Page 29 of All Hallows Trick (Sick and Twisted #3)

CAT

It was eerily silent out here compared to the circus of voices and strangers within the castle. The moon shone silver, shadows hiding most of the town at the base of the hill, only a few twinkling lights showing that anyone lived there. Maybe there were no ghosts left after what Nightmare did. I didn’t see what happened to the creatures, where they went. I couldn’t find the energy to care right now, my eyes straying to the gore and blood strewn across the ground. I didn’t look around the side of the castle to see if Nightmare’s corpse had been moved or if she was still there, her ribcage torn open, organs eaten.

My stomach roiled, bile hitting the back of my throat. It tasted like blood.

Even in the silver light, I could see the slim figure leaning against the gates, her lace dress ghostly white. My bottom lip caved in, wobbling uncontrollably, but I repeated the solemn god’s words again and again, dragging my bruised, bleeding body across the last few steps.

Misery is fading. You should go now if you want to say goodbye.

I ignored the encroaching blackness in my vision and the way my right knee buckled. I didn’t fall; I walked on, the gates looming over me, casting delicate shadows on the ground.

How long?

Hours. Minutes maybe.

“I’ll do it,” I croaked, my hands shaking at my sides, dried blood flaking from my skin. “I’ll leave them, just save Misery. Please.”

Cruelty’s smile was bright with joy when she faced me. “I knew you’d change your mind. I’ve got your room all made up for you. We’re going to spend so much time together.”

The dead look I gave her didn’t deter her at all. “How do I save him?”

I flinched when she lifted her pale hands, the white lace cloak falling gracefully down her arms, but I forced myself still when she pressed her fingertips to my temples. “There, now you know the secret trick.”

I waited for pain, for sharp piercing agony, but there was nothing. She dropped her hands and I found the energy to glare. “That did nothing!”

“Did it? So you don’t know how to save your darling husband?”

“No, I—” But I did. I did know.

Cruelty’s eyes twinkled, a gleam I’d seen in Nightmare’s eyes but more refined, the sharp edge of viciousness honed by delight. A kiss—that was all it took to save Miz.

“Go,” she laughed. “Run to him. I’ll be right behind you.”

It was a threat, but I didn’t care. I knew how to save my husband, and nothing would stop me.

I ran towards the castle, willing to beg whichever god I found first to take me to him, desperation beating against my ribs. Everything that had frozen and slowed turned to urgency, burning hot and rapid like the flow of lava. I needed to get to Miz now. He had minutes, but I could save him even seconds from death. I knew how. That determination made my spine straighten even as pain throbbed from the slashes all across my skin, and I ran faster, my shoes pounding the ground and—slipping across a patch of shadow until a dark plume of it caught me up and carried me away.

Cruelty, I thought, until the darkness whisked away and my next step fell on the path to Madde’s castle, Cruelty nowhere to be seen. But she said she’d be right behind me. And Miz was more important than questioning why she was so eager to help me when she’d delighted in tormenting me.

I threw open the front door, the entryway passing in a blur. Voices came from the sitting room where we’d spent that first night, but I didn’t recognise them. Death gods, I presumed. Instinct tugged me upstairs. My feet hit the steps, pounding carpet until I was on the landing and racing down the hall to the room I’d shared with Death, Miz, and Tor.

The door was already open; I skidded into it.

“Is he—”

“Still alive,” Tor replied, his voice a husk of its usual warmth. His light brown eyes were devoid of hope when he looked up at me, his face hollowed by grief. He sat on the edge of the mattress, both hands wrapped around Misery’s palm, golden skin against too, too pale.

I swallowed the knot in my throat and forced myself to cross the room, seeing the agony I felt in my chest reflected on Death’s face when our eyes locked. He looked exhausted but it was the sheen to his eyes that made my bottom lip wobble again. Madness stood at the foot of the bed, gripping the footboard in white-knuckled hands, inked hearts stark against his skin.

Those hearts taunted me. Everything I did from now on was for love, even if it hurt, even if it killed me. If it saved them, it was worth it all.

I couldn’t tell whether Madde knew my intention, couldn’t read anything on his face except anguish, his usual vivacious happiness nowhere to be found. Did he know I’d made a deal with Cruelty?

I swallowed, guilt driving into the grief weighing me down. My feet scuffed the carpet as I moved to sit on the bed opposite Tor, my hands trembling as I rested my weight on them. The slashes on my thigh left a smear of blood on the pale covers. Something to remember me by.

“He’s wearing the ring,” Tor rasped, barely above a whisper.

I nodded, struggling to swallow with the lump in my throat. “Good. It’ll help him.”

It’d give him strength when I couldn’t be here to give him it.

A single kiss would bring him back to the half-life of all death gods. It would bring him back to us. No, to Tor and Death, not to me. I wouldn’t be here. A spear of pain cut through the muscle of my heart and Tor inhaled sharply like he felt it. A kiss, that was all it took, and a small scrap of my life, shared from lips to lips.

“You have to—to come back to us,” I whispered, fighting the sobs crowding my chest as I leaned over Misery, his skin almost as white as paper, veins standing out against his closed eyelids. “You have to come back.”

An hour ago, I hadn’t known where the essential glow of life lived inside me, but now I reached directly into that pocket in my soul, enclosing inner hands around it, that precious drop of life. Warmth travelled through my chest and up my throat as I guided that drop, following the knowledge Cruelty had blessed or cursed me with. If this saved Miz, I wouldn’t regret whatever bargain I’d entered into. If it failed, I’d sold my soul to the devil for nothing.

“Come back,” I whispered against his mouth, warmth tingling on my tongue as I parted my lips and pressed them to his in a feather-soft kiss. I felt the drop of life leave me, cold spreading through my body in its absence. I hadn’t stopped to ask what giving up a drop of my life would do to me. It didn’t matter.

A sob pressed against my throat when I drew back, Misery’s face unmoving, his eyes still behind his eyelids, body frozen in repose. His breaths were so shallow I couldn’t see them, or maybe he’d stopped breathing entirely.

“Cat, I don’t think—” Tor began.

“He’s coming back,” I snapped, my voice too weak to add any real fire to the words. “He’s coming back.”

“Sit down, you dumb fuck,” Tor snapped at Death when he wavered on his feet. Death dropped onto the bed with a grunt, his breathing laboured as he set his hand on my arm. “I can’t deal with losing you, too.”

That made another sob claw its way up my throat, the cold spreading through me until I shook with it. I couldn’t feel the drop of life where it had flowed into Miz but I could feel its absence inside me, a point of freezing ice where warmth and life should be.

Death bowed his head, hiding his face, and I felt it—the creeping sense that life was fading, a slowing of heartbeats, a subtle darkness sweeping in to wrap around a soul. And snuff it out.

Would Miz’s ghost end up here? Would I ever get to see him again, or would he just fade away to the place where everyone else went in their afterlife? What happened to the spirits who didn’t cling to themselves, who didn’t linger here in Death’s domain? What happened to the souls who passed on?

“What will happen to him?” I asked, my throat so tight the words cut like shards of glass. “When he—will he come here?”

Death’s hitch of breath told me everything I needed to know. We’d lose him forever then, not even a spirit left behind.

“Fuck,” Tor said in a quiet, strangled voice, scrubbing his face with both hands.

[“Death gods don’t have spirits, lioness,” Madde explained softly. “We’re given this half-life as gods, but when we’re gone, we’re gone. I like to think we move onto the special place mortals go when they’ve earned a pleasant afterlife.”]

“Un-fucking-likely,” Tor muttered. “What’s pleasant about infecting humans with torment and madness?”

“Unpleasant but necessary,” Madde pointed out in the softest voice I’d heard him use. “Even if it’s unlikely, it’s better to believe he’ll go somewhere good. I hope he’s frolicking with a whole herd of those otters he likes.”

“Prairie dogs,” I corrected, on the verge of sobbing. This was supposed to work. It was supposed to bring him back. Had Cruelty tricked me? And why was I surprised if she had? She was the embodiment of cruelty; of course she’d lied to me. I squeezed my eyes shut, tears escaping between my eyelids, and flinched at the heavy feel of death all around us. I was so attuned to the sickly weight of it that I jumped when a crack formed in it and all at once it shattered.

My eyes flew open at the same time Misery dragged in a huge, rattling breath, his golden eyes wide, gaunt face taut with an expression of panic and shock.

“You’re okay, you’re okay,” I promised, stroking his face over and over, my hands shaking. “You’re going to be just fine. You’re going to be perfect.” My voice broke, my throat so tight it strangled my words.

“Cat?” he breathed.

“I’m here. Death and Tor are right here. Madde, too.”

His eyes were wild, his breathing coming in short, rapid breaths. I sat back a little so Tor and Death could get closer, and he devoured the sight of them with frantic eyes as Death stroked hair back from his face. Tor slammed his mouth into Misery’s with a desperation that hit me right in the heart.

“Calm down,” Tor grunted. “You’re fine, we’ve got you. No need for hysterics.”

“Fuck,” Miz rasped, “you.”

Tor laughed weakly. “Maybe when you’re better.”

“Are you in pain?” Death asked urgently, his voice full of devastation. I squeezed his arm, my heart a tight, painful knot behind my ribs. I didn’t want to walk away. I wanted to stay right here, where I belonged.

“No pain, but I feel hungover as fuck,” Miz replied, his eyes heavy with tiredness. “And my body feels like lead.”

Tor picked up Miz’s arm and dropped it against the bed. “Arm looks fine to me.”

Miz shot him a glare, the expression so normal that my chest squeezed and a sob escaped. “Come here, my universe,” he sighed, fluttering his fingers at me.

I wanted to throw myself upon him but I forced myself to be careful, to handle him with care. I settled against his chest, my head tucked under his chin, and the pain in my chest became unbearable when he wrapped both arms around me. I knew Tor felt my pain because he stroked my hair, untangling the bloody strands so carefully I didn’t feel a single pinch on my scalp. I was going to miss them so much. I couldn’t bear it.

“I’m alright,” Miz murmured against my forehead, brushing a kiss over my skin, his lips a gift I never thought I’d receive again. Tears burned their way out of my eyes, soaking into the soft cotton of his white shirt, and then I was sobbing hard, my broken heart on display for all my men to see. “I’m really okay, Cat. I could feel it before—the sickness, the fatigue—but it’s gone. I’m okay, we’re all okay.”

But my heart was breaking, and I didn’t want to go. I wanted to stay here in his arms, safe in the room with all four of my men. Yet, I’d made a bargain with Cruelty and I knew she wasn’t a woman to cross. If I didn’t go back to her, she’d rip Miz from us, and there’d be no coming back from that death.

I lifted my head to kiss him, a shard of pain driving through my heart, deeper and deeper with every brush of his lips over mine, every taste of him that filled my senses, every gasp of sweet, floral violets I drew into my lungs.

“I love you so much,” I said in a tight, small voice. “You’re not allowed to leave this world, do you hear?”

“I hear you,” he agreed so tenderly a fresh wave of tears spilled, hot and stinging. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Never,” I insisted, my voice strangled until it was painful to speak.

I had to leave now, even if it killed me, even if I wanted to scream and rage and tear down this whole castle at the thought. If I didn’t leave now, I never would, and who knew what Cruelty would do if I broke our agreement?

Even if she scared me, even if she was the last person I wanted to be near, she’d given me the knowledge to save Miz. I’d felt how close he was to slipping away forever, and without Cruelty, we’d have lost him.

I ignored the way my stomach knotted and the sobs trapped in my chest, piling up, crowding the space inside my ribs until they hurt. After a final kiss, I dragged myself away from his warm body, using every last bit of strength to put space between us.

“I’ll go tell everyone downstairs you’re okay. They’re all worried about you.”

“Little bride,” Death began, but I held up my hand as I slid off the bed, every inch of space I put between us like another gouge ripped in my heart.

“I just need a moment,” I breathed, the words cutting me as they left my tongue. I swore I tasted blood. “I’ll be alright.”

Tor began to rise from the bed, but I gave him a wobbly smile that was meant to be reassuring. Madde strode across the floor and shattered my heart by pulling me into a squeezing hug.

Don’t leave, he breathed through the darkness, the words hitting me like a sledgehammer. I didn’t know if it was paranoia, or if he knew. He at least suspected.

Do you trust me? I whispered back, winding my arms around him and holding on desperately.

His answer came instantly.

Always.

I rolled up to kiss his jaw, struck anew by how tall he was, how strong and brave and loyal. My darkness made real.

“I just need a minute,” I said aloud, looking from him to Miz, watching me with a furrow of concern between his beautiful gold eyes; Death devastatingly beautiful even when he was hurt, looking one second away from leaping off the bed to come to my side even if he was weak; Tor hunched over the edge of the bed, turned to look at me over his shoulder with eyes so bleak and empty of their usual humour that it hurt to look at him, his tattooed hands curled up tight; and back to Madde, begging me with cashmere blue eyes, panic making his nostrils flare with rapid breaths, his body as tense as iron, like he was physically holding himself from me.

Just a minute. It was the biggest lie I’d ever told.

I barely felt the ground under my shoes as I walked into the hallway and down the stairs, ignoring the voices still coming from the sitting room, dragging myself through the front door even as my soul howled at me to go back. It felt like I splintered myself in half. Like I’d never recover.

Cruelty waited at the bottom of the stone steps that flowed from Madde’s front door into the wide yard out front, still in her hooded bridal gown, looking almost sorry for me as she held out a hand.

“Don’t worry,” she said with a sympathetic smile that reminded me of Nightmare’s—so very close to convincing except for the soft bleat of an alarm in the back of my head. “You won’t be alone. We’re going to be best friends.”

I didn’t reply, didn’t accept the hand she held out, just walked past her towards the road down to the town. I didn’t know when I’d see it again. If I ever would.

But Miz was alive. Death and Tor were weak but they were safe, healing. Madde was strong; he’d be there for all of them, keeping them protected like he’d protected me.

Nightmare was gone. Poppy was dead. Her creatures had fled. I didn’t see what happened to the Stalker, but Poppy’s death had hit him hard. My men would be okay. It had all worked out. Even if it killed me to walk away, it had all worked out.

Cruelty’s hand snagged my wrist—and I gasped as the world warped around us, nothing like the darkness that had gathered me up and brought me here less than an hour ago. This was disorienting and made my stomach roil. When the magic set us down, we were back in front of Death’s castle. The sight of it made me falter, clutching my chest. I would miss this place almost as much as I’d miss the men I loved, and judging by the tiny smile on Cruelty’s face she knew and enjoyed my suffering.

I didn’t speak as she pulled me to the gates, not even as they swung open to let us through.

“Strange things, aren’t they?” she asked as we stepped through. “Gates? They’re completely useless without an anchor.”

I expected the winding moor road that led to Ford to spread out in front of us, but the gates opened up into thick forestland I didn’t recognise. Thick beech trees blotted out what light the moon offered, until all I could make out were their dense leaves and the knotted network of branches that reached through the dirt underfoot. This wasn’t Rosalind Woods. These were far older. I didn’t know where we were.

I glanced back, unable to help myself even though I knew it would be agony. I stumbled at the sight, ripping my wrist from Cruelty’s grip. I could see Death’s castle through the gates, now closed, but a thick white smog clouded the view.

“I’ve never seen the domain like that before,” I said, a catch in my breath.

“Haven’t you?” Cruelty tilted her head, coffee-brown hair spilling from her lace hood. “Didn’t you see the streets that faded from existence?”

It was suddenly hard to breathe, especially as the fog grew thicker, so dense I couldn’t make out the castle except for the rough spikes of towers. “That was you? You made those streets disappear?”

“Oh, no,” she laughed, twinkling and musical. “That was all you, Kitty.”

The blood drained from my face. “You’re lying.”

Her smile grew. “Am I?”

I jerked towards the gates as swirling fog wrapped around the bars of the gates, swallowing them. “What happens if the gates disappear? How do I get back?”

Cruelty took her time answering, savouring my distress as I reached for cold, reassuring iron and my fingers fell through mist. The gates were gone, and any view of the castle had vanished with them.

“You don’t,” she answered.

I hope you loved All Hallows Trick! You just met the final member of Cat’s harem, but we’ll get to know them better in the next book…

(Or at least I think he’s the final one, but Cat might get greedy and collect another.)

If you need a complete story to devour while you wait, Stalking Wendy Darling just released and it’s a stand-alone enemies to lovers romantasy with obsession and two characters who try to kill each other before they fall for each other.

Thanks for reading, and see you in the next book,

Love, Leigh x