Page 73 of Wolfhaven

He’d been angry, too. Wanted to punish her for daring to ask him outright.

For not believing him. That had hurt. He’d wanted to hurt her in return.

A storm had blown in. He was mostly protected from the rain by the fallen beams from the third floor and what remained of the roof. The sky was deep-gray. Beneath the sheltering skeleton of what had been his home, it was as dark as night.

A scratching sound brought his head up. “Cogswell?”

Finally.

But after he listened for a minute, no footsteps came. He resumed scraping away handfuls of hard-packed earth. Bit by bit the small box came free.

Gareth staggered to his feet. The tiny bones inside rattled.

“I’m glad you were never born,” he said despondently. “This life is not worth living. There is no good to be had from it. Only pain and suffering.”

That wasn’t entirely true, though.

He had hurt Evaine with these hands, but he had given her pleasure, too.

Marina’s life had been full of love until her parents passed away and she was sent to live with a monster. Even when she was hopelessly trapped, she had dreamed of a better life. Of love. She had loved the baby she did not want to bear. He knew that from reading her diaries.

She had loved Gareth. He had tried to do right by her.

In the end, it wasn’t enough. The light could not win against the darkness.

He could do one final thing for her. He could reunite mother and child.

That scratching sound came again.

“Where are you?” he snarled into the darkness. His heart was trying to thump his ribs to smithereens. He set the box on the ground beside his forgotten cane.

Glowing eyes met his. A movement in the shadows. He lunged for it. The animal skittered away.

Not a maiden’s ghost. Not his dead father. Nothing more frightening than a curious fox.

Harsh laughter bubbled out of him. Uncontrollable. Not his. He wasn’t in his own body. He was present. Conscious. But not completely in control of his own mind.

A movement in the corner of his eyes brought his head whipping around.

“Show yourself,” he called out to the cringing figure. She was small and thin. She wore a simple white shift with a blue sash.

Marina.

No, Evaine.

No. Not her, either. Evaine was gone.

The figure straightened. Her movements were strange and stiff. She stood stock-still while he strode and scrambled across the wreckage. Old beams lay like a fallen giant’s bones. Floorboards poked up from them at odd angles, forcing him to dodge around them.

His bad ankle twisted. Pain shot up his leg.

The figure darted away.

Leading him.

Gareth surged to his feet. Limping, he chased after her. The stranger’s movements were awkward and jerky, but damn if she wasn’t quick. He passed the axe embedded in a fallen beam and burst out into the overgrown garden.

“There you are, milord,” said Cogswell. In his hands was not a shovel—but a shotgun.