The male staring down at me with a look of utter contempt is Gideon’s brother.
Lachlan.
I open my mouth, preparing to ask what he’s doing, but he suddenly kicks me in the stomach. Hard. So hard that all the airleaves my lungs again. I gasp on the floor and curl into a ball, trying to protect myself from further violence. Tears burn in my eyes.
Vaguely, I think about the knife I was holding when the blast happened. But it’s no longer in my hand.
Lachlan bends down, reaching for me, and I try to cringe away. He grasps my hair and pulls me upward. My scalp screams with pain.
“Whore,” he says, his voice seething with rage.
“Please,” I whisper. “Please.”
“While my mate was dying on the forest floor,” he says slowly, his lips curling with disgust, “my fool of a brother was fucking you. A godsdamn human.”
“Please,” I whisper again. “I am Gideon’s mate.”
He scoffs. “Yes, yes. You think I don’t know that? He told me about you in a letter. A fucking messenger bird brought a letter to tell me that Maelissa was dead. And in the same letter, Gideon told me about you.” He tightens his hold on my hair. “He said he was coming home to Frostfall soon with the bodies of thirty-eight Winter faefolk, Maelissa among them. Then he wrote that he had some other news to share with me… and he told me about you. His human whore. The fucking human King Theron ordered him to track down. Gods. Fuck!”
He releases my hair, and I fall to the floor again. Then he kicks me before I’m able to curl into myself, and my ribs throb under the impact of his boot.
Gideon, Gideon, Gideon.
I keep trying to reach him through the bond.
But he’s not close enough.
Gods, please, let him come close enough to hear my thoughts. Please, gods, please. And please let Helena be okay.
I try to find her among the mess of the destroyed cabin, but I don’t see her anywhere. I fear she is buried under the debris. I pray she hasn’t been crushed.
Lachlan grabs me by the hair again and starts dragging me into the dark forest. The cold wind continues to swirl snow all around us, and the fae soldiers are still nowhere to be seen.
“Say some prayers for your soul, whore,” he says, growling. “I am going to kill you. But first, I will make you suffer. I will make you wish you had never been born.”
CHAPTER 24
GIDEON
Dark satisfaction coursesthrough me as I stare at the human heads scattered on the main street of Hollins.
Over two hundred of them.
The mayor’s head lies among them as well, his jaw slack, his vacant eyes fixed on the night sky.
After torturing the soldiers and their beloved mayor, we severed their heads and left them here as a warning. If Hollins possessed a parapet, we would have mounted them there, as we did in Braemar, but this town is smaller, lacking the protection of stone walls.
So, the heads remain in the street as a reminder, as a promise of what becomes of those who spill the blood of faefolk.
I glance toward the inn beside the bookshop and catch sight of Mr. Sinclair peering through the front window. His expression is twisted with horror and worry.
Has he been watching all this time?
Did he see me cut down the soldiers?
I did not kill them all myself, but I felled more than forty. More than any other soldier who stormed the streets of Hollins as dusk claimed the town. Bloodlust had consumed me, sharp and merciless, as I swung my blade.
I’m about to issue an order to a soldier behind me when something suddenly feels off.
