Unhooked(10)

Without warning, something warm and wet traces the length of my exposed neck with excruciating thoroughness. He’s licking me. Tasting me. Bile rises hot and acidic in my throat, and I understand I am not going to make it out of this untouched. I don’t know if I’m going to make it out at all.

Olivia whimpers nearby as another rasp in the same unfamiliar language comes from across the room—there must be at least two of them. But the darkness refracts the sound, and her panicked cries surround me, teasing me with my own helplessness.

And I am helpless. Even as I struggle to get away, my legs are being secured, and then my arms. In just a few seconds I’m trussed up. That hot breath crawls against my neck again, and I flinch, trying to pull away. But he doesn’t lick me this time. With a voice like cracked parchment, he lets out a low growl.

When his hand eases away from my mouth, I take a breath to scream for help, but he lets out another rattling growl that makes me swallow my scream. I don’t want to die. Not yet.

The dry rasp of another string of unfamiliar words grates along my skin as he says something to his partner, and then he hoists me up as easily as a rag doll, flopping me over his large, broad forearm.

When cool, damp air rushes against my bare legs, I know he’s climbing out the window and onto the rickety balcony, three stories up. A guttural moan sounds from somewhere close-by. But it’s not Olivia, and it’s not the intruder making that noise. The sound, desolate and defeated, is coming from me.

I force myself to take a breath, to calm down, but instead I inhale the musty scent of him, and my fear spikes again. I have to force myself to focus—I need to think. I will never get out of this alive if I can’t think, but for a long and terrifying moment, it’s all I can do to breathe.

Outside, the night isn’t as dark as the inky blackness that saturated the room. I can almost make out my attacker. He’s huge, which I already knew, and dressed all in black, but I still can’t quite see him. There’s something wrong with him, or maybe he’s drugged me somehow, because no matter how hard I try to focus on him, he remains fuzzy and indistinct.

Once we’re outside, the steady London drizzle begins to soak through my pajamas, and it’s not long before more than fear causes me to shake. But I force myself to hold perfectly still, to think. To plan.

It takes everything I have not to struggle too soon. I want to writhe, to try to get away, but I know I need to wait. Because I know that if he drops me now, I’ll fall three stories to the cracked and uneven sidewalk below.

As soon as he climbs down, I will fight.

No. As soon as we’re close enough to the ground that the fall won’t kill me, I’ll fight. I’ll do anything I can to get myself free. I will not let him take me.

The buzzing suddenly starts again—the same low, metallic scraping I heard earlier in the streets. The same sound that woke me from my dreams with strange memories of a place I don’t recall ever being. Then the wind kicks up, making my skin go colder and my hair whip at my face. And then, without any warning at all, and before I can do anything else, my attacker leaps, and the air rushes around me as we fall to the ground below.





Of course his brother demanded the boy return and tell the other soldiers the truth—that he was not yet of age. He must return home. But the boy refused, for he was sure that his brother was not the only one who was brave. Not the only one capable of a great adventure. And besides, the challenge of the feather was still heavy in his pocket.

He would not be seen as a coward again. . . .





Chapter 6


I CLOSE MY EYES AS we plummet, preparing for the moment when we will hit the ground. But that moment never comes. All at once a strange heaviness surrounds me, like the air is pressing inward, squeezing me into an impossibly small lump of barely alive flesh. Until the pressure becomes so strong that I want to die. But still I don’t.

Then almost as quickly as the pressure started, it’s gone, leaving me breathless and shaking from the force of it. Little by little, the darkness eases, and as my eyes adjust, I realize this is not the same unnatural darkness that flooded the bedroom. Instead, it’s simply night. A night so brilliant with stars, I can’t stop myself from gasping at their unexpected beauty.

Though we are no longer falling, the air continues to stream past at a dizzying speed. It takes a minute for me to understand why—I’m flying. Or rather, whoever or whatever it is that has me slung over its shoulder is flying.

My head feels muddled, and pain pounds behind my eyes, and I’m still not exactly sure what happened. But the sharp bite of the claw-tipped fingers holding me steady tells me that I’m not dreaming. And if I can feel pain like this, I know I’m not dead.

That single thought bubbles up, dangerously hopeful in its promise. If I’m not dead, I still have a chance.

I’ve barely started to figure out how to use that chance, when light begins to break over the horizon. It starts soft, a glow just barely illuminating the edge of the night, but as it grows and the sky begins to ease into a dawn, I realize I’m surrounded by a swarm of dark beings, each one like the intruder that has me. They are so dense, I cannot see the ground below us, and though they are shaped like men, that’s where the similarities end.

Each of the beings has inky skin covering their well-muscled limbs. Some have wild manes of ebony hair that whip about like small whirlwinds, and each has a pair of massive wings that move like liquid against the rushing wind. They look like dark angels or, maybe, like nightmares come to life.