Текст книги "Queen of rot and pain"

Автор книги: Liv Zander

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

Chapter 20

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Ada

Limbs, lifeless and heavy, tossed about where I sat on the horse in front of Enosh, scolding myself for my damn weakness.

If only I’d stabbed that man’s throat…

After hours of self-imposed silence, I blew out a breath, watching it billow into a night colder than death itself. “You c-can say if you’re ups-set with me.”

Enosh wrapped what had to be our third fur tighter around me, but not even the King of Flesh and Bone could keep my teeth from chattering anymore. “How could I be upset about something that made me fall in love with you in the first place?”

His sweet words weren’t helping my goal to rack up some of that wickedness he claimed I had little of. “Had I k-killed the man, I might be alive now instead of f-fr-freezing my arse off. We could ride to the high temple, kill all the p-priests, then fa-finally go home. I only ever killed damn fish, and they don’t s-scream.”

“Not to mention that injured bird you accidentally stepped on as a child,” he mused. “The one you once told me about… and had you in tears for two days.”

“It made an awful popping sound.” I rubbed the cold tip of my nose on the cape, pulling frigid air into my lungs in an inhale of courage. “Can I ask you something?”

“The answer is many,” he said while stiffening behind me, clearly aware I’d wanted to know about the children beyond the Soltren Gate. “Caught in the outreaches of my anger and grief. A number you cannot possibly imagine.”

But I was gaining an idea with every stray soldier or nightguard we met on our way to Elderfalls, for Enosh killed them all in passing. “Do you ever regret it?”

“Not for the reasons you would wish, Ada. To me, mortals are nothing but flesh and bone, sweat and scars. Being born only to die, so I may strengthen the bridges of the silent graveyard that is my empty, empty home.” A heavy sigh followed by what had to be the hundredth kiss of our journey right atop my head. “I know it is not what you wanted to hear.”

No, but it was exactly what I needed to hear to gain clarity. “Are you still spreading rot for the children?”

“Ever since we left the Pale Court.”

I twisted on the horse’s back and stared into the blackness from which we’d emerged. Hundreds of corpses trudged behind us, gathered from one town, seven villages, and a tavern we’d come across by chance—where Yarin had chosen to spend the night.

Over a hundred self-murders.

Not a single glimpse of Eilam.

Enosh spared women and children wherever we went, focusing on soldiers, priests, and the occasional idiot who came at us with a pitchfork or shovel. Perhaps it was his way of showing me he truly wanted to be the man I’d asked him to be—for as long as he could.

The problem was, I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad anymore. Bad, probably, for it chipped away that determination Enosh wanted to prove to his brother, and in turn, strengthening Eilam’s belief that Enosh would be forced to stop.

Because of me.

I settled my hand on Enosh’s where he held me by the waist. “Did you ever ask your brother to twist my thoughts?”

“On the contrary. I asked him many a time to leave them alone.”

Because Enosh longed to be truly loved, just like Eilam had said. “Would you ever do it?”

“Not to gain your love.”

He wouldn’t have to.

Somewhere between the forest, death, and drowning, I’d fallen in love with this man against principle, peccancy, and precaution. Could no longer disguise lust for loathing, pleasure for pain, or even love for lunacy.

Enosh was complicated and cruel, yes, but he was not without his merits. Regardless of his twisted morality, he’d showed me more love, attention, and care ever since I’d crawled out of that grave than others had in my entire life. Killings aside, he tried hard to behave himself.

“To strip me of compassion, then?” I asked. “I saw how you looked at each other.”

“I contemplated the necessity to have Yarin… flare your hatred for these mortals so it would not fall to me once more.” Several hoofbeats shattered the drawn-out silence, until he finally added, “Of course, that was before Eilam tested your resolve. Easing you into a content bystander would have been easy enough, for a while.”

I glanced behind me, finding his stare unusually dull. “A while?”

“Even the God of Whispers has limitations.”

“Enosh, the woman at Airensty slit her own throat.”

“She grieved her fallen husband and, from what I understand, had also recently lost a son. Has he not whispered into your mind in an attempt to rouse tender feelings for me, back when you still wore that pretty necklace—”

“It was a collar.”

“So pretty. A shame it went missing. I might fashion you a new necklace, though less tight around your beautiful neck.” His voice carried a hint of jest, letting me hear his grin even in the darkness. “Once his whispers faded, did you love me?”

“I hated you before and loathed you after.”

“Precisely, and oh-so painfully honest.” There was a hint of a laugh. “Eilam is now convinced of your wavering, counting that Yarin will reach his limitations before I reach the kind of devastation required to end this.”

“You should have done it the moment Yarin showed up. Strip me of that damn compassion. Maybe then I would have killed the man.”

“Two hundred years of lies, deceit, and illusions. I did not want to bring this between us unless necessary. Perhaps it was, but it is of no consequence anymore. At this point, all we have left is the hope that my perseverance will bring about his surrender before it brings about your renewed hate.”

My throat narrowed.

We needed a better plan.

Because the longer I sat on this horse as a silent observer, the more people would die. At the same time, watching how Enosh turned the lands beyond yet another gate into a boneyard would only drive a new wedge between us. The worst part…?

It might not return our child.

That much, Enosh had made clear.

If I wanted my baby and to stop this killing, to finally gain some peace now that Enosh and I had grown closer, I had to convince Eilam that I would not stop my husband’s vengeance. The fastest, most reliable way of going about that…?

Becoming the vengeance.

“We will find a solution,” Enosh said, for he had probably sensed my unease, although we both knew that I’d turned this into an impossible situation when I’d threatened Eilam that I might just help, unprepared to follow through. “Until then, I shall gladly do the killing for you.”

As though no dreamier words had ever been spoken, I curled deeper into his chest. “You are awfully romantic tonight.”

But his ease around sending a bone spike through a stranger without even looking at him would make no difference—it didn’t need to. I knew now what I had to do.

I had to become the Queen of Rot and Pain.

Beautiful and terrifying.

Gentle and cruel.

Starting with those who’d killed me.

My husband steered our mount toward the row of crooked fisher huts, which slept quietly beneath the new moon. Its light reflected on the snow crystals which crunched beneath each hoofbeat, having frozen into a thin sheet of ice atop.

The cold tip of Enosh’s nose nudged my temple. “Show me where the man who did this to my wife lives.”

“Two men. One’s Rose’s b-brother, Henry. I know his house, but not where the other one lives or who he is.” To our right stood my old home, the door wide open and barely hanging on to its bottom hinge, with a dusting of snow scattered into the hut. “It’s abandoned, and Pa is nowhere in sight.”

As expected.

I’d never been a fountain of abundant positivity, but anyone with half a brain would know that Pa was likely dead. If not killed by villagers or priests, then by whatever had eaten up his lungs from the inside.

I pointed at the second house to the left of the brick well, the bit of smoke coming from the chimney proof enough that the bastard Henry was inside. “I don’t want Pa to wander.”

“We might find him yet,” Enosh said and slowed his horse when the corpses scurried into the shadows surrounding Elderfalls. “The latest death count, Ada.”

An odd wave of pride flooded my core, having counted every single one with Enosh’s help. “Six hundred and twenty-eight.”

He dismounted and helped me down, my legs stiff from the cold and hours on horseback. “Did he touch you, this… Henry?”

“Not that I remember.” I followed behind him to the oaken door, many homes of Elderfalls abandoned or quietly asleep, aside from a hound that barked somewhere. “The other was the one who d-drove in the knife. But Henry c-came after me just the same, and threatened to deliver me to the priests dead if I wouldn’t fo-follow him.”

“I hate how you’re shivering…”

Enosh kicked the door, letting its bolt break with a loud chink. The hound barked louder, adding howls to the song.

Groans and incoherent mumbling joined from the inside of the home, along with the familiar scent of salted fish. In the dim light coming from the poor excuse of a fire in the hearth, a figure struggled from a mattress of straw.

My molars pressed together. “Hello, Henry.”

“What’s this about?” Swaying from drink or sleep, or both, he gripped the rough-hewn beam that supported some sort of hay mow sitting above. “Who are—” His eyes locked on me and he sidestepped, stumbling over his feet before he slinked behind a rocking chair, bringing wooden spindles between him and us. “You! You should be dead. I saw it. Saw you bleed out from your belly. No, no, no… you’re dead!”

“I am.” The same fate would await him. At my hand. A choice I had quickly made peace with on our way here. “F-freezing my tits off because of you.”

I watched how the hollows beneath his cheekbones filled with shadows, making him look sickly and weak—not at all like the man with the felt hat who’d cornered me.

Now I cornered him, sidestepping, driving him toward his reckoning that was my deadly husband. Until Henry’s gaze flicked toward the hay mow. And again.

“Someone’s up there,” I said.

“I know, my love,” Enosh said. “Boom-boom-boom goes his heart, pumping liquid terror into his veins.”

“Let me k-kill this one.” The conviction in my tone died at another biting chatter of my teeth, extending itself into my arms as a tremble.

Enosh’s eyes wandered to my quivering hands, then met mine as he shook his head as though to say, “You will fail, further strengthening Eilam’s resolve.”

No, I would not fail.

The thought of taking a life terrified me, but I had to keep my wits together. If I couldn’t even kill those who’d brought about my death, then this would not end well. Would never give me my baby.

Now was the time.

“Give me a blade,” I said to Enosh, and his brow arched. “What your wife wants, your wife shall get, remember? Your wife wants a bone knife.”

Once again, that hungry glint flickered in his eyes as he opened his palm where the blade shaped, the handle carved with the same vines on my belly, offering a solid grip for my fingers.

“No! I… I… It wasn’t me who—” A gag hiccupped from Henry’s throat, eyes frantically darting between Enosh and the door. “Arne did it! My cousin drove the knife into you; I swear on my mother’s grave. It was him! He’s the one you want. He’s up there!”

My heart gave a jolt in my chest. Head tipping back, I stepped away from him for a better angle, stomach going queasy.

Then I saw it.

Nothing but the red glint of embers reflecting from the edge of a rust-speckled knife. Its pointy end rested on a wooden slat, and a finger tapped the handle while the rest of Arne remained hidden in shadows.

Devil be damned, there was no way I couldn’t kill that one. “That’s the man who drove the knife in.”

One quick step forward, and Enosh gripped Henry’s face. He slammed the man’s spine against the beam until the mow shook, letting threads of skin bind Henry to the wood as Arne scooted back into the shadows.

“Where is my father?” I walked up to Henry, pointing the blade at him. “What happened to him?”

“I swear, I did him no harm! Oh god. Oh, Helfa, help me!” Henry pleaded. “Rose! She brought the priests to him for coin, then up and left.”

So that bitch wasn’t even in Elderfalls anymore. “Where to?”

“Hogsbottom. Three day’s walk, upstream.”

“And the priests did what with my father?”

“Rose might know, but I swear, I know no more!”

Of no use to me anymore, then.

A thick swallow went down my throat. Heavens, I should have paid more attention to my husband’s killing. Just how did one kill another? I brought the pointy end of the blade right beneath his navel.

Like this?

“Very painful, as you might remember.” Enosh stepped up behind me, placing his arm around my belly and his whisper against my ear. “Death might not come for a day or two as he bleeds out, depending on the organs injured, poisoning himself from the inside with his own excrements.”

“Painful sounds good.” Yet, when the blade turned unnaturally heavy in my hand, I glanced over my shoulder at Enosh. “I don’t know how to kill.”

“Shh… Say no more.” He stepped closer to steady me while his fingers reached for my hand that held the blade. “Like this, my love.”

With his fingers closed around my wrist, he brought my hand to Henry’s throat, pointy end aimed straight at the bobbing lump there. My focus scrambled, however, when Enosh lapped at my earlobe and pressed himself against me.

He was hard.

His cock rested against my lower back as he kissed the sensitive skin behind my ear. Quickening breaths tugged on the fine baby hairs at the nape of my neck, sending a wonderful shudder over my pebbled skin.

An indecent moan escaped me as though I wasn’t about to stab someone. “You are depraved.”

“Says the woman who raped me on my throne.”

Now I had to grin a little. “I was cold…”

“Place your other hand on the butt of the handle, right here.” He released his arm from my waist, took my other hand, and placed my palm onto the wide, smooth end of the handle. “One hand holds it steady; the other hits the handle, driving it through his throat. Fast. Simple.”

“I don’t want fast.”

Wanted him to suffer.

“So impatient, so deliciously stubborn.” Enosh gave a teasing thrust against me, letting me feel the hardness and size of his hunger. “Fast leaves little room for doubt.”

He had a point there. “Well, I guess one has to start somewhere.”

I pulled back my hand.

My fingers stiffened.

“Don’t help me,” I blurted. “I have to do this on my own, so don’t be the one making me hit it.”

“I have not moved an inch.”

A deep breath.

I am the Queen of Rot and Pain.

Beautiful and gentle.

Terrifying and cold.

My palm hit the handle.

The blade drove into Henry’s throat.

Blood, deep crimson and warm, shot from the wound in quick intervals, some speckling my face. More of it bubbled from his mouth, only to drown his groan and drip down his chin while he slowly bled to death.

There. I was a killer.

I braced for shame, guilt.

None came.

Instead, my next breath expanded my lungs wider than ever before, sending a strange thrill through my body. Who would have thought killing was so easy? Making me feel so… alive?

Enosh clasped my chin, turning my lips to meet his in a fiery kiss as a sudden breeze came in through the door. “Look at you, good girl, punishing the wicked for their crimes.”

I groaned into his mouth, mind spinning from all those tingles racing up and down my body, tasting Henry’s blood between the mating of our tongues. “It was too fast. Not at all what he deserved.”

“Ah, but my brother is rather troubled at the sight, nonetheless. Not bothering yet to come into his form, but too furious to contain how he moves the air.” His hips rolled against my backside, and not even the mink could hide how much harder he had gotten. “He is the mortal’s last expel of breath, the chill coming upon the room, and the gust shifting the atmosphere. Do you feel him?”

“I take your word for it.” I reached behind me, letting my gloved fingers follow the curved outline of Enosh’s length against all sense of decency. “What should we do?”

Enosh lapped at my ear. “Give death something to watch.”

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Chapter 21

OceanofPDF.com

Ada

Enosh grabbed my shoulders, spun me toward the table, and brought my hands to its edge, commanding me with a squeeze to hold on.

My calves tensed as the mink hiked along the backside of my legs, its heavy weight settling onto my hips. “There’s still one left.”

“The mortal will wait his turn.” He kicked my legs apart before the weight of his chest came down on me and, at my impulse to look back at the mow, his teeth clamped down on the side of my neck before he whispered, “Trust me.”

Trapped beneath the hot weight of Enosh’s body, I could only dig my nails into the rough planks of the table as he spit into his hand. A hand he brought between us a moment later, lubricating my cunt.

“Stay a while, brother. Watch how I fuck my wife in the blood of the man who did her wrong. The one she killed. Oh, how well she’s done it, without even a gasp. Would you not agree?” One shift of his hips, and Enosh pushed inside me. “Lift for me, little one. Take me deep and fast.”

Lost between the searing pain of heat against my stretching entrance and the rush of gooseflesh pebbling my skin, I barely noticed how he pressed down on my back. My chest hit the table and my arse lifted, letting the scalding pleasure of his next thrust prickle deep into my womb.

“Enosh,” I moaned on an exhale, pushing back to take him deeper.

The table jumped beneath me with every rapid snap of his hips, every sharp sting as his thick cock rubbed along my cold inner walls. God or not, Enosh had no other choice but to fuck me so violently, chairs tipped and hit the ground with loud cracks.

And I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. Braced as well as I could, I ignored the pain for one guttural moan tumbling from his lips, two, three. At the fourth, a prickling sensation emanated from between my legs, throbbing and tingling as cold flesh did when held against a flame.

“Oh my god,” I moaned, melting beneath this glorious heat. “I’m so cold. Faster!”

“A mortal’s breath in exchange for hers.” Enosh drove into me faster with staggering strength, letting his ungiving thrusts pin me between the feverish heat of his body and the tremble of the table as its legs moaned across the floor. “Is it not what you offered? Are you not true to your word?”

A wave of warmth lapped around my clit, bringing with it the foreboding sparks of heat that made my insides convulse. Enosh felt it, because his hips rolled against me in that way of his, letting his cock stroke and steer me toward my orgasm.

“Mmm, more,” I moaned, needing him to set me ablaze, and I didn’t care if a dead man hung his head tied to a fucking beam beside us. “More. More!”

“More.” The word came out a dark growl as Enosh’s grip likely bruised my hip through the mink. “What my wife wants…”

He fucked into me harder.

Oh god, I was so close.

Only a couple of thrusts more, and—

“You helped.”

At the sound of Eilam’s voice, every vertebra along my spine stiffened and Enosh stalled, letting a mewl whimper from my lips that would have put a cat in heat to shame. “Now he has to show up? Now?”

With a chuckle, Enosh slung his arm around my belly and lifted me, letting me dangle with his cock up my cunt. Like that, he turned us around—toward where Eilam leaned against the wall—and lowered himself to the ground with me still sitting on his length.

“My wife does not appreciate your timing.” Angling my legs and lifting my feet to each side of his bare thighs, Enosh spread me in the most indecent way, though a shred of mink dangled from my knees and offered cover. “As for helping… I steered neither tendon nor muscle as she hit the handle. Oh no.” Rolling and shifting his pelvis beneath me, Enosh grabbed my hip and pushed me down. “My sweet Adelaide did that all by herself, determined to take back what you stole.”

Eilam frowned at us where he stood bare, apparently with neither fondness for clothing nor care for the cold, his arms crossing in front of his chest. “You guided the knife to the mortal’s throat. Positioned her palm on the handle. She would not have done it otherwise.”

“Ah, so you have been watching us for longer than I thought, and still, you are mistaken. Mmm, let me consult with my wife.”

Hand climbing to my throat, thumb pressing against my jawline to keep me looking straight at his brother, Enosh leaned back. When he straightened, he brought his other hand toward my face, dripping crimson from its fingertips. Henry’s blood?

“Adelaide, would you have spared him and given up on our child?” Dark red fingers painted along my jawline, my cheek, and up toward the corner of my lips, the blood still wonderfully warm. “Or would you have driven the blade into the mortal’s throat to let him bleed out like the retched soul he was?”

Eilam’s black stare followed his brother’s hand and how it slipped from my throat down, lower and lower, until it gathered the pelt of my train, each tug like a flush of energy spinning at my core. Surely Enosh wouldn’t—

I gasped as Enosh pulled the mink up, exposing me so lewdly to his brother and how he set his finger at the top of my throbbing clit. “He can see.”

“Shh…” He pressed down on the little bud, making me squirm and moan as he slid his other damp finger across my bottom lip as though teasing me to open and have a taste. “Tell me, brother, did she sound like this when you dared to put your lips to hers? Once this is over, you and I shall have a talk about the liberties you took when you touched my wife.”

Eilam tilted his head, staring at how Enosh rubbed my clit, but his other body parts seemed rather disinterested in this erotic display. “Your arrogance is worse than Yarin’s perversion. This will not end the way you hope, no matter your provocations.”

“Not true to your word then, after all,” Enosh said, taking his time to guide my pelvis into a circle while simultaneously pushing me down on his swollen length. “Little one, I asked you a question, and my wife always speaks true. Would you have pierced the mortal’s throat?”

A sobering chill dripped down my spine, reminding me of the fact that this was more than a fuck—it was a ploy and a terrible taunt. A mortal’s breath in exchange for mine. That had been Eilam’s offer, and I would damn well collect what I was due.

Against all remnants of modesty, I steered on Enosh’s cock, relishing the thrill of this obscene moment with shocking intensity. I’d told myself I could be anything I needed to be for our baby.

I only needed to be one thing.

The Queen of Rot and Pain.

“No, I wouldn’t have pierced his throat.” I rolled my hips faster, because queens took whatever they wanted, and I wanted Eilam to see that I could be as terrible as my husband. “I would have stabbed him in the belly. Make a damn mess of it, probably, leaving him to squeal like a sow.”

Eilam pushed himself off the wall and slowly padded over on his naked soles, squatting inches from my foot with his impressive but rather limp cock dangling from a thatch of snow-white curls.

The moment his torso shifted forward, bonedust rushed from all directions, forming dozens of spikes that levitated before Eilam’s face.

“If your toe as much as stubs her ankle, we shall have to delay this disagreement, for I will make you believe you are dying a million gruesome deaths, over and over again, for the next decade.” Enosh breathed so heavily behind me, I heard the air suck through his nostrils. “Now, stand by your word. A breath for another. Do it!”

Eilam raised his gaze and shifted his weight onto one leg, taking a long look at Henry. Then his black eyes returned to me, so void of any color, but it was the lack of conviction on his face, the blatant indifference, that made me shiver in his presence once more.

Whatever he saw, it was neither killer nor queen. Beautiful and kind, perhaps, but not nearly as cruel and terrible as one needed to be to survive among monsters. Certainly not among gods.

But I lifted my chin, refusing to flinch under his persistent stare. Perhaps I was no queen.

Yet.

But over the course of two months, I had been held captive, stripped of all decency, made a deal with the devil, died, and had my soul shackled so I could grieve the loss of my child.

I was no longer the woman I’d been.

Neither worthless nor insignificant…

… but a queen in the making.

I placed my hand onto Enosh’s, guiding the size of the circles his fingers drew around my clit, the speed at which he teased the little bud, and the pressure he applied.

Enosh groaned, letting the masculine sound rumble against my shoulder where he kissed, sucked, and nibbled. He thrust upward, lifting me ever so slightly as I rocked back, driving him deeper into me, then forward toward his dusky sac.

“Second to none,” Enosh whispered into my ear, fighting hard to keep his rhythm as he neared completion. “Made for me.”

This much in control over our movements, I bucked against his fingers, letting them drum the sparks in my lower belly into roaring flames. Once again, they scorched across my entire body in one terrifying wave of heat and pleasure as his brother watched.

Instead of allowing myself to succumb to it or the way Enosh’s hips first stalled then twitched, I leaned back against my husband’s chest. Bracing against it, I reached behind me, letting cold fingertips climb the floor.

Wood.

Wood.

Blood.

Wet and thick, it had created a puddle beside us. I swirled my fingers through it, then leaned forward toward Eilam as Enosh sent spurt after hot spurt of seed into me. With a quick swat of my hand, I sent speckles of crimson across the god’s face and into the white of his hair.

“A mortal’s breath in exchange for mine.” I brought my bloody fingers to my lips and stroked them into my mouth, letting the blood of the man who’d aided in my murder spread slightly salty across my gums. “You still think I will stop my husband? Dear brother-in-law, you need to start worrying about who will stop me.”

Eilam neither blinked nor said a word.

Only faded away.

My bloody hand dropped to my belly, shaking from a rush of rage and vigor alike. “He doesn’t believe me.”

“Doesn’t believe you?” Enosh chuckled behind me as his fingers tugged on my braids, opening them up. “Eilam hates coming into his form with such intensity—decades pass between the occasions. Twice, he has come into his form today. You know what he hates even more…? Not having the last word. Little one, you made him furious.”

“I did?” My chest lifted with an inhale of renewed determination. Enosh knew his brother a great deal better than I did, so I had to take his word for it. “You can’t help me next time.” Strange how the mention of my next murder brought not even a quiver to my fingers as I glanced back at Enoh, gulping down Henry’s blood. “The next time, I want to look like a queen.”

Enosh rose and slipped me off him, gingerly brushing the mink of my dress down. “No, Ada, you shall look like a goddess, with a crown upon your head like none before.”

No, not a crown.

Not until this was over.

“Make it a tiara.” I spun around and pointed up at the mow. “Using his jawbone.”

“That can be arranged.” Enosh shaped breeches around him as he stared at the mow, where strings of braided skin writhed and slithered, lowering a bound Arne down from it. “Between us, mortal, I have fantasized about many a punishment. Oh, so torn was I between all the possibilities of how to make you pay for what you have done to my wife.”

I watched how the grayish-brown vines of skin stood Arne up, the veins on the white of his eyes bright red and visible even in the dim light. “Let me do it.”

“No, Ada.” Bone knife already shaped in his hand, Enosh cut Arne’s nightshirt, laying the trembling man’s torso open to the cold. Enosh set the pointy end of the blade against Henry’s stomach, an inch above his navel. “I swore to avenge you. And little one, this mortal is mine to punish.”

Instead of driving the knife into the bastard’s belly with a turn as he deserved, Enosh gingerly cut along his skin with the precision of a bricklayer. One long line from navel to the hem of the cotton trousers.

It didn’t bleed. Barely.

Arne trembled, throwing himself forward, only to bounce back at the mercy of hair strings tied to the wattle in the walls to bind him in place. “Please… it wasn’t me. Rose killed her!”

“Liar,” I scoffed. “But don’t worry. She’ll be next.”

And if all worked out, the last.

“Shh… stop moving, mortal, or I might damage an artery.” Enosh pushed one finger into the cut, then another, letting it rip open into an oozing gap as Arne stared down at himself, too shocked to even scream. “Death shall be your friend, mortal. But only until my brother shackles your soul, for you shall serve a higher purpose. An honor, truly.”

Enosh pulled back, his fingers hooked around… something. Intestines? Yes. Oh, that was even better than stabbing.

Pale pink and streaked with blood, Arne’s guts emerged from the hole in his stomach. The rippled organ lowered to the ground in sheer never-ending length—one foot, two, three… oh, goodness. It eventually changed shape and turned a grayish-brown, covered in a layer of mucus.

Enosh gave a little tug.

That was when Arne screamed.

“See, mortal, you shall remain alive like this for a while, watching your sustenance turn to shit.” Enosh stepped back from the tangle of guts on the ground and haphazardly wiped his bloody hands on a nearby rag. “Terribly painful, dying of a wound from the belly. Even more so if something tugs on the organs.”

“Disembowelment. How lovely.” Yarin leaned in the doorframe, and I only now noticed the commotion outside as corpses chased people from their homes, filling the night with their screams. “You wife’s thoughts told me you are in need of me?”

“Only after a few hours of suffering, so he may reflect on what happens to those who dare touch my wife.”

I nearly moaned at the violent possessiveness. “What will you do to him?”

A smile came to Enosh’s lips, not as rare as they used to be but all the more stunning to behold set into my husband’s perfect face. “He shall warm my wife as we ride for Hogsbottom. But first…”

A shaggy, mange-infested dog stepped into the house, its body covered in festering wounds, its eyes milky white. The dead beast immediately bit into Arne’s guts, tugging without ripping, letting the man jolt from his state of shock and scream.