Page 36 of Eldritch (The Eating Woods #2)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

ZEVANDER

Present …

L ying rigid on his side, Zevander stared toward the window across the room, beyond which the dim rays of dawn highlighted the silhouette of distant trees.

He hadn’t slept a wink.

Sometime in the night, he’d heard a whisper, spoken in a scathing voice that took him back to the days when closing his eyes had merely shuttered out the horrors around him.

The words reverberated in his head, and Zevander gnashed his teeth, screwing his eyes shut, as though refusing to look would quiet her.

“ You were born to suffer ,” General Loyce whispered again, and Zevander breathed hard through his nose, as tendrils of frost curled around his ribs, growing tighter with each breath.

Think of Maevyth. Moon witch.

Behind him, she let out a long, untroubled sigh and shifted, her skin brushing his back. It’d been a few nights since he’d previously shared a bed with Maevyth, but still a bit rattled by Aleysia’s awakening, she’d asked him to lay with her until she’d fallen asleep.

Just as he’d dozed off, that wretched voice had torn through his head like rusted blades left in a field of neglected memories. A stretch of his youth he wished he could carve out of his mind.

He’d lain awake ever since.

He forced his thoughts back to the moments earlier in the evening and that kiss and the touch of her hands.

Like fresh air in his lungs. Contentment, if something so ruined as his heart could feel such a thing.

He recalled Maevyth sprawled out on the table, her trousers yanked to her knees.

Her fingers in his hair and toes curled into his thighs.

How desperately he wanted to slip backward in time.

Warm breath brushed over the nape of his neck, her quiet snores telling him she was still lost in dreams.

He envied how easily she trusted. How she could lay beside him, so vulnerable while deep in sleep. At his mercy.

Fantasies of burying his face between her thighs and bringing her to climax had him leaning closer to the edge of the bed, as if that small bit of distance between them would cool his desires. He dug his fingers into the mattress, clenching his jaw.

Cold rain. Spilling guts. Elowen’s stew.

He forced himself to imagine something else.

Something that might stem the rush of blood to his cock.

Because as much as he longed to hear those soft moans and his name spilling from her lips, he wouldn’t take from her without permission.

Even if the mere touch of her hands would settle his restlessness, would drag him out of his head and give him a moment of peace before they ventured out, he refused to take from her.

Waking her wasn’t an option. Not when their journey to town could be fraught with danger, particularly given Aleysia’s state.

The scent of sweet citrus drifted over him, reminding him how impossible it was to ignore her, and groaning, he sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.

Head bowed, he rested his elbows atop his thighs.

It’d be morning soon. Just a couple more hours was all he had left to get some sleep.

He rubbed his hands over his skull, daring himself to look at her.

Don’t do it , his head urged.

He couldn’t help himself. Refusing to look at her was like trying not to look at a star captured in the palm of his hand. He twisted around, and the face that greeted him sent a sickening dread to the pit of his stomach. General Loyce.

He shot to his feet, backing himself away to where his weapons lay scattered over the table.

“Hello, darling,” she said, her voice like snakes crawling over him. “You thought you could escape me by running to the mortal lands?”

He trailed his gaze over the dark room in search of Maevyth. “Where is she?” he growled.

“On her way to Aethyria. Food for my beloved pets.”

A furious, guttural sound tore from his throat, and he reached behind him for the dagger. In one short breath, he was at the bedside, looming over her like a deadly storm.

Her lips pulled to a smile, stirring his rage.

Zevander struck fast and without warning, stabbing her in the chest. Instead of a smooth, quick jab, his blade caught on something stiff and impenetrable.

He yanked hard and stabbed again, forcing the metal past her chest. Over and over and over, he jabbed the knife into her body, his mind a thrashing sea of thoughts, too violent to sort.

Until he struck again, and no blood came forth.

He struck again, and there were no cries of pain.

Only a hard surface, as if her chest were made of stone.

Hand drawn back for another strike, he paused when quiet whispers reached his ears. Zevander snapped his gaze toward the sound, indiscernible through the closed door. When he looked back, he was staring at Maevyth’s sleeping face, her lips parted for a quiet snore.

A shocked breath burst from his chest, and he tumbled backward, his mind echoing the last few seconds—how exuberantly he’d stabbed what he thought was General Loyce.

He looked down to find the dagger clutched in his palm, a small sliver of wood caught on the jagged teeth of it.

Below him, carved into the wood of the floor, were deep grooves like those they’d seen beside Aleysia’s bed.

Zevander recoiled fast, tossing away the blade as he kicked himself backward. Not even the thud of the metal woke her. Another thought sickened him more: She’d have never seen it coming.

Knees bent, he clutched his head, catching his breath. What the hell am I doing?

Gods, he’d almost stabbed her.

He covered his eyes with the palm of his hand, desperate to banish the image from his mind.

Did I hurt her?

He lurched forward, but stopped, not trusting himself to be so close. In the dim light of the room, he trailed his gaze over her, searching for a single wound he might’ve inflicted.

She sighed again, rolling onto her back, and kept on with her snoring. No sign of injury from what he could see. No blood on the sheets. No evidence that he’d stabbed her.

Fuck .

Fuck!

He rubbed a hand down his face, the visual gnawing at him.

Zevander gathered up his blade, setting it on the table, and stared back at those grooves again. The depth and strokes of the marks resembled those on Aleysia’s floor, except they were absent of the black substance, but in Aleysia’s room, it could’ve come from her wound.

He paced, rubbing his skull, teasing the possibility that he might’ve left them there.

More whispers drifted to his ear, and he ground to a halt. He stalked toward the door, opening it on the main room of the cabin, where the hearth flickered and the whispers were louder.

Zevander slipped out of the room and quietly crept toward Aleysia’s door.

He peered inside to find Maevyth’s sister curled up in a shadowy corner of the room, her knees pulled tight to her chest.

“Four, three, two, one. One, two, three, four.” Staring toward the window, she whimpered and counted again, faster.

Zevander followed the path of her gaze to a grotesquely human face, embedded in the underside of a spider, staring back at her through the window, from where it clung to the outside wall of the cottage.

He strode toward it, swiping up one of the blankets on the bed, and covered the window, blocking it from view.

Aleysia’s counting stopped, though her eyes remained fixed in that direction.

With his head still churning a tangle of thoughts about Maevyth, he slipped out of the room, closing the door behind him. Teeth grinding, he closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, desperate to calm the anger and confusion still battling inside his mind.

Zevander reached inside the pocket of his trousers for the scorpion necklace there. Clutching it in his palm, he took long, steady breaths, as the visual of stabbing her with the knife pummeled him.

He needed to get his hands on that vivicantem.

And as much as it killed him to leave her, he’d have to go alone.