Page 55 of The Herlequin: Pitch & Sickle 6

Silas glanced over to where he’d last seen Pitch. ‘Of course.’

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

PITCH HADnot intended to run. In fact it was a bloody awful idea to do so in the damp and uneven woods. He also knew at once that the decision to wear a coat of paler hues while travelling was appalling. Old Bess certainly would have admonished him for his choice of the beige herringbone had he and the fae been on speaking terms while the preparations to depart had gone on.

Instead, Bess had been holding a man together as he inevitably fell apart. By now Ronin would be shattered and returned to the sake pot from whence he’d come, nothing but broken pieces of stoneware.

Pitch pushed faster, gritting his teeth at the protest that came from his hip, and his lungs. He was out of breath faster than he’d imagined, though he’d remove the corset only on pain of certain death.

He lashed out at an innocent birch, snapping a thin branch as he passed by. Silas had fallen. Lain there like a fucking…well, a godsdamned corpse. Even the blasted vapid Valkyrie hadn’t bothered to hide her shock at the ankou’s sudden, dramatic fall.

Once her composure returned, Sybilla had tried to reassure the frantic prince, who had been, quite frankly, embarrassingly inept in the emergency. Silas was breathing, she said, shallow but steady, his heartbeat faint but evident. And it would be best if Pitch did not shake him any more. He’d wake when he was ready.

This was hardly the time for sleeping.

And Pitch did not wantfaintorshallow. Fuck.

The ankou’s heart usually thumped like a hammer on an anvil, and the man was capable of taking breaths so deep it was a wonder any air was left for others.

And through it all…every awful moment as Charlie and Sybilla loaded Silas into the carriage, then dragged him out again when a more concealed resting place had been found…Pitch had been utterly useless. He’d not even been able to focus long enough to start the godsdamned fire. Charlie had done that, though his hands shook with his own fears.

Pitch had been replaced by a packet of fucking matches.

He leapt now over a pile of mulch and spat a few prime curses as the landing jarred muscles in his back. Beneath his armpits it was a squalid damp mess, his shirt clung to his back like a passenger desperate to hold on, and he was fast wishing he’d taken off his coat before he decided his walk should become a mad dash.

Stay close, Sybilla had warned.

Well, the Valkyrie could piss off.

Pitch’s boot sank into a patch of mud concealed by autumn-rotted leaves. His precarious balance collapsed. He cried out, going down hard on his knees and sending a thousand vile curses at the dirt, the sticks that poked him, the trees that just stood there around him, watching on. Doing absolutely fucking nothing.

Just ashehad done when Silas fell.

Pitch punched at the dirt, where hidden stones were harsh upon his knuckles.

Useless. He was fucking useless.

His stomach had turned in a hundred knots as he’d stood over Silas’s body. The Gu had been horrendous but it was nothing,nothingcompared to the sickness that engulfed him when he thought the ankou gone.

Pitch got to his feet, feeling the same tightness in his chest that had come before his panic overrode him at the pond. He broke into a run once more. He had no bloody idea where he was going. It didn’t matter. So long as it was away.

Away from Silas. From the Valkyrie and the vagabond. From that creature in the carriage that was forcing them all onwards. Forcing those imbeciles to play nursemaid to a daemon who was about as useful at protecting them as Nancy or Ada.

He might as well be a fucking purebred. Pitch winced at the thought of the women, and their fae brat. Fucking gods. There was nowhere to turn where his troublemaking spectre did not loom.

He grabbed at the earring where it dangled from his ear. Pitch wrenched at it. Too hard, evidently, because the hook ripped through his lobe.

‘Shit,’ he hissed, the sudden burn most unpleasant. ‘Piece of utter crap.’

He raised his arm, intending to hurl the earring away. But by the Archangels’ festering boils, he could not do it. ‘Fuck!’ he shouted, shoving the trite piece of amber into his pocket.

This must be another of Seraphiel’s curses. Such worries had never troubled Pitch before. He’d killed with a smile on his ugly daemonic face. Now his eyes stung and his throat refused to allow him to swallow without effort.

Pitch lashed out at a defenceless hawthorn as the deepness of the copse stole away the light. The woods were more expansive than he’d imagined and thick enough to steal a good portion of the light. Maybe he could just disappear here.

Another sodden patch of soil nearly made a new mockery of him, but Pitch was far too enraged to go down to his knees again. He lunged at the nearest support, a spindly tree that shuddered at his weight. A lime. He knew that because the bloody ankou thought it important to point out every damned thing that grew and name it.

He carried on. But the pace was definitely slowing. His cock and balls were very unhappy about his decision to forgo drawers, and his ankle had turned several times now.