Page 61 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

Melody

Ronin and Kyrith storm outside, and Caryan follows.

The noise and his sudden absence startle me, briefly bringing back some life in me. I manage to get up when the tent is sliced open, and a woman with long, fiery-red hair enters, the point of her long, black sword trained on my neck.

The woman Lyrian wanted me to find. The woman from the bar in the human world.

She snarls at me, silver canines reflecting the fire as the sword tip presses into my skin. I feel the sting, the metal digging, biting my flesh, and taste the coppery smell of blood in the air. All the while, I hold the woman’s amber eyes, as clear and beautiful as Ronin’s.

I wait for her to increase the pressure a touch more, to plunge the sword through my throat.

But the woman hisses once, like a cat, and then lowers the sword. “A life debt,” is all she has time to snarl before Caryan’s fingers close around her neck, his other hand grabbing the sword around the blade, not caring that it cuts into his flesh as he frees it from her hand. He tosses it, and it slithers somewhere into the tent.

“Blair, it was a mistake to come here,” he says, and his teeth rip into her flesh.