Page 81 of Nightshade

Bathe? I’d never been much of a hard laborer, but it didn’t seem too exerting to pour a little kibble into a few bowls.

* * *

Standing beside Garic, I watched with horror, as he brought a gleaming butcher knife down hard over a bloody carcass. A deer, I guessed, given the horns he’d already cut away. Although, it’d become increasingly difficult to tell with every bit of meat that’d been chopped off. He tossed the bloody bit of flesh to the three dogs, who stood at attention, quietly and anxiously awaiting the meat. With collective growls, they fought over and devoured the food, before returning to their stiff stance, waiting on more.

Mouth opened in shock, I failed to notice Garic handing me the knife, until the butt of it hit my arm. Snapping out of my trance, I took the blood-covered handle into my palm.

Swallowing a gulp, I nodded. “Sure.” I stared down at the mutilated flesh before me, trying to wrap my head around how the hell I’d carry out such a task the next day. And the next.

The dogs shifted with impatience. In my periphery, Garic folded his arms with equal impatience.

What the hell have I gotten myself into?

With one hard whack, I slammed the blade down onto the flesh, which split where it cleaved through. Another whack sent a bit of meat skating across the floor, where the dogs grappled for it.

“So … is this just a special treat? Just an every-once-in-a-while food? Like a cheat meal for dogs?”

Garic didn’t answer, but the lowering of his brows, as if they could lower any more than his already irritated frown had them, told me he found the question ridiculous. Lip snarled, the older man hobbled off, leaving me to finish cutting up the meat.

After the dogs seemed satisfied, I covered the carcass, as Garic had instructed, and wheeled it on a silver cart that reminded me of a gurney, toward a burn pit behind the stable. Cerberus prowled behind me, his massive black form like a shadow. A horrid smell reached my nose as I pushed the cart awkwardly along the paved path. Once at the edge of the pit, I dumped the bloody remains of the poor animal over the edge, watching it fall with a thud atop other carcasses. Insects buzzed around the carnage, while the overwhelming stench of death left me retching.

Slamming a hand over my mouth, I choked back the vomit climbing my throat, and stepped back. When something hit my back, I gasped, and turning, I found a man I hadn’t yet met standing behind me, peering past me toward the pit.

Disheveled blond hair accentuated a chiseled jaw and fiery amber eyes that reminded me of Xhiphias’s. He wore a sleeveless, leather vest that buckled down the front, and the dagger strapped at his hip made him look like a warrior out of a fae romance.

“Hell of a way to go, isn’t it? One minute, you’re prancing through the woods. A king. The next, you’re butchered and thrown into a pit to burn.” Snorting, he stepped back, and when his attention turned to me, his eyes darted immediately to my chest and back. The look gave me a strange feeling that urged me to tighten the laces of my bodice. “Well, what have we here.”

Taking a backward step put a small bit of distance between us, and I glanced toward the stable to see if Garic was still about. “Who are you?”

“Security.” He rested his rough and scarred palm on the hilt of his dagger. “Who are you?”

“I’m the dog’s caretaker.”

The stranger craned his neck toward the enormous dogs, who sat back on their haunches, clearly comfortable in the man’s presence. “Are you now? So, which of them kicked your ass?” His question prompted me to touch the bump at my hairline, which still protruded there, and a look of amusement kicked up the corner of his lips.

“I fell.”

“What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“Farryn. Yours?”

Ignoring the question, he peered past me into the pit again. “To think, Farryn, that could’ve been your fate, had the dogs not taken a liking to you.”

“Where I come from, that’s murder.”

“And where do you come from?”

“Far away from here.”

He stepped toward me, forcing me two steps closer to the edge of the pit. My heart caught in my throat as I glanced over my shoulder, realizing I was only one step away from falling atop the other bodies. Or one push, rather. The stranger lifted my hand and planted a kiss to the back of my palm. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Farryn.”

Instead of responding, I stood staring back at him in confusion.

“Careful on that edge. You don’t want to fall,” he said before striding off.

Everyone here is crazy.

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