Page 88 of The Stolen Throne
At least we don’t have to be out in the weather long. Reven will shadow us to the temple. That place comes with its own issues, but Reven and I won’t be the only ones to hear it or feel it.
Though…maybe he should shadow us up to the portal, just to be safe.
“Meren?” That’s the first time Reven’s talked to me since last night.
Why does his voice sound strange? Reedy. Maybe because of the rush of the winds?
I turn back, and every drop of blood rushes out of my head, leaving me woozy. He stands at the edge of the woods, just inside the trees, very still, gaze pinned to mine, a warning in his eyes.
And a shadow is curled around him.
Like before, when Bene attacked, the rope of darkness is thick and oily. But it isn’t coming from Reven. I think…mother goddess…it’s coming from the woods. There’s menace in the way it’s snarling around his limbs, reminding me of the Hollow’s tentacles.
I take a tentative step forward. “Reven?”
“Don’t—” The word cuts off as another tendril of darkness curls around his throat and squeezes.
This isn’t him. He’s not doing this. I can see that much in the anger tightening his features, feel it in the spiky panic that bleeds through the break he’s made in our connection.
“Tell me what to do,” I beg.
He visibly swallows. “Run.”
The shadows haul him into the woods so hard his arms and legs fly out in front of him as he shoots backward through the air, crashing through limbs of trees with a thunder of noise that dies away in seconds.
Just like that, he’s gone.
39
Risen Against
“Reven!” The scream punches from me, and I take off after him.
I only get a few yards before Cain wraps an arm around my waist and yanks me off my feet. “Damned if I’m going to let you do that.”
I turn on him like a wild thing, kicking and clawing and scratching my way out of his grasp. “We have to help him!”
I know I’m screaming the words, but I don’t care. Cain also doesn’t let go, but he does spin us so he can shove me at Vos. “Take her.”
Before I can say another word, Cain sprints into the forest in the direction Reven was taken.
“Cain!” Pella surges after him, but Horus snags her by the arm even as Hakan gets in front of her, arms held wide, a wall of imposing man between her and her brother and whatever took Reven.
I go limp in Vos’s hold. Breathing hard, I twist in his arms to stare at the woods that consumed the man who was the brightest part of my past and the man who is my everything. Even if he doesn’t want to be.
Goddess save him.
Reven is my everything, and I never told him that.
Instead, I told him I hated the way he protected me.
“Please,” I whisper, more to myself. Or maybe to the goddess around my neck.
The goddess…
I gasp. “Bene!”
He can do some damage, even in his current size. Plus, he can fly and get to them faster. The Devourer takes off after Reven only to have another oily tentacle of shadow whip out at him from within the trees. He circles back to land beside me. “In this size, I cannot fight whatever that is.”
