Page 26 of Stolen Threadwitch Bride
The remaining creature tensed, its pale flesh reflecting in the shattered ripples. Its grotesque head swung side to side, but there was no sign of movement beyond us. None of its companions remained.
Face tingling, I coiled my aching arms for another strike, either for this thing or the hunter that had come for it. One or the other would kill me.
It lunged.
I swiped, stumbling backwards with a hoarse cry. My heel caught, pain jarring in my ankle, and I fell on my backside, up to my chest in water.
Somehow, I kept hold of the club. Not that it would do much against that reddish mouth, so wide, so full of teeth, bearing down on me.
Grey spots burst across my vision. This was it. The last moment of my life, and it tasted of festering meat.
Darkness blotted out the pale flesh, standing between me and the creature.
Tall. Broad.
Something sweet hovered at the edge of that rotten death stench.
The moon emerged from behind the clouds and gleamed on hair that wasn’t quite black or blue or violet.
It washim.
Back to me, his balance shifted from one foot to the other, a perfect, smooth motion, all power and precision that revealed a flash of his glimmering blade.
The creature’s head, shoulder, and arm dropped into the water. The rest of its body splashed in the other direction.
I gaped as the ripples stilled around its hulking mass.
He’d killed them.
Allof them. And it had taken less than a minute.
I’d been starting to think the stories about fae power were all exaggeration, but here he was standing over a pack of dead monsters.
He turned and surveyed me, chest heaving, a muscle in his jaw flexing. The shadows were back beneath his eyes.
I was alive. Somehow, I’d bumbled my way through surviving while he’d taken care of the creatures. I trembled as various parts of my body started throbbing. Each breath sawed through me, harsh and tight.
“Are you hurt?” His gaze lingered on my cheek where I’d smacked it on the ground during my fall down the bank.
Bruises, maybe a couple of scrapes, but they didn’t count. I’d been able to move enough to try and hit the things with my makeshift club, so nothing serious. I shook my head, not even able to consider speaking as I sucked in shallow gasp after gasp.
My chest. Too full. Too tight. I couldn’t breathe. A corner of me understood.You’re panicking.But my lungs didn’t believe that, they filled with wadding, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t…
He offered his hand.
Joints locked as though the river’s chill had settled in my bones, I couldn’t release the branch. Without a word, he pried it from my grasp, pulled out the bone claw, and threw the branch aside.
Scrapes and scratches covered the backs of my hands, and they shook and shook, but he took them and pulled me to my feet.
The world tilted, and I must’ve swayed because he caught my shoulders. The wadding crept up to my throat and if I hadn’t been shaking so badly, I’d have tried to claw it out.
His fingers bit into me, stilling the world, cutting through the panic, letting me take a single breath. “What the hells were you thinking, going out into the wilds alone at night?”
I blinked, shook my head. It was such a ridiculous question, I scoffed. “Escaping you, of course.”
“This is not a joke, human. You could’ve been killed.”
“I did notice.” Despite the throbbing ache in my limbs, fresh fire unfurled in my veins. And I couldbreathe. When had that happened? When I’d scoffed? “Those things could’ve attacked us in the tent. They weren’t far—”
