Page 141 of Ballad of Nightmares

“I followed the scent—“

Sam couldn’t see. His vision was red. He couldn’t take his hand down. Even with Millie beating on his arms, he was slipping. Slipping into a feral void that ended with nothing but pain and death around him.

The sound of a cat screaming filled his ears, and Sam froze as Millie entered his peripherals.

“Release him,” Millie seethed. She held a hissing Luna up by her scruff. “Or I eat the fucking cat.”

And he knew she would.

Her promise sent him reeling. Sam stammered, blinking back into himself, falling away from the rage that had seeped his veins and flooded his mind. He hadn’t gone that feral in years. He stumbled backwards, releasing Rolfe and evacuating every shadow from around the room.

Luna landed on the ground with a screech as Sam fell to the floor. He sat there, his chest heaving, the cat curling up behind him, and Rolfe staggered into the wall and coughed.

“I’m sorry,” Sam breathed, looking up at Rolfe.

Rolfe clutched his throat and waved him off, shaking his head. “All good, Cain,” he said.

“It’s not. It’s—“ Luna crawled into Sam’s arms and began to purr as Sam stammered on his words and the air in the room relaxed, until all the three heard were those purrs and their heavy breaths.

“How far did you trail them?” Sam managed, this time in a calm voice.

“To the highway,” Rolfe replied. “I have someone tailing them further.”

The look Rolfe and Millie exchanged made Sam sit up.

“That vulture you’ve been fucking?” Millie snapped.

“Yes, the vulture,” Rolfe said. “What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s a vulture,” Millie argued.

“Enough,” came Sam’s low growl. He pushed to his feet, Luna in his arms, and he took a deep breath before looking between them. “Did you smell anything else? Stench of Fire or Iron?”

“Both,” Rolfe said.

Sam growled under his breath. “I’ll fucking kill them,” he swore. “I want a horde,” he told them.

Millie and Rolfe’s eyes widened. “What—really?”

“I’d like those fuckers to remember who they’re dealing with when they cross my borders and take my things,” he said. “Will you come with me?”

“To find her?” Millie asked.

“To bring her home,” Sam said.

“Sam…” Millie shifted on her feet, arms crossing. “You realize the moment we go to her… the moment you defend her… they will declare war on us,” she said.

“As far as I am concerned,” Sam sneered, “they declared war on us the moment they strung my people up in the middle of a field and publicly tortured them.”

“You had the chance to declare that war before you crossed two borders to get those demons,” Millie said. “You didn’t. But this… They’ve been hunting her for years. She is more important to them than any of our kind in their ranks. Aiding her, hiding her, taking her back, they will call all that treachery.”

“What would you suggest I do?” he snapped. “Leave her to rot and be tortured by General Prei and his men?”

A sly smile wrapped itself on Millie’s lips, and she laughed at the ground. “I believe I speak for Rolfe and me both when I say this: If war is what it takes to keep Death’s Queen, then we go to fucking war. We are simply asking if you are ready for this. I know we have dreamed and spoken of it, but… this is it. This will be the beginning.”

Sam looked to Rolfe for confirmation, and his friend nodded. “Ready when you are, boss.”

A knot twisted and wrapped around Sam’s stomach, the snake on his throat shuddering, as he thought of all the things Ana might be going through right then. The thought of someone taking her from him and thinking she was theirs to manipulate and control… to torture and to break…