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“You’re a beautiful woman,” Lorik told me, watching me quietly. I got the strangest sense that he was soaking in my smile, enjoying it, savoring it. There was patience lining the sharp bones of his face, as if we had all the time in the world, lingering on the edge of my cottage’s land. “I hope you know that.”
“Thank you,” I said quietly. “You are too.”
Lorik’s brow raised, and my face flamed.
“Not a woman, obviously. Beautiful, yes,” I said hurriedly. I laughed through my mortification. “Gods, I’m terrible at this.”
“You think I’m beautiful?” Lorik teased.
“You know you are,” I said, still recovering from my blunder. “You know the effect you have on people. I’ve seen it.”
Lorik took pity on me. He leaned down, and I held my breath, wondering if he would try to steal a kiss, as he’d already threatened.
I was both disappointed and immensely caught off guard when he brushed his lips across my temple. His lips were soft and warm. He let them linger there before kissing my forehead, holding me in place with the hand still tangled in my hair.
Then I felt him tense, his muscles going tight against me.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, pulling back with my flushed cheeks on display, frowning.
Lorik was looking at something in the forest. When I turned, the breath in my lungs turned to ice.
Glowing blue eyes were watching us from the darkness. A hulking creature with a hunched back stepped forward, its tattered cloak billowing out from behind it.
A Sever.
Chapter
Twelve
I’d only ever seen Severs from a distance. Through thick trees, walking aimlessly in the forest, and only ever at night.
But this one was so close I could practically smell it—like rotting leaves and forest decay. Sweet, almost. Sickeningly pungent.
It was lurching toward us, its heavy feet crunching over branches that splintered like bone.
The Sever’s skin was a pale gray, nearly translucent. Black veins spread underneath the flesh, like the veins of Lorik’s wings. Dark horns were curled back from his head, one broken in half. The Sever didn’t have any wings, but there seemed to be something protruding beneath its cloak where they may have once been. Cut?
It looked like Lorik. An Allavari-Kylorr male, only…a horrific version of one, as if it had been living in darkness, consumed by something unseen. It looked like its flesh was rotting away, its bones too sharp. I almost felt pity for the Sever, until it began to make a dull hiss in the back of its throat, its pace quickening toward us, scarred arm outstretched.
Peek pounced into the clearing, his fur standing up, a low growl rumbling from his chest. Mybraydus’s eyes were pinned on the Sever, and he slowly stalked toward it.
“Peek, no!”
“Get inside the cottage, Marion,” Lorik told me, maneuvering me around him so he was between the Sever and me. “Now.”
“But Peek—”
“I’ll take care of him. Go!”
I only hesitated for another moment before I darted away. There was some part of me that trusted Lorik. I wouldn’t leave mybrayduswith him if I didn’t, I realized.
When I made it to my cottage, I bolted the door and scurried to the chest I kept tucked underneath the counter. There was a bow and a quiver of wooden arrows inside. I was a fairly decent shot, my hands steady, though they were trembling now. I could still smell the Sever in my nostrils, churning my belly.
I went to the window, pushing the glass forward on its rusty hinges. I could hear horrible sounds in the darkness: the Sever’s hiss that made the hairs on my arm stand on end, Peek’s warbling growls, and the quick gust of wings. Lorik.
He was weaponless. I went back to the door, throwing it open.
“Lorik, I have—”
