Page 40 of A Taste For Lies (The Apex Kingdom #1)

Chapter 40

ALORA

T hank all the gods, the boar releases my tattered flesh before swiveling to face the incoming threat. I chance a look over my shoulder as it charges away. Another roar shakes the clearing. It’s clear my next move is to get down from here before the horrible thing comes back.

But just one slight shuffle of my badly scraped hands down the trunk has me panting through gritted teeth. The torment in my leg is nearly unbearable.

A sudden, gentle tug at my waist has me in panic, thinking the boar has returned to finish what it started.

“Stop screaming! Do you want it to come back?” Carter’s harsh voice jolts me back to reality. I release the tree so fast that he barely manages to break my fall before we both tumble to the ground.

Carter groans and rolls out from underneath me. I just lie there, chest heaving, staring up at the gray sky. Terrible noises are coming from the wild boar dying behind me—awful squeals and harsh grunts.

I do my best to block it out and concentrate on watching the misty clouds drift past .

“Shit.” Carter has finally gotten a look at my leg. He drops to his knees at my side and starts tearing his shirt off. He wraps the pieces around my torn flesh in a makeshift bandage. “I’m so sorry, Wildcat. I should have been here.”

“My fault,” I manage, breathing through my teeth. “I told you to go.”

A snarl ripples through the air. Carter is pushed bodily aside. Silver-gray eyes, molten with Apex power, take his place.

“T-T-Taran.” He shivers at the sound of his name but doesn’t speak.

I’m not even sure he can.

He appears lost to a deathly rage. A rumble echoes from his throat, and in my muddled state, I see a stoneclaw looking down at me with burning eyes and elongated canines sharp enough to pierce flesh.

I blink, and the prince is back, his face painted with blood.

“My—my leg,” I grit out. As though he’s just realized I’m injured, Taran’s head whips to my hastily bandaged limb. He pulls the shirt away none too gently and a whimper sneaks out from between my lips. He wraps it back up quickly, then scoops me into his arms and stands as if I weigh nothing at all.

He strides through the brush past the dead hare, back towards Onyx, who is astonishingly still in one piece and being held by the bridle by Carter, along with a strider.

There’s an enormous black lump on the ground at the animals’ sides, nearly the size of a bear, and it takes me a moment for it to click. It must be the mauled carcass of the boar. It’s almost completely unrecognizable—reduced to a grotesque heap of gore.

For some reason, Taran’s words from the night of the ball ring through my head. I am feeling an almost undeniable instinct to follow his scent down those stairs and rip him apart with my bare hands. Or maybe my teeth. Probably both, frankly.

“This is going to hurt.” Taran finally finds his voice, half a second before he lifts me onto the strider. I bite my knuckle as the pain lances through me. The prince swings up behind, carefully cradling me against his body.

As soon as Carter’s strider takes off, it takes all my concentration not to scream as my injured leg bounces. The strider’s gait is smoother than a horse’s, and Taran does his best to stabilize the leg, but that’s no consolation. Whimpers and gasps spill helplessly from my lips. Taran’s own are locked in a tight, grim line as we race back towards the palace.

By the time we pull up at the front courtyard, my barely suppressed moans have turned to all-out cries. Taran pulls the strider up abruptly. I don’t even get a moment of stationary relief before he’s got me off the animal and back in his arms, striding purposefully deep into the castle. He blatantly ignores the shocked faces of the skeleton staff left behind.

Despite being off the strider and in Taran’s careful hold, the torture of the bite has somehow only deepened, splintering up my leg beyond where the beast bit me in jagged lines of lightning. I throw my arms around the prince’s neck and bury my face in his jacket, attempting to muffle my shouts.

“Try to keep those curses to the common tongue, if you can.” His voice rumbles against my cheek where it’s crushed against his chest, my tears further marring the blood-soaked velvet. I let loose with a particularly nasty one aimed at him, but he just strokes a hand up and down my spine.

After what feels like an eternity, we reach a heavy wooden door. Taran doesn’t give the occupant an opportunity to answer—he physically kicks it in with such force, it hangs precariously on its hinges.

I grit my teeth and lift my tear-stained face to a…

Well, lair does appear to be the accurate word for it. The subterranean room is crammed with countless vials and tinctures, workstations, and a table at the center big enough to hold a body.

Whipping around from a desk, a journal open in front of him, the surprise clear on his face, is Lord Winters.

I bite down on my tongue so hard I taste blood. No way in hell I’m sobbing in front of this man. But a fire is burning through my leg all the way up to my right hip now, and a harsh grunt forces its way out of my throat.

“My Prince?” the lord sputters.

“The antidote.” Even in my scattered state, I can hear the ground-shaking fury lacing Taran’s voice.

Lord Winters blanches. “Antidote, Your Highness? ”

Taran lays me on the center table, more gently than I would have thought possible, cradling my head until the last possible second. I writhe against the cold surface, smothering my cries as best I can.

In the time it takes to blink, Taran is bent over the man’s neck, looking for all the world like he’s going to rip his throat out.

“You think I don’t recognize bloodbane when I see it?” Rather than shouting, his voice is dangerously quiet, his every word clipped and vicious. “I don’t know how you ensured your tainted boar would attack whoever killed that hare, but I hold no doubts this plan came from you and your despicable daughter. You won’t get away with it this time, Simon. If Lady Thorne dies, I’ll wipe out every member of your cursed bloodline down to the last tiny babe—saving you for last. So you can hear their screams echoing in your ears for the remainder of your very short life. Now. Give. Her. The. Antidote.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what—”

“Then there’s no reason for you to live.”

Taran’s muscled arms move and clutch Lord Winters’ head, preparing to snap the Elite’s neck when the man bursts out, “Alright! Alright! Let me get it. I’ll get it.”

Taran releases him instantly, prowling behind the lord as he fumbles for the correct bottle. His hands shake as he fills a syringe and makes his way over to where I’m burning on my pyre. The makeshift bandage comes off, and he lets out a panicked breath when he sees the state of my ravaged leg.

“Your Highness…”

I’m sure he’s about to say I’m too far gone. I feel too far gone, close to shattered, the blazing fire speeding towards my heart, my extremities already succumbing to numbness. I would welcome death at this point. Anything to stop this nightmare. I’m full-out screaming now, wordless.

Taran grabs the syringe and plunges the liquid into my thigh. The last thing I remember is the soft glow of troubled storm-cloud eyes.