Page 49 of A Serpent in the Garden

“I don’t mind shy.” Red lips, white fangs, a sort of civilized ferality in the way he wove around. “As a matter of fact, I sometimes prefer it.” A white hand reaching out for the shoulder of a shifter. He smiled when it fled, amused. This was amusing to him, to sniff me out like a rabbit.

A metal taste burst into my mouth, like I’d been sucking on a penny. I hadn’t even felt when I’d bitten my tongue.

We need to get out of here, It kept repeating. Get out. Now, get out. Go!

If I run he’ll know, he’ll catch me—

White as a snowdrop, half-naked, filthy mud-tarred trousers hanging loose on his hips. Bright flashing eyes that kept finding me through the dark heads of the crowd, like he knew where I was and the rest was just foreplay.

The shifters didn’t breathe, didn’t tremble like I did. He would spot me in an instant, less than that.

Okay, okay. Pacing, corralling his thoughts. It’s almost dawn, he can’t linger long, just wait it out, wait and be still, their numbers will mask you—

Would they? He kept catching my gaze like there was some undeniable animal attraction between us, like he couldn’t help probing my soft human body with his eyes. When he turned his back, a bolt of ice went through my leg. It nudged the earth around with my foot, which slipped against something cylindrical, but he froze when the incubus looked back at me through the dusky outline of a disappearing shifter.

The sky grew infinitesimally paler, like God had gone blind. He was ten feet away, now five, and I was sweating despite the cold, bright traitorous beads along my hairline, and shifters probably didn’t sweat.

He slid in front of me like a nightmare, shadows bursting around him as the rest of the shifters fled. I had never felt It go so still, hardly breathing behind his window, as if fear had robbed him of his voice.

“Hello.” Skin so cold it felt like a flame when he took my hand in his, unblinking scarlet eyes brighter than Mars on a clear night. “What a nice surprise. I might want to take you home with me. Would you like that?”

He’s trying to lull you. Let him think it’s working.

I nodded. Tried not to look anywhere near as terrified as I felt, tried to soften my eyes and unclench my jaw. Take me home with him; what does that mean, he’s going to bury me underground with him?

I don’t know. Probably—

He traced my cheekbone with a bone-white thumb, one corner of his mouth ticking into a smile. His lips matched his eyes; his nostrils flared like he was swallowing a laugh; his free hand trailed through my hair. He smelled like dirt and woodsy musk, ice and something vaguely metallic that had to be blood.

But it would take too long to run back to the plains, even he can’t be that fast.

He is that fast and if he’s that worried about it he’ll just bury himself right here.

“Des?”

The incubus whirled around. The sound of my name sent a shock wave through me. It was Serich and he was awake, looking for me, worried—

I thought I had instructed my body to run but I’d dropped to my feet instead, my hand snatching up something gnarled. My knee lifted, my foot kicked out and connected with the incubus’s back. He didn’t budge much but he turned, eyes aglow, as the sky brightened a little further.

His white hand snatched my throat at the same time It rammed the fallen branch into its eye. The clearing ripped apart with a nerve-shattering scream. The few shifters who’d remained burst into shadow, and I supposed dawn had finally broken because the incubus erupted into a bonfire, painting me in ash as gray as the rest of this damned wood.

And then Serich was pounding into the clearing and skidding up beside me, fear etched upon his face. “Where have you been?” He sounded almost furious, seizing me by the shoulders.

Doubled over with relief, I could hardly breathe for the panting, or perhaps because my windpipe had been nearly crushed; it felt as though I wore a magnificent necklace of bruises. “You saved my life.”

He saved your life?!

Serich dragged me upright, so close I could count the pores on his nose. “What the hell were you doing out here?”

My tongue twisted into knots as the incubus’s pyre died into smoke. I didn’t want to tell Serich about the moonflower but I had no supplies on me, no filled waterskins to produce to give him a valid reason why I’d left—

I forced you, It said. You’re fine, it’s fine, everything’s fine, but now it’s time to leave.

“Is It trying to kill you?” Serich asked, after I’d repeated Its words. “Why would it force you to do that? You could have died.”

Demons work in mysterious ways. I didn’t tell you why and I ignored you when you asked.

“Let’s just go,” I said, when Serich again showed every sign of wanting to continue his inquiry. “I don’t want to waste the daylight.”