Page 97 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
AFomorianwarriorhad learned the restrictive arts? Their race wasn’t known for spellcraft!
“Ready to die, Harbinger?” Scully frothed, leering. “Now that you must fight like a feyr?”
Well, then,Pete mused, squirming against the constraints of sorcery.Now you’re fucked, boyo.
“You’ll have to tell me how it feels to be flayed alive by your own blades,” Tacker said, assessing how best to attack—a cat toying with its supper.
Pete clenched Scully’s hooked knife,his pulse thrumming.
Survival’s unlikely, chap. Might as well make it count.
Shorty quivered in a wretched pool of skirts, her torn bodice exposing the gentle swell of her breast. She wrung her hands, terrified. With good reason. If he fell, there was nothing stopping Tacker from butchering her like a sow.
Pete nodded her toward escape, his voice harsh with sacrifice. “When you reach the road, call for Bob. He’ll see you and Sionna to safety.”
She gaped as if she’d heard him wrong, then sprang up. She scrambled past Tacker, then evaded Scully with a screech when he made to trip her. Pete watched her flee into the night with a bittersweet pang. At leastshe’dlive to see another day.
Tacker snickered, raising Pete’s sword against him. “I hope she’s worth your life, harbinger.”
You and me both, Pete thought, then charged, a berserker with nothing to lose.
Amy
SionnaandIranuntil Pete’s roar overwhelmed the wood notes. I skidded to a halt by a flowering rowan tree, and Sionna turned back to pant at me, her eyebrows drawn together as if questioning my sanity in stopping.
I clutched a handful of my wild hair. The chill night caressed the tender space between my boobs, the jagged edges of my shredded bodice gaping open. My heart thundered, thankfully still inside me.
How long would Pete’s stay inside him, though?
“Damnit!” I stomped at the now familiar irritant of indecision.
Pete was a harbinger. A harbinger who wanted to sell me to a jackal for a fistful of seeds. If I kept running and allowed the Fomorians to kill him, I might just succeed in getting my ass to the safety of the Spring Palace before Gentian tasked another harbinger with finding me. Especially with a wagon, a bow, a slew of arrows, a snuff hound, and an enchanted donkey at my disposal.
On the other hand, Pete had just saved my life.
Granted, he’d done so only to secure his paycheck. There must’ve been some good in his bad, though, as he’d pretty much traded his life for mine in the end. Harbinger or not, I couldn’t just leave Pete to die. If I did, I might as well have gifted my heart as a meal to the Fomorians. Because it would ache from what I hadn’t done for the rest of my life.
“Ohmigoddess, Sionna.” I hopped at another howl on the wind. “Wehaveto help him.”
Untucking her jowls from her mouth with her spotted tongue, she gulped like she tasted something sour.
“No, I don’t know how,” I went on like she’d asked.
Not true, Amy.
“Or I do.” I frowned. “But I’m afraid it won’t work.”
Yes, my powers were erratic, but they existed all the same. And barring a round-trip sprint to fetch Pete’s bow at the wagon—and who knew how far the road was—my powers were the only weapons at my disposal. Plus, before Pete had burst into the cave and tackled Fletch like a football player, I’d felt something hot and dangerous already roiling beneath my skin. Fearing for my life obviously kicked up my flames. If I focused hard enough, I could still feel the fire burning.
Sionna whimpered at my side. She probably heard Pete’s softer exclamations. I assumed he was struggling.
I smacked an already smoking fist into my other hand. “Come on, Sionna. We’re going in.”
Her ears dropped back, but she followed me as I raced to the cave.
When I shot through the ivy vines, I found Pete trapped to the floor, snarling up at Tacker, who had Pete’sscianpoised to pierce his throat. Where the other blades had gone, I didn’t know.
Blood trickled from Pete’s round nose, and a great gash in the arm of his shirt sleeve seeped like the walls of the cave. Had Tackerbittenhim? Pete’s muscles quivered in his effort to survive, though I doubted they’d hold out much longer.
