The hallway turned a corner, but all I could see were more doors. Screams pounded inside my head, driving out rational thought. I slowed to a hobble, dragging my cramping leg behind me, and flung myself at the next door.I’ll take the torture over this horrible chill creeping down my back. Just let me in!
The door didn’t budge. The rasping voice drew closer. The hum roared in my ears. Panic rose in my chest, and I slammed into one wall, then another. The voice loomed over me, closer, closer...
Meave…
My hands groped in the dim light, tugging at the locks, scratching at the walls, tearing at my own skin.Get me out get me out get me out...
Meave…
The voice boomed between my ears, so loud it made me jump. It was right behind me.
Terror clung to my chest. I had to face it. I had to know.
I spun around. “Go away!” I yelled. The words came out as a tiny whisper. Something slammed into me, its weight knockingthe breath from my lungs. My body slammed against the stone wall. A think, heavy smell invaded my nostrils. Musty books. Ink. Leather.Home.
Corbin.
He grabbed my arms and held me upright so I didn’t fall. He looked exactly the same as the last time I’d seen him alive, his black t-shirt clinging to his tight muscles, his dark hair falling over his right eye. The creeping, itching sensation surged down my spine, and I twisted away from him. His hands gripped my arms like a vice.
“Hi Maeve.” Corbin kissed me on the forehead, his lips brushing my fringe – so warm, so real. He bent down to press his lips to mine, devouring me in a breathless kiss. Fire shot through my body, burning up the last of my doubt. It was Corbin. No one could kiss me like he did. My hands moved of their own accord, wrapping around his strong body. My fingers brushed a bone handle sticking out of the edge of his t-shirt, and the open wound underneath...
The wound that killed him.
It all flooded back, slamming into my body like a cold blast.This isn’t real. It’s a dream. Why did my stupid subconscious have to feed me this dream tonight, of all nights?
I pressed my hands against Corbin’s warm chest, my fingers touching where his heart should have been, but where nothing now beat. I shoved him with all my might, breaking our kiss as he staggered back and slammed into one of the doors.
“Get away from me,” I cried.
“Is that any way for a High Priestess to greet her loyal servant?” Corbin pulled himself up. The knife blade in his side jiggled as he moved.
“You’re dead,” I wailed.
“Damn right I’m dead,” Corbin grinned. He gestured to the walls of doors behind me. “I’m in the underworld, and right now, so are you.”
“Why are you doing this to me?” I moaned. “Why did you have to die?”
“Don’t worry, it was all part of the plan.” Corbin’s grin widened. “And before you get pissed at me for not telling you, I had to do it this way because you wouldn’t have let me do it otherwise. And before you think of blaming yourself or anyone else for my death, remember that even if you’d all held me down or locked me in the priest hole I still would have found a way to get myself here.”
“Why?” I sobbed. Why did my head have to conjure up this image of him? Why did he have to talk like he was still alive, like this was all some clever plan of his?
“Because this is our shot, Maeve. If we play this out right we can stop Daigh and the fae for good.” Corbin ran a hand through his dark hair. “And then, you can bring me back.”
CHAPTER FIVE
FIVE: ROWAN
Someone shook me. I sank into the bed, cowering from the darkness of my dreams. I was back in my last foster home, the one I ran away from. My foster mother held my head against the cold edge of the bath, andhewas behind me. The heavy sting of his belt buckle against my sin was nothing to the pain I knew was coming, to the pain that was a knife sliding up inside me, splitting my body in two?—
“Rowan, wake up.”
My eyes flew open. Sweat streaked my skin. I recognised the voice. Female and kind.Maeve.
She drew me back to the present. I wasn’t in that home any longer. I was at Briarwood, with the coven, and I had her and Corbin and the guys, and everything was finally okay…
It all came flooding back to me. The attack. Briarwood burning. The villagers pulling me and Maeve out of the priest hole and dragging us to the meadow. The fae with the stakes set in the ground. Corbin’s body thrown on the fire and then slid on that stake like a barbeque skewer.
Corbin’s dead.
