Page 51 of Cruelest Kiss and Fairest Blood (Tales So Wicked #2)

Lenore

T he stench of rotting meat pulls me from my slumber. A quick rattling of chains sounds as I move.

There’s a high-pitched ringing in my ears. Pain radiates from a sore, open wound beneath my left ear. It must be where the creatures hit me with something.

Their tiny voices lurch me from the darkness.

The cheeriness has vanished. Any doubts I had about their nature disappears when I set eyes on them.

They’re as hideous as they were in those brief moments I saw them before.

Shriveled, green, and covered in lumps, bumps, and sores.

Sharp nails grow from gnarled fingers. Their eyes are sickly yellow.

“Goblins, goblins, gobbling you up.” One spins in circles, repeating the chant.

“Goblins?” I gasp. They look even more terrifying than when I first saw them.

“Goblins, we are. We were gnomes. Spent too much time in the dark forest, didn’t we? Turned us into something nasty.”

Betrayal hits, wounding my pride. “Why did you nurse me back to health?”

“Need you strong, doesn’t we? Wouldn’t have lasted a week in the state you was in when we found you.”

“Swiss cheese.” The other goblin starts jumping up and down. “Swiss cheese. Swiss cheese.”

“Saw that on a tea table once, didn’t he? Know why he calls you that? Because that’s what you’ll end up. Always they do. More holes in the end than they started with. There are seven of us, after all.”

My chains are yanked hard, raising me so that I’m hovering on my tiptoes.

My clothes are gone. Ladders are erected on both sides of me.

The little goblin jerks clamor up, arguing over who will get which parts of me.

Tiny fingers jab at the backs of my thighs.

I clench my muscles instinctively, eliciting a round of their distorted laughter.

Several of the others line up on the ladder in front. Two quarrel before my face.

“You got the mouth last time.”

“Maybe we can both fits. Open up, let’s have us a look.”

I clamp my lips shut. A sharp jab to my abdomen makes my mouth pop open on a scream.

“Not as big a mouth as I hoped. Might have to remove the teeth first.”

The second one wails. “That takes forever. Just slit the sides of the mouth. Spread her from cheek to jaw and we can both have a space.”

“I’ll take this spot.” The sharp pain near my stomach comes again. Looking down, I find one of the goblins with a blade tip pressed just above my belly button.

The leader chuckles from where he stands near the front of my thighs. “Loves to worm your way into the intestines, doesn’t you? Filthy thing.”

The rest of them share in the laughter. They begin to move in closer, their putrid scents overtaking my space. No, no, no .

“ Harrow !” I scream his name with everything I’ve got. I scream the word like it will be my last. Maybe it will be. Death’s name, the last two syllables to leave my lips. How morbidly poetic.

A window rattles over the kitchen sink. My head snaps toward the sound.

The pane shudders again before smashing open.

A gust of wind barrels through, shattering the glass and whipping my hair into my face.

The light fixtures swing, flickering. Dust kicks up.

It swirls around the room. A single black feather blows in, brushing my cheek as it passes.

“What’s that?” one of the goblins near my face asks, fidgeting nervously.

I smile as the feather lands nearby. “It’s him.”

“Who?” the leader asks indignantly.

“ Death .”

The front door blows inward, sending a blast of wooden shards pelting all around us. I shut my eyes, shielding my face the best I can without the use of my arms. Shrieks erupt from all around me.

When I open my eyes, he’s there.

Harrow’s gaze quickly finds mine. He takes in the chains, my nakedness, and the placement of the monsters on their ladders. The fury in his eyes turns murderous. Shadows storm into the room, blanketing it in darkness. The goblins scream.

I’m blind in the pitch black. The goblins’ tormented cries fill my ears. It might as well be a song of praise, lifting to the heavens. The sounds of their anguish and death are so sweet it brings warmth to my shaky body. A thunderous screech joins the symphony of death wails.

A great pair of wings pounds the air nearby, blowing a mighty gust of wind past me. Is that Harrow? Has he set his monster free?

A spray of liquid hits me in the face. Another burst pelts my back. I hope whatever he’s doing to them is so horrific that it would give the creatures of the in-between nightmares. A thought stops me. It must be horrific. Harrow is keeping me in the dark intentionally. He doesn’t want me to see.

He’s protecting me.

The shackles around my wrists drop away. “I’ve got you, little raven.” Harrow’s deep voice sinks into my soul, its cadence like a balm soothing my racing heart.

“I knew you’d come,” I whisper.

Arms wrap around my back and beneath my knees. I’m lifted up and carried out. The screams have shifted to gurgles and moans. There’s another sound now, one I had not noticed. Whispers in the darkness. A haunting cacophony of nameless voices speaking words of death and despair.

“What is that?” My fingers dig into Harrow’s chest. He has not lifted the veil yet.

“My shadows.”

“There are monsters in the shadows?” The voices continue, whispering, their words chilling me to the bone.

“The shadows are monsters.” Harrow’s breath is warm against my neck.

A shiver dances atop my skin. “They’re alive?”

The sounds shift and moist air dews around me. We must have left the cottage.

“Not alive. They are death. As I am.”

The veil finally drops. My eyes adjust, my field of vision filling with the familiar black trees of the dark forest. Glancing up, I find Harrow’s angelic face peering down at me.

How I missed that face. Those cold silver eyes are salvation embodied.

Lacing my fingers behind his head, I drag him down, pressing a kiss to the lips I dream about.

He returns my kiss with equal eagerness.

Desperation and relief manifest in the way his fingers dig into my flesh.

I’ve never felt so safe. My arms squeeze and he pulls me tighter against him.

His mouth moves against mine, speaking to me without words.

I can feel his aching loneliness in the way his lips meet mine.

“I’m sorry,” I breathe against him. “I should never have sent you away.”

The sound of wood groaning has me breaking our kiss to glance back at the cottage.

The shadows have spilled out through the window and doorway.

They wrap around the house, ensconcing it in darkness.

Wood cracks, walls fall as the pitch black consumes the cottage and its occupants.

Within seconds, the area has flattened. When the shadows recede, there’s nothing but a scorched patch of earth where the cottage once stood.

They devoured it whole.

“Are you injured?” Harrow’s voice is laced with worry. He sets me on my feet with such gentleness, lifting my arms and turning me around as he searches for wounds.

I stop him, turning to look into his eyes. “I called for you before.” His face falls and I know he can see the question in my eyes. Why didn’t you answer when I needed you ?

“I am sorry. Had I known you were here, I would have come right away. I was unable to hear you in this realm.”

“The dark forest is its own realm?”

I expected some kind of unusual magic to surround the dark forest. Another realm entirely? I’ve never heard of such a thing.

Harrow’s eyes search mine. “You are not in the dark forest.”

I do a quick visual sweep of my surroundings. Yep, definitely still in the dark forest. Maybe in his haste to rescue me, he missed the ominous trees and plethora of monsters. “I am. Catreena poisoned me. I had to run to the dark forest to escape the guards.”

Harrow takes a deep breath, as if summoning the power to speak his next words. “She did poison you. But you never left the castle.”

Harrow

Those precious few moments between hearing Lenore’s scream and finding her location will remain carved into my chest forever.

I have never felt such frantic panic. Control is key when you rule the Underworld.

Panic, even in minute amounts, can be catastrophic in my line of work.

Being around Lenore has brought about all manner of new feelings and sensations.

I do not ever wish to relive that feeling of helplessness, of not knowing if I was going to be too late. Which means my little raven will leave my sight nevermore.

Lenore’s pale, gore-smattered face stares back at me in confusion. “Where am I then? How do you explain all of this?”

She gestures to the nightmare landscape. I’ll admit it’s very convincing. I’ve never set foot inside the dark forest but I’d venture to guess it looks as black and ominous as Lenore’s mind has made it.

“What do you remember before coming here?”

“Catreena gifted me one of my mother’s apples. Only it wasn’t hers. It was poison. I spit it out as quickly as I could, blacked out, and when I awoke, she sent the guards after me. That’s when I ran into the dark forest.”

“You did bite the apple and black out. The poison dropped you into a sleep like death. When you awoke , you were actually entering the in-between. The moment you blacked out, you stayed asleep. Your body is inside the castle as we speak.”

Lenore stares at me. “This isn’t real?”

“It’s very real. But it’s not the real dark forest.”

Lenore scrunches her face. “There’s a dark forest in the in-between?”