Page 13 of Eldritch (The Eating Woods #2)

“Depends on the opponent.” His gaze trailed over me again. “And how badly I want to see what’s beneath her cloak.”

His words cast a flicker of heat between my thighs, drawing to mind the night he’d put his mouth on my breasts, suckling and flicking his tongue over them.

Stop it right now!

Squinting, I shook my head of the mental image. “Good to know. I’ll be sure to keep my eyes on you, then.” I waved my hand toward him. “Might we return to the lesson now? How do you suggest I learn to cast aside my empathy, seeing as I’ve had it since birth?”

A clicking, hissing sound echoed through the treetops of the adjacent forest, and as I whirled that way, a flock of birds darted toward the sky. Breath shot out of me, and I snapped my attention back to Zevander. “The spiders?”

He rolled his shoulders back and groaned. “And so the lesson begins. I’ll be right back.” Drawing the sword from his back, he strode toward the archway of The Eating Woods in the distance.

Frowning, I stepped forward, watching him cross the field with determined steps. “You’re walking toward them? Shouldn’t we be going in the other direction? Back to the cabin?” I called, but he ignored me, keeping on toward the woods until he breached the archway.

Minutes passed. Cold slithered over my skin, and I wrapped my arms around myself, glancing around at the empty, open field.

I took small steps in the cabin’s direction, but paused, conflicted and frustrated.

“Why would you go into the woods?” I muttered angrily and trudged three more steps, pausing again.

Icy fingers palmed the back of my neck, drawing focus to the vulnerability I felt right then and casting a shiver through me.

Another minute passed.

Another.

Finally, he emerged from the forest.

On a dead run toward me.

It didn’t occur to me what had him running so fast, at first. Not until, moments later, two pale creatures emerged after him, their bodies suspended between the sixteen long legs that carried them quickly in my direction.

Fear gripped my throat.

“Zevander!” I rasped.

“Ready yourself!” He rounded my body until standing at my back, as the spider humanoids scampered toward us. “Call on your whip.”

My whip. The glyph. What was the damned glyph?

“I don’t remember it!”

“Yes, you do. You’re letting fear control your thoughts. Slow your mind and think .”

“If I slow any part of me, those things are going to devour me!”

With quick hands, he held my hip and steadied my elbow, raising my arm a notch. “You’re tensing too much. Relax your muscles, you’re too stiff.”

If my heart hadn’t been pounding in my throat, I’d have told him that was a compliment, coming from him. “I can’t relax when they’re bounding toward us!”

They were closer than before.

Closer.

One ambitious leap away from pouncing on us.

My instincts told me to run. My whole body shook with the urge to spin on my heel, training be damned! “I can’t do this!”

They pounced.

Zevander threw out his hand, and the creatures shot up into the air, their legs still scrambling as if closing the last few inches between us.

“Call on your glyph! Now!”

I closed my eyes and took deep breaths. In the quiet of my thoughts, an image slipped through my head. The spine. “I see it.”

“Strike them.”

Nodding, I threw my hand out. Nothing but bones flew from my palm, clattering to a pile on the snow.

“Focus! I can’t hold them suspended for eternity!”

I threw my hand out again and felt a thump of pressure against my palm, as the whip snapped outward then retracted back. “Ha! I did it!”

“Shall I release them, then?”

“No!” Fear lashed through me at the thought of him setting those things loose.

“Then, try again.” The strain in his voice set my nerves trembling.

I stared back at them, the vague recognition of Mr. Primsley and his wife, Diana, peering through that grotesque form. They’d owned the bakery in town, and while they’d never gone out of their way to be kind to me, they’d certainly never been cruel.

Again, I raised my hand, trembling harder than before, and focused on the glyph in my head. The whip flew from my palm, snapping just short of the creatures.

“Stop looking at them as human. Imagine what they’ll do to you if I set them free right now. Imagine what they’d do to Aleysia.”

Aleysia.

A spark of anger lit my blood at the thought of Mr. Primsley’s teeth tearing into her flesh. Snarling, I threw out my hand again on a growl.

The whip struck one of his legs, and it burst into a plume of broken chitin.

A thrill of victory washed over me, and I hopped on a squeal. “I did it!”

“Do it again,” Zevander ordered, clearly unimpressed.

Muttering a quiet complaint, I thrust my palm forward again, and that time, it struck the broad side of the creature’s torso.

A crackling sound had me searching for the site of impact. Seconds later, it exploded into a mess of flesh and blood that spattered onto my face and clothes.

Hands held out to the side, I stared down at myself and sighed. “Revolting.”

“Head toward the cabin,” Zevander demanded, ignoring my disgust. “I want you to have a better head start. I’m not going to use my power. No matter what happens. You will need to rely on yours.”

“I don’t like this.”

“Well, we don’t have a choice now. Go!”

I awkwardly darted through the snow back toward the cabin.

“Maevyth!”

I swung around in time to see the spider barreling toward me faster than before, and Zevander hobbling after it. Wounded?

My heart shivered behind my ribs. With the vision of Aleysia still fresh in my mind, I threw out my hand, the bone whip spilling out of my palm onto the ground.

A whimper of panic gurgled in my throat, and I retracted my hand, the beast only a few feet away. One hard thrust of Aeryz widened the space and knocked the creature onto its hind legs. It recovered quickly, but instead of heading toward me, to my horror, it turned toward Zevander.

No .

“Fuck,” I heard him mutter, and he backed up a step. “I’m not going use my power, Maevyth. If anyone is going to stop this, it’s you.”

Rings of hot panic coiled in my chest. “That’s too much pressure! Call on your flame! Please!”

“Absolutely not,” he said, backing himself in the other direction, as the creature slowly stalked toward him, as if biding its time.

It pounced on top of him, and a wild scream shot out of me. “Zevander!” I ran toward them, swallowing back the acids rising in my throat as the creature snapped its jaws at his face.

I thrust out my hand, and the whip floundered through the air, landing ungraciously in the snow. “Damn it!”

“Focus!” Zevander barked in a strained voice. “Her teeth are awfully sharp, in case you hadn’t noticed!”

Closing my eyes, I imagined the glyph clear in my head.

When I opened them, I threw my hand out on a violent burst of energy.

Power surged in my veins as I hurled the tapered end of the whip toward the unwitting beast, satisfied when it snapped against the creature’s body.

In the next breath, it exploded over Zevander, the chunks of flesh falling on top of him.

He snapped his head to the side, lips tight, as a large clot of blood splashed across his throat.

All was calm again.

“Had I known that today’s lesson was going to involve risking my life, I would have told you to go to hell.”

He sat up, tossing off steaming bits of Mrs. Primsley’s entrails from his chest and legs, then spat blood into the snow. “How else do you learn instincts ?”

“Know that if you ever try to kiss me again, I will only ever see Mrs. Primsley’s bloody bits on your lips.”

He let out a chuckle, scooping up a handful of mostly clean snow and ran it over his mouth. “Then, you do intend to let me kiss you.”

“At this point, you would have to scour your lips in lyme. And, even then, I don’t know if I could imagine anything else.”

He pushed to his feet. “Perhaps that’s your next lesson. How to avoid my kiss without killing me with your whip.”

“You wouldn’t.”

His brow kicked up, lips pulling to a half-smile. “Only one way to learn instincts.”

I bit back the urge to laugh and spun around on my heel, racing across the snow toward the cabin.

While my head chided me not to indulge in his flirtations, my body moved on its own, reveling in the fun of it.

A quick glance over my shoulder showed him chasing after me, gaining speed despite his bulky body, and a squeal of a laugh escaped me.

When I snapped my attention forward again, a figure ahead of me brought me to a grinding halt.

My boots slid across the snow, and I tumbled to the ground. There, only a few feet away from me, stood Uncle Riftyn, half his face torn away, the raw flesh glistening at me like a nightmare.

“Maevyth!” Zevander called out to me from behind before crashing into the snow at my side. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

With a trembling hand, I pointed.

Zevander’s gaze followed the path of my finger. “What?”

“Do you not see him?”

“See who?”

Uncle Riftyn stood silent, tipping his head as he watched me.

Frowning, I glanced at Zevander, and when I looked back, Uncle Riftyn was no longer there.

“Who do you see?”

Screwing my eyes shut, I shook my head. “No one. It was no one.”

“You were certain only a moment ago.”

“I…saw my uncle.”

“You said he burned in the fire.”

“Not that one, though both are dead. I suspect it’s only a matter of time before I’m terrorized by his burnt form.”

“You see the dead.”

I nodded. “I thought it was from having been ill. I didn’t see much of the dead when I was in Aethyria.

” I released a shuddering breath, recalling the last time I’d seen Uncle Riftyn alive.

“I watched the beast in the woods tear the skin from his bones.” I stared off, lost in that horror all over again.

“I’ve seen awful things in my life, but that is a memory I won’t soon forget. ”

Zevander’s warm palm met my skin as a soothing balm, while he rubbed his hand down the length of my arm, chasing away the chill. “C’mon. Let’s get you inside where it’s warm.”

A fter having checked on Aleysia, who appeared to have not moved a muscle, I entered the main room of the hovel in time to see Zevander peel off his tunic, leaving his body coated in blood and stringing bits of gore.

He poured a warm kettle of water I’d heated into the washbasin and dunked his head in the water.

Pangs of yearning needled me and I quietly sighed, watching the way his back muscles contracted with his abrupt movements. How magnificently his broad shoulders tapered down to a fit and trim waist—one I’d had pressed against me not long ago.

Bigger concerns, Maevyth, I chided myself and cleared my throat.

He fished out a rag from a nearby drawer and stood upright, slicking his hair back with the palm of his hand. The sight of him fluttered my stomach, regardless of the stubborn gore that still clung to his face and chest.

He wrinkled his nose, staring down at himself. “What I wouldn’t give for a proper warm bath.”

Smiling, I stalked toward him and snatched the cloth. After dipping it in the basin, I dragged it over the slick red coating across his collarbone. An angry patch of red at the base of his neck caught my eye, and when I ran the cloth over it, he let out a grunt. “What is this?”

“Seems their saliva is a bit acidic.”

I exhaled a remorseful breath. “I’m sorry. I should’ve reacted sooner. I hesitated.”

“You’ll learn.”

“I don’t want to learn at your expense.”

“A small scratch isn’t going to kill me.”

“No, but those teeth came awfully close to your face.”

“Worried about marring this handsomeness?”

When he sneered alongside his comment, I wanted to tell him that not even the wretched black scar across his cheek, nor the blood of Mrs. Primsley, could make him less attractive.

I wanted to tell him he was the most devastating man I’d ever laid eyes on, and that I would have, in fact, kissed him, in spite of the bits of gore clinging to his cheek.

Instead, I gave a small smile. “Is it possible that we might train again without a rush of adrenaline?”

“That depends on you. Have you learned to accept that warding off an attack doesn’t require apologies over tea afterward?”

“Are you telling me that you’ve no intention of making me a cup of tea?”

Snorting, he swiped the cloth out of my hands and dragged the freshly-dipped rag across his tight abdomen, where faint scars begged to be kissed. “I’ll spare you the grief of drinking whatever awful concoction I might’ve scrounged.”

“To answer your question. Yes. I think I’ve found a way of casting aside my empathy.”

“How so.”

“Recalling that spider atop of you. How scared I was in that moment. How powerful the urge to kill it.”

He stared down at me, the smirk on his lips enticing enough to kiss, if I were so bold right then. “I know that feeling well.”

“Then, we’ll resume tomorrow. Early morning.”

“Early morning.”