Page 97 of Blood & Claw

Aye, they were both enjoying this.

Fern was wrong. They were ready for whatever lay before them. Suddenly, the tension between them since Ardroth didn’t matter. When danger came, they stood together.

With a whoop, she flew at the warrior once more.

“Wait—” Dale shouted, but Ailsa barely heard him.

She wanted to get close enough to open up his throat with her fingernails, to watch his blood spill over her hands.

Her heart started to pound even harder at the thought.

With one hand, she slashed her blade at his chest, while her other flew out to rake his face.

But he dodged both weapons with an impressive burst of speed. Twisting, his elbow cut sideways—and smashed into the side of Ailsa’s head.

Pain exploded inside her skull.

And in that instant, she knew she’d moved too soon. She’d gotten carried away.

The world tilted.

Then everything went black.

Ailsa awoke to nausea and a brutal pounding in her skull.

Groaning, she pried her eyes open. Her vision blurred for a moment as bile surged up her throat, but then her surroundings sharpened once more. She was lying on her side, just a couple of feet from where the fire pit merrily crackled. The gamey aroma of roasting grouse filled her nostrils.

“Shit,” she rasped, gingerly pushing herself up. “What happened?”

“He nearly killed you, that’s what happened,” came a curt response. “You made a mistake that almost cost you your life.”

Ailsa winced. Dale was right. The fire in her veins had turned her reckless.

She glanced left to where he sat, turning the grouse on a spit.

A corpse lay sprawled on the hillside, just a couple of yards behind him.

The big tattooed warrior stared sightlessly up at the swirling mist, mouth slack. His throat had been slashed, and dark blood pooled around him.

The sweet, earthy scent slammed into her.

Hunger twisted sharply in her gut. Not for roast grouse, but for warm, sticky blood.

Ailsa jerked her gaze away and swallowed hard.

The Reaper strike her down, it was getting worse.

She’d hoped she could master this, but she couldn’t.

She had to face facts. She was twisted.

“He was good,” Dale went on, casting a cold glance over his shoulder at the body. “Even better than the last one.”

Ailsa frowned, wincing as pain lanced through her skull.

She’d taken a knock to the head, but she wasn’t so easily distracted. He was trying to draw her attention away from the obvious—from the fact that for the second time, an assassin had come for him at dusk.

“It was him watching earlier, wasn’t it?” she said finally. “In that stand of firs by the burn.”