Page 56 of Cruelest Kiss and Fairest Blood (Tales So Wicked #2)

Lenore

H arrow fucked me damn near into a coma. After a nap and some serious limp noodling, I’m feeling much better. It takes a lot of convincing before he’ll let me walk on my own. Once he does, I start to regret it. We trek for hours.

This whole endeavor is beginning to seem hopeless. I haven’t recognized anything since we left the cabin. I’ve seen more terrors than I can stand and I’m no closer to finding my door. Our surroundings change three times, throwing us into new and dangerous landscapes.

First, we trudge through a frozen wasteland.

Our pace hastens when a thirty-foot snow demon crosses our path.

The creature is covered head to toe in dense white fur.

Foam rains from its mouth as it bleats. I try not to look at the human necklace strung around its neck.

The victims shiver, crying out. Some of the bodies are tinted blue from the freezing temperatures.

All of them have a golden, braided chain as thick as my thigh running through their abdomens.

The victims scream in pain every time their bodies are jarred by the snow monster’s earth-shaking steps.

I’m grateful when the ice thaws, giving way to water.

Harrow holds me in his arms as we fly above raging seas.

Ocean-dwelling monsters more terrifying than any of the krakens I’ve read about gobble up ships, swallowing screaming sailors.

Anyone who jumps from the deck to avoid being the kraken creature’s meal finds themselves directly in the center of a feeding frenzy in shark-infested waters.

Even in the darkness, the sea is more red than blue.

A single figure catches my eye. The sailor is wearing a torn, striped tunic with one leg of his trousers missing.

He jumps off the side and is violently ripped apart by the sharks.

Moments later, he reappears on the sinking ship.

This time, he tries to escape into the waters on the other side of the kraken.

A massive tentacle plucks him from the air as he dives overboard.

It thrashes about, smashing him into the mast and deck.

By the time the kraken lowers the body into his gaping beak, the man is as limp as a ragdoll.

It’s a better fate than the man in the next tentacle.

He goes in kicking and screaming right up until the kraken bites his head off while he’s still alive.

“They have to choose,” Harrow says quietly.

“Forever?” He nods. “That’s ghastly.”

The gurgles and screams fade as we approach the coast.

I’m grateful for the silence when we land on a strip of sparkling white sand. It’s a beautiful spot, with the exception of the bloody streaks every few feet. Harrow is quick to drag me away. I guess we won’t be here long enough to discover what haunts the beach.

Sand gives way to grass. The narrow strip of green is swallowed up by the quick rising of a massive corn field. The stalks are so tall, even Harrow can’t see over them.

A series of overly wet coughs rack my lungs. My blood colors the greenery. The coughing has been less frequent. Harrow said it’s because I’m asleep. That the spell has slowed the poison. It’s still there though, slowly working its way through my system. We need to get out of here, soon.

“Why don’t we just fly above it?” These corn stalks are giving me the creeps. Too many hiding places.

Harrow breaks off an ear of corn. A sizzling crack echoes when he throws it in the air. The ear returns to the ground before us. Its green leaves are completely blackened.

“It’s a no-fly zone. Something wants us on the ground.”

An involuntary shudder twitches through me. “I don’t like the sound of that. Can’t you just kill whatever it is? You are literal Death.”

“This is not the land of the living. Things don’t die here.”

“You killed those goblins.” My skin prickles at the memory.

“I didn’t kill them, I destroyed them. They’ll return. Hopefully I obliterated enough of their imprint that it will be very challenging to spawn back. It could be years before they’re able to roam the woods again.”

That’s disappointing. I was hoping they were gone for good. I don’t want anyone to stumble into their trap again. From the way they were talking, I wasn’t their first victim.

We’ve been walking in the corn field for almost twenty minutes when the first scream comes. Harrow and I exchange a look.

The sound of a man begging stops me in my tracks. “No, please. Don’t take it. Don’t . No!” He screams again. The sound lasts much longer, rising in pitch until his voice breaks off.

“What was that?” I whisper.

Harrow shakes his head. We keep moving.

The sounds of someone crying grow closer.

Pushing through the next row of stalks, we find a man.

He’s hunched over, sobbing. He turns to look at us.

Harrow catches hold of my arm as I jerk backward.

The man has no face. Eyes, yes. But the skin that should cover his face has been cut away along with his nose and mouth.

“Haaa leeease,” he begs us. Without lips, his speech is difficult to understand.

A sharp snap has us whirling to the right. A pole has been erected mere feet from where we stand. A burlap scarecrow is tied to the top, his arms outstretched. Instead of a handsewn mask, the scarecrow wears a human face.

The man before us wails as he spies the sinister mashup.

“We’re moving. Now.” Harrow grips me at the elbow and marches forward. The faceless man grabs Harrow’s boot as we pass. His blood-soaked hands slide off and he falls to the ground.

Vomit builds in my stomach, crawling up my throat. There’s no time to stop. The thing that took his face is mere feet behind us. I press my lips together, swallowing the acid down.

Scream after scream fill the corn field. We pass six more scarecrows, all wearing human faces. The endless sobs of the tortured victims come from every direction between the stalks. Thankfully, we don’t stumble upon any more of the faceless victims themselves.

Stepping out of the field is like breathing for the first time. I don’t know how it works exactly, but it seems the creatures are tied to their respective landscapes. The kraken won’t follow us on land. The cornfield creature won’t pass his rows of stalks.

Maybe that’s why the spider never got me. I ran outside its territory and onto the goblins’ property.

Barren soil crunches beneath my steps. Harrow has wrapped shadows around my feet. It prevents me from damaging the bottoms while still allowing me the flexibility to move as if I were barefoot. I never knew how versatile shadows could be.

A dense fog creeps forward, stealing our visibility. One of Harrow’s wings tucks around me protectively.

“What fresh new hell awaits us in this landscape?” My sarcasm elicits a chuckle from Harrow.

“You wouldn’t happen to recognize this area, would you?”

“No. Maybe we wandered too far from my hellscape.”

“That’s not how it works. If we’re still passing through these lands, they’re on your path or connected to it at the very least.”

Thick metal bars rise up before us. Harrow catches me by the shoulder before I run smack into the gate that has just appeared. A floral emblem with a large R sits on either side of two iron doors.

“These are the castle gates! We’ve made it to my kingdom!”

The gates swing inward. Was that in response to my voice?

Harrow takes my hand, leading us through the foggy courtyard.

Our visibility improves as we move beyond the gates.

The castle comes into full view and every hair on my body stands on end.

There is something hideous and dark about this version of my home.

“Do you think your door is inside the castle?” Harrow’s voice is low, eyes sweeping around us.

A flash of movement draws my gaze to the spot where my bedroom balcony usually resides.

There is someone looking at me through the window.

The eyes that stare back at me are vacant and hollow.

Looking higher, I notice every window on every level of the castle has a ghostly figure peering out.

Castle full of dead people ? No thank you.

“I’m not about to find out. Let’s check somewhere else first.”

We skirt the castle, keeping a watchful eye on our surroundings.

Thankfully, the phantoms remain inside. The fog comes and goes, bringing with it strange sounds and whispering voices.

When the aged and crumbling walls of my hidden refuge come into view, a flood of triumph washes through me.

My bone garden. That is a perfect spot for my door to be hidden.

Delight warms me as I enter my secret place. I haven’t spent near enough time here recently. All thoughts of the in-between’s horrors beyond these walls fade. There’s safety within these ruins.

“It’s not the same,” Harrow warns.

“What’s not?”

“This is your garden, but things are not the same as they are in the world above.”

I study my sanctuary carefully. He’s right. Everything is in its right place, but the bones are all wrong. I don’t recognize the shapes.

The more I look, the more my excitement shifts to anxiety. The bones don’t match up with any animal or human I’ve seen.

A sudden howling from outside the garden walls has me whipping around.

“What was that?” My heart thumps so hard it feels like it’s choking me.

The sound comes again. I follow it, staring at the stone wall, imagining the monster it belongs to. The creature is moving. Turning, I realize whatever it is is getting closer to the hidden entrance.

“Harrow…”

He comes to the same conclusion at that moment. Shadows rush forward, sealing the entrance. There’s a loud pounding from the other side of the new black wall.

“It can’t get through that, right?”

Harrow’s focus remains on the wall. The pounding stops. Scratching takes its place. The sound moves higher and higher. It’s climbing the walls .

More shadows materialize. They encircle the garden walls before shooting upward. A full veil covers the roof until a swirling black canopy shields our view of the sky above. They finish forming not a second too soon.

Six heavy feet track a path along the rooftop barrier.

I can’t see what kind of creature it is, only the way its weight displaces the shadows as it moves.

It’s something big . Is this the monster that roams the castle territory?

What of the ghosts in the windows? Are they a separate entity?

I’m starting to think every nook and cranny on these grounds has its own nightmares.

Another howl from above sends goosebumps up my arms. It’s answered by a second howl from the ground level.

I try to imagine what they could be. Wolves?

Beasts? Some monstrous mutation of a beautiful woodland creature?

Things here are more terrifying than anything I’ve concocted in even my most memorable nightmares.

“They can’t get in here, can they?” I can’t school the trembling in my voice.

Harrow shakes his head, pulling me in closer. “My shadows will hold. Nothing will harm you while I’m by your side.”

His beautiful face grounds me. The angles of his cheeks and sharpness of his jaw lend me strength.

The sounds of the creatures outside the walls continue.

Their howls and growling send fear pulsing through me, but watching Harrow, so confident in his ability to protect me, settles my nerves.

That masculine assuredness has something melting low in my belly.

My fingers bury into the pale blond hair that rests in shiny pieces between the dark spikes of his crown.

He tilts his head into my touch and a strand falls into his eyes.

Those eyes. I’m so caught up in them, the way the silver shines like starlight, that I almost miss the rattling that’s coming from behind me.

I recognize the moment Harrow hears it too. His irises darken and shadows flood the whites.

His voice is a low warning. “We’re not alone.”

His gaze shifts over my shoulder and my stomach plummets. There’s a clack, clack, clack , like wooden blocks being stacked on one another. Some new nightmare is coming to life behind me, and Harrow has just sealed us in here with it.