Page 25 of Eldritch (The Eating Woods #2)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

ZEVANDER

Present …

S eated in a chair across from her, Zevander watched Maevyth sleep, the deep ridges of metal passing beneath his thumb, as he ran it over the stolen scorpion pendant. Stroking himself to calm.

The book she’d been reading lay in her lap, and her head had kicked to the side, facing him, eyelashes fluttering against cheeks made rosy by the blazing hearth.

The dying embers of daylight stretched through the window toward her, as if even the light of day couldn’t stand to leave her behind.

Dusk was approaching—his last chance to hunt for something to eat, after the fruitless venture earlier that morning.

They’d be leaving for town at first light and would need to replenish their energy.

And he’d had every intention of heading out to the woods—up until he’d caught sight of her sleeping.

Godsdamn, she was beautiful. Painfully so.

Her hand lay draped on the arm of the rocking chair, her limp fingers dangling over the edge. Taunting him.

Clutching the necklace, he closed his eyes, recalling the night she’d touched him with those soft, delicate fingers.

His muscles pulled tight, his cock straining against his leathers while he slipped into the memory of it.

Even now he could still feel her phantom caress across his flesh.

How she’d gripped him like the sharp end of a blade captured in her palm—gentle and cautious, not with a longing to take, but to give, a feeling that was so foreign to him, he questioned whether it was his salvation or ruin.

He’d always equated warm caresses as a warning before the cold strike of a whip or a slice of a blade.

A deception. Every piece of him that Maevyth touched had been rewritten into something he didn’t recognize.

Something that felt like an unraveling, a faltering grip of the man he used to be.

A corrupted soul not yet beyond redemption.

“You are nothing but a slave. Worthless .”

The voice of General Loyce bit into his skull with sharp teeth, and he pressed the heel of his hand to his ear.

“Who could ever love a slave?”

Get out of my head . The thought arrived as a growl in his mind, and Zevander squeezed his eyes shut, willing her away. A sharp sting struck his palm, and when he looked down, blood trickled over his fingers where he clenched the metal pendant so tightly, his knuckles had turned white.

He trailed his gaze back to Maevyth, the mere sight of her pushing away that wretched voice in his mind. He recalled the way she’d looked at him the night they were together, so kind and uncondemning. As if a single stare could erase a century of shame. Humiliation. Loathing.

As if her hands could undo the pain of countless whippings and cuts of a blade.

Zevander hadn’t known her fingers were capable of such magic, but as he stared at them, craving one single stroke across his face, he was certain of one thing: Those hands held the power to ruin him and gods be damned, he’d welcome it.

While he understood her reasons for distancing herself, the absence of touch was driving him mad.

Not in a lustful way, though he couldn’t deny the hardening of his body at the mere scent of her.

No, it was a comfort he couldn’t describe—like the day he’d cast off his shackles and felt the air touch his raw flesh for the first time.

He was desperate for it. For her.

The silky texture of her skin. The scrape of her nails.

A shiver rippled through him.

“Moon witch,” he whispered, the plea in his voice like an unstitched wound begging to be healed.

She was his. His mate. His undoing.

A goddess of mercy caught in his grasp like a butterfly ensnared by a web.

A scalding burn at his thigh had him looking down to the knife in his hand—one he couldn’t recall having reached for—dripping with blood, and a fresh wound slashed across his skin, right through his trousers.

Blood coated his palm as he unclenched it from around the scorpion pendant.

It was a wonder he hadn’t crushed the damned thing.

The air in his lungs thickened, and Zevander rose up from the chair, sheathing his dagger. Needing to distance himself. On route to the door, he stuffed the necklace into his pocket and wiped his bloody hand across his leathers.

He had to get away, or risk doing something fucking stupid, like forcing her hands on him. He swung the door open to a dusky sky, his gaze sweeping the yard for the spider creatures. With no sign of them, he trudged across the snow toward the forest.

What better way to calm his desires than to kill something.

Z evander took measured steps, his footfalls noiseless, eyes trained on a white rabbit only a few meters away.

The darkness of the surrounding woods made it stand out like a ghostly creature.

Careful not to startle it, he quietly unsheathed his blade, each slow movement hardly making a sound.

He was determined to offer something better for Maevyth, and rabbit stew sounded like a dream after days of staple foods.

Gripping the business end of the blade in his fingers, he lined up his throw, then drew back.

“ Mor samanet ,” a disembodied voice whispered, and distracted by the sound, Zevander sent the blade hurling past the rabbit, missing his mark as the small creature scampered off.

He swept his gaze across the forest and caught a shadow slipping through a tangle of undergrowth in the distance.

A deer?

What luck, if it was. Zevander hadn’t seen a decent sized animal in the woods since he’d arrived in the mortal lands, but the way the beast tipped its head, as if examining him, left Zevander questioning what he’d seen.

He pressed himself against a nearby tree, peering around the edge of it, where he spied the silhouette of…antlers? He couldn’t tell. It could’ve easily been a gnarl of rotted tree branches that he was eyeing from a distance.

He waited for a flick of its ears, a sniff of the ground, anything that might’ve identified what it was.

Then it moved.

Not with the cautious steps of an animal, but with the quiet stealth of a man.

Perhaps another hunter.

A darkness coiled inside him at the thought of the stranger happening upon the hovel, which wasn’t far off from the woods.

Maevyth.

Zevander swiped up his tossed blade and slinked through the trees, following the shadowy figure deeper into the woods.

The surrounding white mist seemed to thicken, but Zevander refused to let him out of his sight.

Until he could see only a dark shape that shifted through the vapor.

The forest dimmed, as the tightly woven branches blocked out the sky, and in the ever-thickening white fog, he lost sight of his prey.

Zevander paused, clicking his tongue to determine its location.

Nothing registered in his mind. Not the trees that he knew were there, nor the obscure being he’d followed. Only an impenetrable vapor everywhere he looked.

He waited.

Listening.

He began to question if he’d actually seen someone. Perhaps it was simply an animal stalking through the forest. Or nothing at all.

“ Mor samanet ,” that voice whispered again, closer, and on instinct, Zevander swung out, his blade slicing through the mist.

There was no one.

He could no longer make out the tree trunks nor the sky overhead, as if he were standing in a cloud.

A creeping sensation slithered over the back of his neck, and he turned in time to see the mist parting around a colossal, gnarled tree that loomed over him.

From its twisted and decayed trunk gaped a dark hollow that beckoned him for reasons he couldn’t fathom.

The knotted labyrinth of roots stood more than half his height.

A tickling at the top of his palm drew his attention to the scorpion there, rousing up from his skin, as it did when he felt threatened. The one at his back stirred, as well.

From the blackness of the hollow, Zevander saw two long, black spider legs emerge, and he backed away, hand on the hilt of his sword, ready to draw. Glowing eyes watched him from the hollow, while he distanced himself, uncertain of where he was headed.

It didn’t matter.

Something about that tree left an unsettling dread in his gut, and he needed to get as far away from it as possible.

The forest shifted in his periphery, and his head throbbed with a pounding ache.

He glanced around at the surrounding trees, the view wobbling and shifting.

A queasy sickness writhed in his stomach and expanded into his chest. Wavering on his feet, he attempted to scan the dark tree line and spotted the white rabbit he’d been hunting before.

Pangs of hunger churned in his stomach, the thought of fresh rabbit making his mouth water. He staggered toward it, that hunger stirring inside of him, gnawing at his insides, refusing to be ignored, and he stalked toward his prey.