Page 124 of Ballad of Nightmares

“You were my last crown because I meant to use you, not kill you. You were always meant to be a thing I could control.”

He thought he’d been in love with her before.

He thought he knew all there was to know.

But this…

Fuck, he nearly got down on one knee right then.

And suddenly, it was all he wanted. He had always wanted the kingdoms, but this sounded even sweeter. To watch the line of kings that had once tried to take his wings suffer endlessly. Over and over again. By his doing and hers.

“Sam.”

Millie’s soft tone broke the daze he’d fallen into. He forced his gaze away from the knowing look in Ana’s eyes, his chin jerking to his shoulder.

“It’s time to go,” she said.

Sam looked to Ana, noting a question in her gaze, a silent wonder if all they’d just shared made any difference to her fate.

But he remained indifferent. Forced himself to not reveal anything on his cold expression.

His eyes looked to the floor as he stood and released her. The warmth of her vacated, her eyes watching him move, but he didn’t say anything as he exited the cell.

The bell on Luna’s collar jingled as she pranced down the stairs looking for him. She bounded into Millie’s arms and then jumped straight to Sam’s shoulders as he rolled the cage shut behind him. Sam didn’t flinch when the bold cat curled her tail around his neck, her claws digging just slightly in his skin to balance herself.

Ana rose to her feet, staring at the midnight cat sitting so pointedly on Sam’s shoulder, now licking her paw, and Sam paused on the other side of the bars.

“Rolfe will bring you dinner,” he said plainly. “And before you get any ideas about attempting to spray the rest of this dungeon in blood, let me make one thing clear: If you touch Rolfe, Milliscent, or Luna… It won’t matter how I feel about you,” he warned. “You willneversee that relief of darkness as you sit at the edge, day in and day out. Everything you just said you wanted for those kings… it will be your suffering. Not theirs.”

“I wasn’t aware Death had attachments,” she seethed.

“No one touches the things I love.”

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

TRAFFIC MELTED BEHIND Sam and Millie as they sped east. Past every small village on the outskirts of town, through the winding hills and the desolate shadowlands. All the way to the grand decaying forest at his borders.

Sam shut the engine of the pickup truck they’d driven off at the very edge, and he took his helmet off as he admired the expanse. Thick fog reflected from the moonlight and entwined between the great roots lifting and pulling out of the ground like the trees meant to walk. Black trees, webs on the trunks like they were diseased, though Sam knew they weren’t. He knew it was the creatures inside marking their territories. Creatures that, left to the woods and the darkness and the violence of their own agressions had evolved into what most called monsters.

The border of Shadowmyer was a nightmare in itself.

Millie let out a low whistle as she stood beside him. “I forgot how haunting this place is,” she said.

Quiet noises of flapping wings and shuddering growls entered Sam’s ears. He lifted his hand toward the wood, extending his fingers, and when he enclosed a fist, the fog parted ways before them.

With a step back, he held open his palm to Millie. “After you,” he told her.

The wood swallowed them as they entered. He left the moon uncovered to guide them through. Sam could feel the creatures lurking all around, feel their starvation and thirst for blood. Broken limbs and leaves crunched under their feet, but nothing bothered them for most of the walk.

Despite his trying to think only about the task he was about to be faced with, Sam’s mind continued to wander back to that cell. To everything Ana had just confessed, to the way he’d held her breaking body in his arms.

“Do you want to explain why you were in the cage with her?” Millie asked as they stepped over roots.

“We were talking,” he said, his mind going back to what Ana had revealed to him.

“Did you find out what she wants?” Millie asked.

“The same thing we want,” Sam said, and Millie paused to look back at him. Their eyes met beneath the moonlight and Millie gave him a smile.