“Oh, I don’t need to threaten you,” says Cyrus. “You’ve done a beautiful job screwing yourself over already. I told you—Lysander doesn’t like to share. Thoughtless move, bringing someone else.”
His words bring clarity pummeling into her. Asher. The shotgun full of wooden bullets. Their fight in the foyer. The long trek here, his ears stuffed with cotton, the forest preening around them like a living thing.
“Where is he?”
“Lysander?” asks Cyrus. “Or your boyfriend?”
She doesn’t bother correcting him. “Never mind. I’ll find them myself.”
Shoving past him, she makes it all the way to the door before he cuts her off. He sidles out from the shadows as if he’d been one step ahead of her all along.
“Get out of my way.”
He doesn’t. “Do you ever wonder why you feel so numb after a feed?”
“No. Move.”
She can’t hear anything out in the great hall. No music. No chatter. No sounds of a struggle. That doesn’t mean there isn’t one.
Asher, you idiot, she thinks.I told you to wait.
“Everything in you slows,” says Cyrus, planting himself squarely before her. “Your heart. Your pulse. Your brain. You forget to panic. You forget why you were even afraid in the first place. After a while, you even start to like it. It’s why you keep coming back. Over and over. Night after night.”
She takes a step back, uneasy. “If you’re trying to make a point, then make it.”
“He doesn’tlikeyou, Parker. This is just how he hunts.”
There’s a crash out in the hall. She feels it in the pads of her feet. This time, when she tries to shove past Cyrus, he grabs hold of her throat. With a firm shove, she’s slammed hard into the wall. The back of her head hits brick as she scrabbles at his forearm, blinking away stars.
“Letgo.”
“Can’t. I have orders to keep you here.”
“I doubt he told you to hurt me.”
“I’m improvising,” drawls Cyrus.
Ignoring every instinct inside her that tells her to fight back, she forces herself to go perfectly slack. His eyes narrow, fingers tightening. Not enough to cut off her oxygen, but enough to let her know he could if he wanted to.
“Go ahead,” she challenges him. “Squeeze.”
“So brave. You think I won’t?”
“I think Lys will gut you when he finds out.”
Her voice comes out strangled, and Cyrus’s mouth curls into a sneer. She’s drawn up onto the tips of her toes as his fingers constrict. Her airway pinches shut, black spots scudding across her vision. For a terrible moment, she thinks he means to call her bluff. To kill her and hope Lys forgives him for it. Instead, he releases her with a hard shove. She staggers out from under him, taking several big swallows of air.
“One day, Parker,” he promises. “One day soon, he’ll come to his senses. When that happens, I’ll be right there waiting.”
There’s no time to let the full weight of his threat sink in. There’s another resounding crash out in the great hall—a thud that judders the floorboards underfoot.
She takes off running, her legs like lead. Cyrus keeps pace beside her, taking one long stride for every two of hers. They skid to a stop in the great hall, jostled together by the hungry throng of bodies. Drawn from their party by the promise of a show, the crowd has gathered in a tight knot around the room’s lit hearth. Shea elbows her way through the mass, Cyrus on her heels.
She emerges into the heart of the circle to find Asher Thorley on his knees.
He cuts an imposing figure against the firelight, his shoulders squared and his jaw defiant. His wrists have been restrained in the small of his back and he looks as if he’s already taken a few hits. His left eye boasts a red, ugly weal. A thin line of blood trickles down his chin, gathers in the beating hollow of his throat.
Directly in front of him stands the Gravewood Devil.
