Page 20 of How to Claim A Shadow King

I hold my breath, like that will keep whatever it is from seeing me. Another branch snaps, this time closer.

“Is someone there?” I call out, unsurprised that my voice is shaking.

Two eyes blink into existence, glowing in the gloom, high as my hip. I nearly screech, but when I go to suck in a breath, I choke on my own spit.

Sputtering, I cough. What a time to forget how to breathe properly.

My heart hammers in my chest. I lift the stupid letter opener up. “I’m armed,” I call out. If my voice shakes, that’s none of my business.

“There’s no need for that,” a voice says, and I jump at how close it is.

A lantern bobs in front of me, and I shield my eyes at the sudden onslaught of light.

The glowing eyes are closer now too, and I peer at them through my fingers, blinking rapidly.

They’re not human. The yellow around the pupil catches what little light filters from the lantern held aloft, the pupils themselves a diamond-shaped slit that pulses bizarrely.

I don’t move the letter opener.

I’d rather have it where I need it than be caught without it.

Even if whatever this is doesn’t have any envelopes that needs opening.

“Come, come, you’re soaked to the bone, aren’t you, child? That won’t do, will it?” The lantern swings close to my face, and I step back. “Follow me now, follow me home. I’ll have your bones warm in no time.”

My entire being recoils, and I take another step back, my breath coming in short, panicked bursts.

The lantern dips as the creature creeps closer, and I’m staring at the glowing diamond pupiled eyes so intensely that it takes me a second to realize that there are more eyes.

Many, many more eyes.

And it wasn’t a lantern at all.

I gape, horrified, stumbling over a branch.

The creature blinks, a cascade of eyelids and movement making my stomach twist. A bramble snags the makeshift knot at my ankle, and I lose my balance.

Everything slows, horror churning through me as the monster’s eyes all open at once, the orb-like eye hanging from its palm glowing a sickly yellow. Too-long legs skim over the forest floor, the knobby bare feet… face the wrong way.

“What’s wrong, little witch? Ssssso—” it drags out the s, hissing as it crouches lower, bending over where I’m tangled in the brambles and muck “—much light, I can feel so much light in you. And we need it, don’t we?”

I turn my face away from the fetid stench of the monster’s breath, scrambling back as fast as I can, holding the brass letter opener aloft.

“Her light is not for the Seelies to take,” Malakai’s voice booms out, shadows wrapping around the monster’s many, many eyes. The pale yellow light begins to fade, and I sob out a terrified breath as he hauls me against him, warm and undeniably furious.

“Her light will be ours, Shadow King,” the monster hisses, and the eye hanging from its palm flashes, bilious light making me bury my face into Malakai’s neck.

“Not while I breathe,” Malakai growls back at him, and when I look up the creature is even closer, a sword of shadow against its neck.

Too close.

Squeaking I throw the letter opener in a blind panic.

The creature howls as it hits the suspended eye, and I gag slightly at the wet noise it makes.

I’ll have to find a replacement for that. I don’t think I’ll want to open anything after seeing it open… that.

“Tell your king we are prepared to defend this place,” Malakai says.