Page 17 of Taken By Shadows

My head buzzed like an apiary, and my vision clouded over.

I had hit my head too hard. Twice. The ground came up to meet me as my legs crumbled beneath my body.

Chapter five

Ifell but didn’t crash to the ground.

Something else did.

Locke. The mountain that had held me in his stone arms crashed to the ground beside me.

A chaotic discordance erupted around me.

There were people on horseback. Two? Three?

The dog was barking far, far off in the distance.

Shrieks and then gurgling.

Feet. Running.

And then nothing.

Blood pooled, thick and sticky, spilling over the earth like garish rivers.

Before me, the top of Locke’s head was completely severed from his bottom half. His eyeball was sliced at a diagonal that carried through his nose and to the other side of his face.

Only then did I realise a strong arm of corded muscle had caught me and was holding me up.

That’s why I hadn’t hit the ground. That’s why Locke’s blood wasn’t seeping into my knees.

The stranger turned me until I looked into blue eyes that seemed to shimmer like the sea. Dark lashes and angular brows framed them. In the failing light, I caught a glimpse of a vertical scar running through his left eyebrow and down his cheek.

His hood slipped down as he tipped his head back and looked around us, surveying. His dark hair was pushed back with loose strands escaping to frame his face.

And his ears. They were pointed like mine.

He was fae.

My heart was like a thunderstorm in my chest. He was fae. The first fae I’d ever laid eyes on.

His full lips parted as if they might say something but then pulled together in a smirk. The dark stranger hauled me to my feet. My footing was unsteady, but I caught myself before I fell.

I took a shuddering breath, and I had never been more grateful for air back in my lungs. When I stood fully, I must have only reached his chest. He didn’t remove his steadying hand.

My eyes craned upwards, past his broad, hard chest, to see those blue eyes again. And then I heard something behind me.

Scrambling around on the ground was Gold Teeth. I’d forgotten he was there.

The axis of the world had tilted, and all the terrible things that had just happened had tumbled into a corner, out of the reaches of my mind, and only this dark stranger remained fixed in my vision.

“Don’t need protecting?” the dark stranger purred through a smug smile.

I started at his question and took in the sight of his clothes. I couldn’t be sure they were the same.

But he must be the same person. The stance, the set of his shoulders. The velvet chords of his voice. Those lips.

He’d stopped me outside the tavern. What in the hells was he doing here?