What Lurks Between the Fates (Of Flesh & Bone, #3)(3)

Catancia.

“It will grow back,” I said, forcing a smile to my face.

My blood coated my teeth from my beating, thick and viscous, making my smile grim and disturbing. The pain of being beheaded was but a shadow compared to the fact that it would take me time to heal that wound.

Time I didn’t have to waste while my mate would be in Mab’s clutches without me to protect her.

“You’re right about that, and you would remain blissfully unaware of each hour that passes. I cannot allow you to return to Tar Mesa quickly and ruin our fun too soon, but I want you to be in agony for every hour she is with us. I want you to suffer, wondering what we’ll do to her when she wakes,” Malachi said, pulling the sword away from my neck. He tapped it on the ground twice, the edge sinking into the snow before he lifted his leg and pressed a boot against my chest. He kicked me backward, watching as his minions moved to pin me to the snow.

“One of these days, I will return this kindness,” I said sarcastically, snarling up at him as he raised his sword above his head.

He brought it down across my elbow, severing my forearm from my body with a single swing. Pain clenched my teeth together, throwing my head back as he repeated the motion with the other arm. The wound sizzled from the iron upon my flesh, and I watched through dazed eyes as he wiped my blood off his sword on the leathers of my armor.

Then he slid it back into his scabbard, pulling a simple long dagger from his thigh. He placed a foot on either side of my body, lowering until he hovered just over me.

“Goodbye, Caldris. I very much look forward to getting to know your pretty mate while you sleep,” he said, shoving the dagger into my upper arm. The burn of iron lit me aflame from the inside as he left the long dagger there, pinning me to the snow and the frozen ground beneath.

I lifted my other arm to touch it, trying to reach for it to pull it free even though there were no fingers to grasp it with. So long as the iron was in my body, it wouldn’t heal. One of his minions grappled my arm back to the ground, stabbing through my bicep and pinning me there as well. He spat on me as he stood, turning toward Tar Mesa and calling to the shadows that would take them home.

Each one followed until the last of Mab’s children stepped up, leaning over me with his iron dagger. He used it to nudge my chin higher, glaring down at me cruelly as he touched the tip to the front of my throat.

He held my eyes intently, slowly pressing the blade forward until the tip penetrated my throat. I gasped for breath, and the sound came out wet as my mouth filled with blood. He pushed forward slowly, spearing me alive until the hilt of his dagger touched my Adam’s apple. Only then did he step away, following after the others and leaving me to bleed out, unable to heal myself.

They stepped through the shadowed walkway they created, leaving me alone at the entrance to Alfheimr with the golden gates gleaming behind me. Only snow existed in front of me, a yawning chasm of winter on all sides.

I lifted my right arm along the blade of the dagger, wincing through the pain as I fought to loosen it from the frozen ground beneath me. It pulled on my flesh, slicing through new tissue every time I moved. I’d do whatever it took to get free, because my mate needed me.

She needed me now.





1


Estrella


There was no time in the darkness inside my head. There was no pain or strife, only a strange sort of peace that seemed unnatural. It repelled me, telling me it was not my time to rest.

There were things to be done. There were Fae to be slaughtered.

Clink.

Clink.

Clink.

My shoulders throbbed with each sound of metal smacking together. An involuntary noise that seemed to come from above me, pulling me from the moment of peace that wasn’t mine to have. I lingered in that strange place between sleeping and awake, where the sounds surrounding my body filtered through my mind without drawing me from my slumber.

“I don’t want to wake up,” I whispered, uncertain if the words ever reached my lips or if the protest was only inside the confines of my mind.

“And yet you must. It is not your time to die just yet, Estrella Barlowe,” a male voice answered.

My eyes popped open, actively searching out the man who spoke the words. The man who had the voice that felt so familiar and somehow wasn’t all. He was a stranger to me, a haunting from the deepest recesses of my mind that I couldn’t seem to grasp. He slipped through my fingers like water in the river, drifting away before I could focus on him.

My stomach swayed as reality crashed down upon me. My vision lurched, and my head throbbed. My shoulders strained as I unsuccessfully tried to move them. I was strung up by my wrists, and the bite of pain spread through them and down my forearms as I hung over a pit in the stone floor.

Snakes coiled among themselves in that crater, their bodies twining and writhing as if they could climb upon themselves to reach me. I didn’t fear snakes any longer, but I tried to curl my legs up for a moment, avoiding them. Would the serpents of Alfheimr obey my command just as those of Nothrek had?

Hands touched my feet, and I swung forward. My stare locked on the eyes of the male who had knocked me out and carried me. His stare was intent, a smirk gracing the lips on his ethereal face. His eyes glowed green in a way that put mine to shame, almost luminescent in the darkness of the room surrounding us.

“Ah, the pretty birdie is awake at last,” he murmured, turning toward the dais and leaving me to sway like a pendulum.