And as I slam into the corner of two free-standing walls, I realize what the clever thing has done.
It’s a trap.
I grip the sword in both hands, breathing heavily as the creature climbs languidly over the fallen statue. It knows it’s won. And dinner awaits.
I toss the heavy sword aside and scramble for the left wall. There’s moulding at the top. If I can reach it, I could pull myself out. The wall isn’t so tall that such a task seems impossible, only a few feet above my head.
Itiscovered in artwork, though. I jump, clinging to the moulding and glancing over my shoulder to find the creature has gotten its tail stuck within the toppled statue’s rubble. It cannot reach me. Yet. It struggles forward, growling and snarling, closer to freeing itself with every pull.
I beg my muse for forgiveness as I try not to damage canvases in my struggle to pull upward, curling an elbow over the top of the wall.
Relief swoops through my stomach. I’ve got it. I’m going to?—
The creature seizes my calf, and I barely get my other elbow in place before it’s yanking me down. Something hard and sharp tears through my lower leg. Claws or teeth, I’m not sure I want to know. There’s searing pain, along with a ripping sound that I pray is fabric and not flesh as I try to struggle free.
My grip on the wall loosens and I am yanked again, barely able to hook my fingers over the edge and hold on for dear life. I squeeze my eyes shut and pray for a miracle.
The faerie gods must hear me, because something thumps onto the wall, steel sings, and there he is.
Lachlan swipes his massive, and very muchnotdecorative, sword down onto the beast.
The pressure on my leg releases, followed by a pained yowl. Lachlan grabs the back of my shirt and hauls me up.
“Get on my back,” he commands, crouching.
I wrap my arms around his neck, but when I try to move my right leg, blinding, white-hot pain shoots through it.
“I can’t,” I pant. “Can’t get my … ”
He wraps a single large hand around both of my forearms at his neck, his sword gripped in the other. “Hold on.”
It’s all the warning I get before he leaps from the wall. The jolt of the landing bounces my teeth together and sends another scorching blast of pain through my leg. Then he’s rushing through the gallery toward the staircase. Behind us, the creature’s frustrated roar shakes the room’s foundation as claws scrabble across marble.
There are so many things I want to scream at him.Why didn’t you answer me? I thought you were injured. Are you injured? Because if you are, I can’t see it.
An injured person couldn’t possibly move this fast. He’s not even winded, curving around walls and between statues. The staircase isright there, but the path is anything but straight with all this damned art in the way.
I cling to him, pressing my face past his soft, auburn hair and into the crook between his neck and shoulder. I try not to whimper against his skin, but my leg is throbbing. Am I going to lose it? Could the celestial kingdom get behind a one-legged queen? I’ve barely won over a single territory with two. The thought has me choking on a morbid giggle.
I fear I might be delirious.
I must be, because for a moment, I swear I hear two howls rising. Perhaps my mind has fractured, and I?—
Thump.
Lachlan skids to a halt, gripping the thigh of my uninjured leg to stop me from falling off his back.
A second beast has landed right at the base of the staircase, cutting off our escape route.
The creature behind us huffs as the pair circle us. Herding their prey.
Lachlan holds me close, whirling to keep eyes on both creatures. They swipe at us slowly, lazily. Taunting. Lachlan knocks their paws away with his sword as they inch closer, trying to tire him out. Encouraging him to drop me and deliver their meal.
He’s flagging. I can feel it in his shallow breaths, in every wince as he twists to the left. Heisinjured. And in his wearied state, he can no longer ignore it.
“Put me down,” I whisper in his ear.
“Never,” he growls. “I’m not going to lose my—” He swallows. “Not going to let Desmond’s queen be eaten by Áine’s báshounds.”
