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Gone.
Spinning in search of the amulet, in search of Varen, she quickly lost her sense of which way led up and which led down.
Then, like a beacon, a pale face appeared in the gloom. Netted by a screen of black hair, it floated toward her.
But it was not Varen’s.
This face—waxen, skeletal, hideous—belonged to a monster.
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Yet Unbroken
A pair of wasted hands reached for her, their curved black nails like barbed hooks.
At the center of the creature’s sunken eyes flashed two pinpricks of light.
Isobel flailed to get away, but with lungs pleading for air and muscles numb from exhaustion, her efforts came weaker now.
Closing in on her, the demon curled a hand almost tenderly around Isobel’s bare throat, claw tips scarcely pricking the nape of her neck.
As Lilith’s emaciated form coasted to a slow-motion stop, her loose ebony hair rushed around them both. Innumerable black threads intertwined with the clouds of floating veils, tickling Isobel’s shoulders, blocking her surroundings from view.
Isobel saw no sign of Varen. Only inky tendrils, billows of white, and straight ahead, that pinhole gaze.
Like a spider preparing to wrap its prey, Lilith pulled her nearer.
Isobel strained in the demon’s grasp, yearning for the strong, gentle grip of Varen’s hand. But it never came, and she knew he’d lost her just as she’d lost him.
The demon’s pale and shriveled lips peeled back to display a needle-toothed grin.
Death would come next. Isobel had no doubt. And there was no stopping it, or what would happen after.
She would become a Lost Soul, like Reynolds, bound body and spirit to this realm—to Lilith—for eternity.
Gwen had been right, and, enemy or not, Reynolds had been right too.
She’d never stood a chance.
Cold and caressing, the creature’s knuckles trailed Isobel’s cheek, brushing over her scar before sliding up to her temple. There, the wraith’s talons wove their way into her hair, causing Isobel’s crown of flowers to dislodge and drift off.
Though Isobel tried to wrench her head away, the demon tightened its grip at the back of her skull, holding her face to its own.
With lungs now threatening to explode, Isobel ceased her feeble side-to-side twists. She waited, anticipating the piercing pain of those spiked teeth, the ripping sensation of having her throat torn out. The clawed hand that would contract and crush her windpipe.
When none of those things happened—when nothing happened—Isobel’s yearning for air became an all-consuming need, and it occurred to her that delivering a swift death was not what Lilith had in mind.
The demon wanted to watch her struggle, to drink in her final throes as she drowned slowly in its clutches.
But she’d come so far. Survived too much. Risked everything . . .
Isobel kicked her legs again, though no longer in an effort to escape. Now she hoped only to fend off the fog of unconsciousness that had begun to steal over her, lulling her toward the last bat of her eyes, since her final breath had already been taken.
Varen, she thought, her fingers wrapping the sinewy wrist of the hand that held her. Where was he?
Shhh, a woman’s voice hushed in her head. Sleep now, so you can awaken safe in your new bed. Forever and always home . . .
Of course, Isobel thought dimly, lids drooping.
