Page 37 of A Song of Air (Fae Elementals #4)

F alling through a void was not a new sensation for Weylyn, though it was one he thought he had permanently left behind. Those thoughts, of the past that was better left buried, flew from his mind as the darkness rose around him. The impact of landing on his feet jarred through his whole system. It rattled his brain and made him grit his teeth tightly.

Even worse was the sudden impact of iron in the air. It choked him in a punishing grip, deadly and dangerous, like it meant to suffocate the very life out of him with little remorse.

He choked it down and stared at his surroundings.

The circle had portaled him in the middle of a forest so unlike the one he’d just been in with the others. He swept his gaze around quickly, nostrils flaring as he inhaled. His booted feet throbbed, a sure indication that iron seemed to be eroded into the ground, pulsing like a living fucking thing.

To his side, there was a river that smelled foul and nearly masked the scent of his mate.

His mate.

His nostrils flared and his feet moved of their own volition, tearing through the brambles and foliage of the forest. He scented her against it, whiffs here and there that he followed like a bloodhound until he burst from the trees and nearly came crashing down to the ground.

Weylyn let out a low growl as he caught sight of what littered the earth. Of the foulest smell rippling through the air. Rot. Decay. Death. They were smells he was all too familiar with, and he knew then and there, seeing ivory and gray half buried in the dirt all around a small wooden cottage, what the creature inside was.

And inside with it?

His fucking mate.

Weylyn moved silently over the graveyard of bones that blanketed the ground. As quiet as he tried to be, they still crunched beneath his boots. Skulls smashed within their hollows, half-rotting corpses with putrid, torn green flesh lined up along the edge. The entire place was designed to keep predators away.

A ghoul’s home was like the innermost center of a spider’s web, filled with twitching corpses and husks without their souls. Nothing but skeletons and putrefaction.

Through a half-broken window, Weylyn saw a sight that made his heart pound in his chest, beating frantically like a beast to be unleashed.

His mate. Bryson. Sitting at a table in front of a fucking ghoul.

The ghoul took the appearance of an old crone right before it morphed into something far more terrifying. Something nightmares were made of. Its body melted, skin pooling down in clumps as it mutated itself into a tall, thin, thing with needle-like fingers that caressed Bryson’s dirty hair.

“I’ll take good care of you,” the ghoul spoke, using the voice of an old, withered woman.

Bryson blinked up at the creature, brows furrowed. As if she couldn’t see the monstrosity before her. As if she couldn’t make out the gaping mouth and dozens of rows of teeth. As its head split, strings of saliva slid from tooth to fucking tooth.

Weylyn moved.

As soon as he did, the ghoul whirled, sensing a predator in its sanctuary, and screeched. It was a blood-curdling scream that nearly shattered his ears. He didn’t care about anything except for Bryson’s life.

The ghoul attacked him, slit pupils on either side of its head blinking red and black, claws extended like it meant to tear through Weylyn’s chest and rip his still-beating heart from its cavity.

He dodged the claws, swooping low onto his knees. His own hands extended, a growl in his throat. The ghoul loomed over him, and he swept his hand up, tearing through hard flesh. He didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. Not even when blood and guts rained down against him. Even as the creature let out a wild cry. Even when the ghoul fell and twitched, joining the bodies of all the people it had destroyed.

It wasn’t until the thing stopped twitching that Weylyn finally turned to Bryson. She was wide-eyed, disheveled. Her hair was caked in putrid-smelling mud and there were tear marks and blood down her cheeks. Her eyes squinted, following his form as he approached. Before her, there was a bowl of raw, rotted meat and blood.

His eyes shot back to her, and he spoke, “It’s alright, little mate,” he assured. In his chest, where the bond she supposedly did not want lay, he felt a surge of warmth, relief. He tugged gently against it, like he could let her know that she was safe. And with him, she always would be. “I’m here now.”