But the Shadow doesn’t hesitate. He justdestroys, a whirl of teeth and rage and claws.
My eyes pop as my avenging angel doles out vengeance. Meanwhile, his other half curves around me, a blade buried in his back, his contented exhales warming my ear.
“I’d love nothing more than to touch you again,” Amriel croons. “Since you offered.”
Goddess, how can he even think about that when?—
His mouth finds my neck, blesses it with a kiss, and… Oh. I have to fight to keep my eyes from closing, even as the trolls’ screams filter into my ears.
“But,” he continues, “I have something I need to do.” Another kiss. Another shiver plucked from the depths of my soul.
“What’s that?” I whisper.
His tongue finds my throat, drags slowly upward. “I need to kill something. Right now.” He sucks gently while his Shadow slashes and tears. Something rolls across the grass. A head, maybe. I let my lashes drift against my cheeks.
“And I need to do it…” Amriel says, his teeth scraping against my neck, his mouth painting my skin with heat. “Very…” Another kiss, another suck. “Very…” One last open-mouthed kiss, then he pulls back an inch, denying me his touch. Denying us both.
“Violently,” he says.
A whimper pools in the back of my throat.
“So don’t watch.” He breathes the words directly into my ear. “Or…do. If you happen to like that sort of thing.”
Then he’s gone, pushing away from the wheel, reaching over his shoulder to wrench the dagger free. No hesitation, not even a flinch. He just rips the blade from his body, reaches the nearest troll witha few ground-eating strides, and whips a precise, back-handed slash across the creature’s throat.
The troll screams. Or tries to. The sound comes out as more of a gurgle. Frothy green blood bubbles from his lips while dark sheets jet down his front.
I expect Amriel to move on to another, but he doesn’t. He pivots with lethal grace and rams his blade into the creature’s belly. He saws up and to the side, cutting a gaping, diagonal hole. The troll screams and gurgles, his misery ringing through the meadow as he collapses.
The Shadow has a troll on the ground, too, but that one has already gone silent. Still, claws shred through flesh, reducing what was once a living thing to a pile of glistening ribbons. And that’s definitely a head on the ground. Maybe an arm, next to that pile of entrails. Or is it a leg?
I can’t say for sure, but I don’t look away, like Amriel suggested. Ican’t. Or maybe I just don’t want to.
I don’t know.
I don’t know anything anymore. Except that a strange, pulsatile thrill beats inside me as my mate delivers punishment with both halves at once.
When they finish their mutual disembowelment, they turn to the two remaining trolls, who huddle together, shaking. One clutches Amriel’s gyre so tightly his fingers turn white.
Amriel licks his lips as he stalks toward them. Blood wets the back of his shirt, but the deadly slink of his steps suggests he told the truth, that his wound isn’t critical. Or maybe he’s just so familiar with suffering that this extra dose of pain doesn’t mean that much to him, anymore.
“Whatever you do,” Amriel says, his gaze fixed on the troll, “donotthink about transporting to the center of this meadow.”
The creature shuffles backward, the gyre flaring in his hands. Its rings hum and spin. Reality splits, leaving a thunderclap behind.
The troll reappears ten feet away, at the center of the clearing.
And promptly explodes.
Green blood arcs through the air, tatters of skin flying. The troll’s meat-covered skeleton folds in on itself, the gyre thunking to the ground amid a pile of slime and gristle.
A painful breath lances into my lungs. So this is the curse of theWildwood. The same fate that might have taken Amriel from me, if his gamble hadn’t worked out in his favor.
Seeing it in the flesh shrinks my heart to a cold, pale speck.
But Amriel just laughs.
The Shadow growls, his eyebrows pulling low. “Why’d you do that? I wanted to rip him apart.”
