Page 76 of Nocturn

A second arrow came flying toward me. All I had time to do was scream and close my eyes.

I panted, waiting for the agony. When it did not come, I squinted to find the arrow a hand’s breadth from my eye. Lord Draven squeezed the shaft, and it splintered in his hand, the pieces falling to the ground.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Attack

Another hiss turned my attention in the opposite direction. Lord Draven had already caught the second arrow and crushed it. Smoothly, he tossed his legs over the side of the horse, dismounted, and reached over his shoulder to grab the hilt of his sword.

Four large figures with hoods on their heads and cloth across their mouths came from various directions.

“Get the horse!” a bellow came from the woods.

Another arrow came for me, and I ducked, though I needn’t have. Lord Draven swung his sword up, changing the arrow’s course to the ground. I huddled closer to Abrax who seemed unfazed by what was happening around us.

One of them snuck behind Lord Draven.

“Cassiel!” I shouted out the warning. He turned toward me, hair fluttering around his temples. Multiple things happened consecutively. An arrow came at me again and his sword clanged against the arrow.

There was no possible way he had not seen the blade swinging toward him, but he still kept the arc of his swing to stop the arrow from hurting me. Meanwhile, the attacker in front of him pierced his side.

Lord Draven did not flinch.

“He’s a high-ranking Elite!” The shout came from a thief behind Lord Draven, the man’s horrified gaze fixed on the embroidered fleurlet on the saddle.

“Fuck! He’s the Warlord King,” a different one spat and fled.

Even with the blade in his side, he never seemed more alive. He thrived on violence.

Most of the attackers ran off, except for the one that currently withdrew the black-coated sword from Lord Draven. His eyes widened at the droplets, gathering the gravity of what he had done.

“Your Highness,” he choked out, dropping to his knees, the sword clattering on the ground.

The battle was embarrassingly short, and Lord Draven seemed more irritated than anything else. Lord Draven’s sneer widened. Without a beat, he swung in an arc, slicing through the kneeling man’s throat with the ease of cutting butter.

For a moment, the forest turned silent, and as if time had slowed, the head slid off the neck while the body crumpled onto its side. Before assisting Al in his experiments, the sight of the blue, leaking blood, flayed flesh, and perfectly sliced spine would have made me vomit.

A sharp sound of birds rattling the trees caused goose flesh down my arms. I hugged my torso, staring into the increasingly darkening forest. Very soon, Hollows would begin to emerge from wherever den they crawled into while the sunlight was out.

Lord Draven raced in front of me, and mounted fluidly to settle behind me, his presence a strange comfort.

He nudged Abrax forward with a tap of his leather-bound boot. The clop of hooves resounded, and we settled into a trotting pace as if nothing had happened.

I could not stop reeling.

The murder attempts, to him being stabbed, to a beheading.

All of it was taken in stride on his end.

His entire life is filled with this.

A pang struck my chest.

How . . . lonely.

Orange-tinged dusklight speared through from the sides of the trees. Only moments remained until pure darkness. I shivered. To my utter surprise, Lord Draven wound his arm around my front, tucking me even closer to his front.

I turned my cheek to the side. Leather and ink played along my senses. I shivered again, more from the pleasure of his scent than from the cold.