Page 18 of Taken By Shadows

I wasn’t sure I was the type to believe in coincidence or fate. Had he followed me? Maybe he’d heard the screams?

I hadn’t answered him, but his gaze didn’t leave mine; his hands were still steadying me. And I didn’t flinch from the contact. He was a stranger, yes. But it felt different somehow to Gold Teeth and his company. A soft tremble hammered through me.

Would he hurt me? I didn’t dare ask the question aloud.

His gaze lifted behind me. “Don’t.” He threw the single word to Gold Teeth. The command in the dark stranger’s voice was inescapable, and Gold Teeth froze in place.

“Take her,” Gold Teeth spat through a mouthful of blood. “She’s yours. She’s got nothing of value. But you can have her. We were done.” The lies tripped from his foul tongue like loose teeth slipping from a rotting mouth.

What Gold Teeth had been about to do to me, I didn’t want to think about. But he hadn’t been about to just let me go.

He shifted despite the warning the stranger had given him, and the adamyte clinked under his weight as he tried to manoeuvre himself to hide it.

The stranger looked down at me briefly, as if checking I could stay upright before he removed his arm.

In his other hand was a devastating claymore, slick with blood that I knew was Locke’s. The blood was nearly as striking as the pommel inlaid with a purple and teal gem the size of an apple.

Before the stranger turned on Gold Teeth, he squeezed the handle of his sword until the leather wrapped around it groaned.

“Dark Tempest already tasted blood tonight, and yet you move still?” He said the name like it was precious to him as he allowed the crimson blood that painted his blade to drip.

He turned slowly and then moved faster than I thought possible.

“Gahhh! You bastard! I said you could have her.”

I turned to see a dagger protruding from Gold Teeth’s hand as it hovered over the adamyte.

My eyes went wide, and blood pumped to my feet. Run! My body wanted to give in to the terror and flee. The dark stranger had flung the blade with lightning speed, his other hand still gripping the claymore.

“I don’t need you to tell me what is mine.” His voice was like liquid night.

But I was struggling to feel panic and fear now. Maybe some part of me revelled in the agony Gold Teeth felt.

The stranger strode to Gold Teeth and knocked his impaled hand to one side with a black boot to reveal the adamyte. The shards were like blades of glass, tinkling as they were shuffled.

“They’re hers!” Bleeding from multiple wounds and still selling me out. “You can have them. I’m leaving.”

With borderline boredom in his tone, the dark stranger said, “You’re not leaving.”

Ice settled into the spring air with his words.

“And even if you could, Denora is an excellent shot,” the stranger said.

The thwang of a bow sounded from an archer on horseback. Gold Teeth now had an arrow buried in his other hand, pinning him to the ground.

The archer had pointed ears too. Her short dark hair fell forward over her brow and was shorn at the back. Her wide doe eyes were piercing, olive green and fixed on her prey.

Circling the camp was a third. A male. He was rugged, whereas the dark stranger was sharp and deadly. He was every bit of brawn that shone through in his hulking musculature. The three of them were formidable to behold, let alone fight against.

I almost pitied Gold Teeth and his cohort.

Almost.

The male on horseback swung a sword as he rode down one of the tattoo twins. A harrowing crunch sounded as his blade crashed through a spine until it jutted through the other side of a chest.

There was nothing in my stomach, but it tried to empty again. Funny how Locke’s head hadn’t caused any reaction. My thoughts snagged uselessly on that for a moment. I’d been so glad to be free of him that I didn’t spare a thought for his well-being as his head rolled.

The dark stranger cocked his head to one side as he examined where the crystals lay.