Page 48 of Dark Bringer (Lord of Everfell #1)

Cathrynne pulled. A lightning bolt of agony made her eyes water—oh gods, it hurt!—but the bullet tore from his chest and flew across the room. She snatched it from the air, hot and blood-slicked.

Markus backed toward the door, eyes wide. “Now, Cathrynne?—”

She ignited the antimony. Poured every lie, every blow, every moment of degradation into the spell.

A shockwave blasted outward, exploding the windows.

It threw Ash into a bookcase. Kane sank to one knee and gave a deep, terrible groan, one hand pressed to his chest. Blood seeped between his fingers.

Berti Baako sprawled on the floor. She looked like a fish that had just been slapped against a rock.

Cathrynne walked over, grabbed her projective hand—Berti was a lefty—and snapped the bones like kindling.

Berti screamed, a very satisfying sound.

Then she broke the right one, too, for good measure.

“You little bitch!”

It wasn’t Berti, who had fainted. Cathrynne spun around. Veronica Viktorovich swept into the room, gaunt and glittering in a sequined dress. Thick black makeup ringed her eyes. Markus stood behind his mother, the coward. Cathrynne knew she couldn’t fight them both.

She ran for the broken window and flung herself into rainy darkness. She had no idea how far the fall would be. No idea where she actually was. But she would die before letting them take her again.

She felt a sharp sting along the sole of her foot as she cleared the jagged shards of glass.

A stone terrace rushed up to meet her. She landed awkwardly, breath whooshing out.

Her ankle twisted but somehow she rolled and gained her feet, too jacked up to feel much pain.

She pushed on the terrace doors. Locked. Dammit!

Cathrynne glanced up at the floor above. Veronika’s head appeared through the broken window. The smile on her face was terrifying.

“Stupid girl,” Veronika called down. “Can you see your own death now? You should have taken the easy option, but it will be very hard, I can promise you that?—”

Cathrynne rattled the door handle. This time, she heard a soft click and sobbed with relief.

She yanked and it swung open. An empty bedroom lay beyond.

There was a mirror in a gilt frame and she caught a glimpse of a wild-eyed, ghoulish creature that made her rear back until she realized it was her own reflection.

Another door, another hallway. Her vision tunneled as she broke into a fast limp. There had to be a way out. Just keep going, keep running?—

She rounded a corner and slammed into a body.

A white-haired man in a servant’s uniform yelled something, but she couldn’t make out the words over the buzzing in her head.

She shoved him aside and flew down another flight of stairs.

The pain in her foot was getting bad. And . . . damn, she was bleeding all over.

Shouts came from somewhere in the house, somewhere close.

It was like a dream where you’re trying to wade through quicksand with a monster at your heels.

Cathrynne skidded across a foyer with a slick marble floor and nearly fell but managed to catch the edge of a table, the breath sawing in her throat.

Running footsteps. They’re coming down the stairs.

She hobbled to the front door, trying to keep her weight off the foot that had been sliced to ribbons.

It was locked so she grabbed a heavy umbrella stand and hurled it at the nearest window.

Broken glass rained down on the front walk.

She picked her way through the shards, no time to be gingerly about it, and then she was sucking in breaths of night air and cranking that limping run into high gear, leaving a trail of bloody footprints behind her.

The street was lined with neoclassical mansions behind iron gates, but no lights turned on at the ruckus. Apparently, the neighbors knew better than to get involved with whatever crazy shit went down at the Viktorovich residence.

If she hadn’t chanced to look back, the cat would have had her. But she did and saw a lithe shadow padding silently down the center of the street. Veronica’s caracal, its eyes gathering the moonlight like silver coins.

The fine hair on Cathrynne’s arms rose up.

It had fangs as long as her pinky finger and stood chest-high.

A tufted ear swiveled as she wiggled through a hole in a box hedge and lay flat, the sweet, living smell of earth and grass making her heart clench after so long in sterile darkness.

The caracal paused, head lifting to scent the air.

She held perfectly still, like a young rabbit in a field.

After an endless minute, it padded away.

She cut across a lawn and came out at another street, then paused to get her bearings.

The houses were grand, with steeply peaked roofs and fanciful stonework.

It was tempting to pound on a door and beg for sanctuary, but Cathrynne feared they’d hand her over—or be killed for harboring her. Not worth the risk.

She paused to tear a scrap from her filthy shirt and bind the deep cut in the pad of her left foot. When she looked up, Markus and his deranged mother were at the end of the street. They walked side by side, not even hurrying. They thought they had her cornered.

She ducked before they saw her and staggered through a stand of trees.

The adrenaline rush was fading. A black tide of exhaustion threatened to drag her under.

She’d been beaten and starved and lost a fair amount of blood.

Not to mention working the ley in her own body, which should have killed her.

Angel Tower rose up in the distance, a white spire with a gold cupola on top. It looked almost close enough to reach out and touch—and impossibly far away.

She was still in Arjevica. If she could just get out of this wealthy, too-quiet neighborhood, find somewhere with lights and people . . .

Cathrynne hurried around a corner and realized that she’d hit a cul-de-sac with no way out. At the end stood a house with a blue-painted door and gargoyles crouching below the turrets.

She froze, wondering if it was a hallucination. Twenty years had passed since she’d last seen that door.

“Cathrynne!” Markus’s voice drifted through the darkness. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be. We can still work things out!”

All the pain she’d ignored came crashing down.

She was pretty sure her ribs were cracked because every breath felt like she was being poked with a knife.

Taking shallow, panting breaths, she unlatched the garden gate and limped up the path.

The old familiar scent of a white rose variety called Polar Star perfumed the air.

She felt delirious, as if it were all a fever dream and she would wake in that tiny room again.

There were no lights on at the house. Cathrynne’s hand shook as she banged the owl-shaped knocker against the front door. She remembered that, too.

Please be home, please be home.

Were those shadows moving at the gate? She banged the knocker again, pounding it frantically until the door opened. A young servant in a nightcap stood on the other side. Her eyes widened.

“Who is it, Mary?” a voice called from within the house.

The door opened all the way, revealing a woman in her middle years with thick, straight brows and strong features. She wore a belted silk dressing gown, black hair streaked with gray loose around her shoulders. When she saw who had come to her doorstep, her face drained of color.

“Please, mother,” Cathrynne pleaded, “let me in.”