Page 182 of Lana Pecherczyk

“You’re talking because I’m listening.”

Cloud averted his gaze, staring into the darkness. When he realized River still stared at him, he sighed and said, “Fine. I’ll be here.”

Heart hammering, River searched the darkness in the direction Blake had vanished, sensing the pulse of her bond through their connection like a UV trail glittering on the ground. Feral, predatory instinct flared his new feathers to their fullest—time to swoop the little rainbow mouse.

Chapter

Fifty-Six

Blake stormed away from the sickening fight, down a dark path on the outskirts of the settlement, away from River and the newly arrived …him—the one who shattered everything. The game, the fragile truce she’d brokered between the warring families, the tentative steps towards peace. It was all ground to dust the second Cloud had appeared.

Just like that.

Gone.

She dashed annoying strands of hair from her hot face. Maybe River had been right. The guy was toxic. A menace to society. But an ache deep in her chest had wanted things to be different. She’d wanted this world to be better because if it was, then losing everything she knew wasn’t so bad. Like, maybe, just maybe, there was a point to this world. Like maybe, there were things on that trove wall more important than a nuclear blast radius, things that could save them all from a cycle of self-annihilation. Things Blake wanted to be a part of.

Things that gave her life meaning.

The low-grade fever still hummed beneath her skin, an insistent, maddening itch. She felt … unhinged. Ready to detonate. Like her body wasn’t entirely her own anymore.

Likeshewas the blast radius.

Mud sucked at her boots, and each step sank deeper with a fury that felt foreign and terrifyingly potent. Her hands clenched and unclenched.Useless. Everything she did was bloody useless. She’d tried to fix things, tried to bring the razz, tried to make them see sense, and what happened? Males reverted to peacocks showing off for bimbos who batted their eyelashes.

Mine.

Blake bared her teeth at the empty night air. Her reaction to watching River preen near those females hadn’t lessened. It warped with a possessive, selfish urge to distract him from the bitter feud with Cloud.

Mine. Mine, mine, fucking mine!

Where did thiscome from? This need. This obsession. It was never there with her ex. Jeff had only ever cultivated a dull ache of insecurity. But this was fierce. Territorial. An urge to bite, to mark, to claim. And since she knew she’d lose to Cloud, all her anger filtered toward the flirting females.

A burst of laughter. A woman in a cream suit whispering behind her hand.

“I’m going to tear those bitches limb from limb,” she announced to no one. “Fucking slags. Dirty moles.”

A shriek of bottled emotion tore from her lungs and scared crows from nearby trees. Some cawed angrily. Others just melted away into the darkness, heading toward caravans filled with nosy busybodies looking at her through their windows.

“You hear that, cunts?” she shouted. “I’m coming for you.”

Blake doubled down on her stalk. Glared back. Maybe even flipped two middle fingers their way.

Somewhere, deep in the corner of her mind, she knew something was wrong. This feverish madness wasn’t her.

It hurt. It scraped her heart raw. It grew claws.

A low rumble vibrated through the soles of her boots, stopping her in her tracks. Thunder.

“Great,” she mumbled. “Just bloody perfect.”

Fat drops of rain began to splatter against the pine needles in the forest to her left, releasing the sharp, clean scent of wet earth and resin. She hadn’t brought an umbrella, not that they existed in this magic-addled version of her world.

Blake looked around and had no idea where she was, somewhere on a trodden path circling the Great Murder settlement. Forest on one side. Caravans on the other. Feminine laughter drew her attention to a nearby roost, and that urge to gouge out eyeballs resurged. The laughter came from a family enjoying a meal together beneath a tasseled canopy, their happy faces warmed by glowing manabee lanterns.

The ache in her chest faded.

A flutter of small wings caught her peripheral vision. Since she’d stopped, three fledglings had crept closer, sneaking up behind her. They couldn’t be older than six or seven. How long had they been trailing her?