What Lies Beyond the Veil (Of Flesh & Bone, #1)(37)

It wouldn’t have been the first time I’d gotten myself in trouble, or even the tenth. Not when my need to wander around in the woods had seen me punished in Lord Byron’s library far too many times.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, sinking my teeth into my bottom lip and turning to follow Brann.

“Estrella,” Caelum warned, and then his voice was cut off as the door closed behind me. Brann led me into the woods, and I let him take me to safety despite the hollow feeling that I’d done exactly what Caelum had warned me not to, and that going out into the night would prove to be very foolish indeed.

I ignored the pit in my stomach, following the brother who’d risked everything for me.

Family came first.





“I cannot believe how foolish you were. What were you thinking, showing him your mark?” Brann asked a few minutes later as we trudged through the woods. Our pace was slow, the stars above only doing so much to illuminate our path with the tree canopy so dense overhead. The leaves hadn’t completed their change of colors, sticking to the branches in their last efforts to survive the weather, which had changed once again toward the cool, crispness of an approaching winter.

Once they fell, we’d have more light in the night, but we’d also have less cover to conceal us from the things chasing us.

I’d wanted to go back the moment we left. The shelter of the barn, the warmth of the straw, and the presence of another person like me all pulled me back toward the village we’d left behind. “Foolish was leaving. What harm could it have done to allow him to travel with us? He would’ve been one more person to keep watch and help in a fight,” I argued. We’d been fortunate enough this far to only encounter limited numbers at once, but if a group of Mist Guard found us and they had one of the iron collars with them that seemed to take every bit of my energy from, we wouldn’t stand a chance.

“He would have also been one more mouth to feed,” Brann snapped, shocking me with his lack of concern over another human life. All traces of the caring and gentle brother I’d known were gone in that moment, his features appearing sharper in his ire.

“Brann,” I mumbled, shaking my head. I didn’t want to live in a world where everyone was my enemy. Where everyone was a threat or a sacrifice I needed to make to save myself. “We should go back,” I said, turning to stare at the way we’d come. I wouldn’t have been able to find my way to the barn on my own without Brann’s help, and the knowledge kept me from trying, even when my legs twitched to change direction.

“You don’t know him. What do you think he’d do if it came down to it and he needed to escape? He would sacrifice us to save his life, Estrella. You cannot trust anyone but me, do you understand?” Brann asked, gripping my hand in his and staring down at me. “There are things you don’t know. Things you were never meant to know…” he trailed off, his head raising as he looked into the distance in the night.

“What is it, Brann?” I asked, following his line of sight. I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t hear anything other than the sound of him telling me to be quiet. We stood in silence for a moment, watching the darkness through the trees until finally I heard what had made him freeze in place.

Hoof beats.

The howls of the hounds on the wind.

They battered against my heart as they came on the wind, driving me forward after one more exchanged look with Brann. We’d stumbled around in the dark for too long, looking for a new hiding place, thanks to his ridiculous idea to wander out at night.

Anything was better than this.

Sweat trickled down my back as I ran, and dripped all the way to the hands that pumped at my sides. My cloak got caught on a branch, tearing my head back with the force of it. I fought to pull it free, struggling against the grip on my throat. “Leave it!” Brann ordered, and I reached up with trembling fingers to unknot the tie at my throat.

My body ached. Everything hurt, and I was so damn tired I thought about standing still and letting them take me. I was under no illusion that the magic coursing through my body would protect me from the Wild Hunt itself—not when it came from a Fae.

Three breaths passed as I fumbled. In and out in rapid succession, the sound drowning out everything else as I coughed with the exertion threatening to break my body, but once freed I turned back toward Brann and ran at his side. Leaping over a large tree root and nearly falling on my face, my breath coming in short, desperate pants, I growled, “We should have stayed in the fucking barn!” When I turned to him with a glare, his apologetic stare met mine, and he nodded as he pushed his body to the limit.

All we’d consumed was a loaf of bread shared between us immediately after leaving the barn, and the lack of fluid in his body made his body sag. He hadn’t been fortunate enough to drink the water from Caelum’s canteen. I kept pace at his side, when he would have needed to drag me along under any other circumstances.

“Brann!” I gasped, reaching out to grab his arm and jerk him to a stop. What I saw through the trees was a surer death than what chased us. He skidded to a stop beside me, his foot only a few steps from the edge of a cliff. The channel far below was so deep it looked black, even with the moon gleaming overhead in the sky. The fall was impossible to survive. It would turn a body into a mangled mess of limbs and blood.

Three more breaths wheezed out of my chest.