirely, burning with confused fury, lashing out like a wounded animal that couldn't distinguish friend from foe. The thorns looked wrong even to her eyes, not like natural growth but like something had forced them into existence through sheer violent will. They pulsed with that golden light, almost like a heartbeat, almost like breathing.
"Get it OUT!" he snarled, his glamour failing as his control slipped. The face underneath was all sharp angles and too many teeth, beautiful in the way broken glass was beautiful. When he tried to dissolve into shadow the thorn pulsed brighter with golden light and he reformed, screaming. The sound echoed through the forest, too high to be human, too anguished to be anything but real.
She needed to be gone before more fae came to investigate.
Briar scrambled backward between the thorns, her injured leg screaming protest. Her hands found purchase on bark and stone as she pulled herself up, forcing her body to cooperate despite its desperate protests.
"Wait!" The fae's voice cracked. "You can't leave me like this—come back here! COME BACK!"
She ignored him, stumbling away from the thorns, from his screams, pushing deeper into the trees.
Blood ran steadily down her calf from where the thorn had caught her, each step leaving red prints in her wake. She couldn't keep going like this. The blood trail would lead them straight to her.
Briar stopped, leaning against a tree. She looked down at the gash, several inches long but shallow. If she didn't stop the bleeding soon, she'd leave a trail bright enough for even human eyes to follow. She needed pressure, needed a bandage, something to stem the flow.
Her eyes dropped to the dress that was barely more than rags at this point. She grabbed a hanging piece near the hem, gritting her teeth as she pulled. The fabric resisted, then gave with a sound that felt too loud in the quiet forest.
She wrapped the strip around her calf, pulling it tight enough that she had to choke back a cry. Her fingers shook as she tried to tie it, the silk slippery with blood, but she managed a knot that would hopefully hold. The bleeding slowed to a seep rather than a flow. It would have to be enough.
Pushing off from the tree, she continued forward, her gait uneven but steadier.
Briar wasn’t sure how much time had passed before she heard it, the sound so faint at first she thought she was imagining it. A rushing that grew louder with each step. Water. Moving fast.
The memory rose unbidden. Some nature documentary she'd watched years ago, curled on the couch with Allegra. A mountain lion hunting deer. The prey had run through a stream and the hunter had lost the scent, circling in frustration while the deer escaped.
Water broke scent trails.
The trees opened ahead, and she saw it. Not the gentle stream she'd hoped for, but a river, swollen with recent rain. The water moved rushed by, white foam churning around rocks that jutted like broken teeth. The sound of it drowned out everything else, a constant roar that vibrated in her chest.
This was stupid. Dangerous. She'd almost died in water before, and that had been with Eliam there to save her.
Behind her, a hunting horn echoed through the trees too close for comfort.
Briar stepped to the river's edge and looked down. The bank dropped off sharply, muddy and treacherous. She could see where the current had carved away the earth, roots hanging exposed like grasping fingers. The water looked black in the shadow of the trees making it impossible to judge its depth.
Another horn answered the first, from a different direction this time.
She sat on the bank and slid down before she could reconsider. Her feet hit the water and the cold was a physical shock, stealing her breath. It rushed past her calves with force that immediately threatened her balance. The rocks beneath were slick with algae, each step she took was a gamble.
The water reached her thighs. Her knees. The current pulled at her dress, the fabric dragging, trying to sweep her downstream. She grabbed for a rock and her hand slipped, fingers scraping across stone. The makeshift bandage on her calf came loose, disappearing in the current.
She took another step and her foot came down on nothing. The bottom had dropped away and suddenly she was swimming, if the desperate flailing to keep her head above water could be called that. The current grabbed her immediately, yanking her sideways. Water filled her mouth, her nose, cold and suffocating.
