With a thump, she landed on the branch before me, forepaws first, ears flattened to her skull, teeth bared.
I held out my palm, cooing, “Easy, pretty,” but she avoided my touch with a huff, glaring in the captain’s direction. “Alright then,” I said, with a toothy nod. “Lead on.”
Following the flash of Kas’ lithe behind through the trees, I moved as fast as my feet would carry me, leaping and ducking with ki-fed, unnatural focus. And when my muscles began to ache, I fueled them with more ki, not stopping until I was soaked through with sweat and the sun was high—but I was in position. Breath coming hard, I paused on my branch, staring at the empty road below me.
Where was he? Had my ki-sense really atrophied so badly that I’d miscalculated? Was the captain heading elsewhere and I’d been duped… again?
I sent a pulse through the wood, searching for my lost Elite, scouring the forest for hidden traps and things out of place. What I found set a smile to bloom across my lips.
“Not missing,” I whispered, gazing at the empty road before me. “Just late.”
With a jerk of my chin, I sent Kas to prowl the branches, ready to fill her with my specter should I need the diversion. Burying usbothunder the forest, I disguised us from eyes that could see deeper than mere shadows, then settled against the branch at my back.
The only thing left to do was wait, knowingthis time,he would springmytrap.
It didn’t take long.
“What in the bloody hell—” An ornate Tritan coach glided to a graceful halt, settling in the new grass speckling what had been a barren gravel road only hours prior. Staggering from the cockpit into sunlight, came none other than Jasper, my favorite bottom feeder. “Impossible! I was here just last week!”
“Those trees didn’t grow in a week, mate,” the pilot said, dangling one bronzed arm over the open window as he gazed up at the trees. “Maybe we missed a turn?”
Jasper shook his head, aiming trembling finger at me in the shadows. Purely accidental, surely. “No. No, this is the work of the Menace.” He clutched at the serpent’s likeness on a cord about his neck. “We shouldn’t be here. Turn the coach around, Marco.”
Ah,yes. Marco. I tipped forward, straining for a glimpse of the man whose life I’d taken in the palm of my hand and crushed to buy my freedom. The man whose death, however temporary, had freed the darkness within me.
I smiled with a certain sort of fondness. And, with a flick of my fingers, sent my vines to creep forward. Ready to give me another taste…
“What’s going on?” asked a man whose face I could not see. “Why have we stopped?”
I froze. Blood going cold, then flashing fire-hot.
That voice!
General Tilcot.
His was a voice I’d recognize anywhere, for I had spent these last years hearing it beg for mercy in my dreams. I almost laughed! To be able to take my father’s murderer? To feed him to the darkness after all this time? I’d have to keep the captain alive long enough to thank him for such a kind and thoughtful gift!
Dropping into a crouch, Kas stilled on a thick branch, baring gleaming yellow teeth, pupils tiny, unmoving pricks.
My every muscle flexed in preparation to call forth the might of the Grandmother and claim my vengeance.
Five years, according to Belle. I could finally add another mark to my wall—but this one would be drawn in blood.
“L-Look, sir. It’s the trees. I swear on the serpent,” Jasper stammered, pacing the new grass and the tiny, creeping vines. “I was here just last week and the road was clear. It’s the Menace. I’m telling you, he’s here. We have to go back.”
General Tilcot laughed, pushing his door open and stepping down from the coach. “I’d like to meet your wood’s menace, Jasper.”
I rolled my shoulders. Cracked my neck.
The general patted a holster on his hip, gazing at the trees. “Perhaps we’ll send a hunting party to catch him after our dealings with the Elorans?”
Glee surged through my blood.
Oh, please do, General Tilcot!To feast on an Elite hunting party? I licked my lips. Perhaps the Divine lived after all?
Abandoning his post, Marco lit a cigarette. “Is there another way ‘round, Jasper?”
“No, sir,” Jasper said, pushing his hand through sweat-soaked hair that reeked of terror, even from my removed position.
