Page 4 of What Whispers in the Dark (Promises of the Marked)

She threw a wicked grin over her shoulder, violent enough that Garrik’s resolve shivered. He fought the unquenchable thirst to have his powers mist every Raven from existence, and instead, compelled Smokeshadows to braid along her empty sheaths.

He would not thieve this fight from her, knowing she craved it. When it concerned Magnelis’s elite, they all did.

And with younglings involved … there was no questioning the necessity of the violence. So … let the bloodbath fucking begin.

As if she heard his thoughts, Jade’s grin turned purely reptilian as her weapons refilled and another row of sheaths wrapped around her thigh below them.

Shadows misted away, but a touch of adoration in her eyes remained.

She was ravenous for a taste of vengeance as she drew and launched another dagger.

A flawless hit.

“Five,” she taunted, striking that precious Guardian nerve. “Catch up.”

Frowning, Thalon retorted, “You act as if this is a contest.”

“And you act slow .”

Thalon mock-gasped, shouted, “ Wounded ,” and cracked his neck as her dagger flew. Another wet gurgle and hollow t hump . Another Raven down. “You’re starsdamned terrifying .” He cringed.

Jade’s snide was quick, passing the last tree and into the glade. “If you’re scared, you can wait with the younglings.” She jumped from her horse, landing in a crouch with a dagger poised in front of her chest, ready for the next kill.

Ravens now looked at them. Found the source of their friends’ death. Their faces a range of fury … and the weak ones … fear . Delicious fear.

“Is it always a fucking competition with you two?” Garrik growled, then glanced at where a hole in the forest was open. Eight blurs of silver. A smear of faces. Purple waving from their necks?—

Fucking cowards. A low, lethal sound vibrated from his chest.

Defectors.

Fleeing. Thinking timber could save them.

Without further thought, he flicked his wrist at the insult.

Smokeshadows coiled around them, outnumbering Jade and dragging them screaming into the darkness.

He did not wait for Jade and Thalon’s remarks.

Garrik reformed as veiled night, as darkness and ash and wind, shadows swallowing him whole, prepared to spit him out?—

Screams flanked him. The taste of iron saturated the air. Tings of armor and swords, gurgling, then?—

Snap.

Like fireplace wood popping. And wet, crunching thuds.

Snap. Snap. Snap.

In rapid succession, countless Ravens had no time to draw a breath as Garrik manifested in front of them. One by one by one , he grabbed each face, offering them their last view on Elysian: his razor-sharp teeth in a smile more sinister than a crippling nightmare.

Snap. Snap. Snap.

Another and another.

Seconds—it had taken seconds to litter the dirt in heaps of purple cloaks and silver metal. Seconds for his vision to fully cascade to night. An abyss of ink, a grayscale of muted color, as every vein and bone and will in his body slithered with desires out of his control.

He had minutes now—maybe less. By the undeniable evidence of black veins branching, spurting from his fingertips and no doubt his eyes, neck, and chest …

minutes until what she left him with would fully consume him and he would succumb to serpent darkness.

Killing everything— everything— in that glade.

The younglings.

Thalon.

Jade.

Conserve your powers , Garrik called out to Thalon. If … if serpent darkness took him … if he could not restrain himself in such a state …

And you? Warning was buried there. Warning and concern. Brennus. What if ? —

He severed their connection and would not hear it again. Because when it came down to their lives, they were always first. And what came after, even if it risked his own life, even if he was depleted, there was no question. No matter what uncertainties lie ahead with Brennus, them first.

Garrik did not answer. He outstretched his hand, now reformed as shadows and ash.

Took a breath—a steadying breath—as if it could delay her .

If flesh, that hand would have worn their blood like war paint, a warning to every enemy in that glade, but he could only focus on the way darkness curled, thirsty for more.

Somewhere outside the borders of his vision, Thalon and Jade were both fighting with swords on the ground now. And where that revengeful fury of steel landed, Ravens departed this world. Jade’s chilling shrieks returned Thalon’s roars, chased by the screams of the dying and damned.

He hardly heard it, but knew the moment Jade kicked a soldier off her sword. Recognized the watery squelch of another splitting in two. The sounds fueled his descent. The bloodlust and agony.

Thalon’s familial sword. It did not stop swinging. Impaling another without breaking his stride.

The screams, the clang of swords, the younglings’ terrified cries?—

Garrik angled his shadowy head where four Ravens herded them, jerking their chains toward a murky pond.

They were next.

A Raven’s leathery wings unfurled from the mass. In their hands were the chains. With one effortless flap, he was sent into the air?—

From across the glade, lightning and clouds of thunderstorms exploded. Opening the sky in the direction that the male flew.

You were told ? —

I know, Thalon interrupted.

Garrik growled, stifling his reprimand for Thalon’s disobedience.

He had not conserved his strength. Because directly in front of him …

like a mirrored reflection … the exit of Thalon’s portal materialized.

He glimpsed his shadow- self on the other side the moment the wingborne Raven passed through.

Hand-delivered to Garrik’s feet by his Guardian’s gifts.

Splicing the chains in two, that portal imploded.

No doubt his screams were heard over the whole of Elysian. Like the sharpened edge of his blade, Garrik swung his arm—one lethal swipe. Slicing off the male’s wings and careening them into the decrepit water.

“ You test my patience ,” Garrik snarled at those remaining as he slammed his boot through the shrieking male’s skull, his voice nothing like himself. Horrifying. Rapturous and grim. As if Darkness himself had created Garrik in his image and unleashed him.

Near the water, frost gathered on the ground. Darkness crept along the grass until it collected in a male-shaped pillar, dawning him closer.

Young voices whimpered and cried out, their faces pale and quivering and tear-drenched as a solid sword dawned into Garrik’s shadow-made palm.

Out of the whorls, he stepped, a creature entirely hellish and unholy for this world.

Parting the storming death-cloud for his monstrous silhouette to feather into existence.

Some of the younglings ran. All directions, chased by their broken chains.

Garrik cocked his shadowy head.

One of the three elites clenched his sword as if the physical offense could do anything to a demon. “Come on, then,” he challenged, but Garrik’s abyss for eyes narrowed on the rapid pulse of his neck.

He darkly laughed.

Did it again.

A sound that echoed through the depths of Elysian’s core and had Firekeeper’s realm cowering. Etched with nightmarish purpose and depraved pleasure.

Knowing not if it was serpent darkness or his own desire, Smokeshadows coiled around the male’s throat at Garrik’s next breath and beheaded him with a hasty squeeze just as he angled his sword to strike.

A youngling screamed. More followed. Terrified of him —as they should be.

He would have harbored sympathy if not for his control nearly gone. Teetering an edge that he was hopeless to avoid, as the words kill them all sank in their claws and pulled, pulled, pulled.

From the center of the younglings and using them as a living, moving shield, the remaining two captors forced their way to the edge of the pond.

Had the one not stepped aside, Garrik may have ripped both their limbs off with his bare hands.

But as one jerked the chains, the other stepped into the water.

With a newborn in his hands.

“Ever watched something disappear beneath the surface? It’s a slow, agonizing thing.”

Garrik stepped?—

“One more and watch the whelp sink.” Yellow teeth gleamed, as if he had the control now. As if he expected to bargain with Death himself and live this day through.

Garrik looked him over. Slowly. Animalistic.

The faintest flicker of hesitation danced on the male’s face. A contorted smile.

What remained of Garrik’s faemanity took hold.

He threw a shield?—

Lunged —

Water surged around him. Down and down and down, into the endless black.

He stroked his palms through water as frigid as his corpse-cold skin. Kicking forward, lungs burning, reaching and reaching and?—

A flash.

A pale limb. Amber eyes. His shield wrapped around the babe—heartbeat steady and strong.

Then contact.

Alive. Burning-fucking-stars, she was alive .

Profound relief washed through him. His considerable arms wrapped around her, cradling the newborn’s head.

The tiniest thing he had ever held. He might have been afraid of crushing her, but time …

time was running out. Garrik’s lungs screamed the deeper they drifted, having not taken a single breath before diving in.

The pressure in his head threatened to subdue him, which meant his shield, this one and all the rest, would fall.

Mighty wings of night ripped through water, extending from his back. And with the babe cooing, blowing spit bubbles from her mouth, those incredible Smokeshadow wings beat, launching them to the surface.

Then silence.

The only sounds: droplets pouring off him like rain.

Where…?

Movement to his left drew his attention.

Thalon stepped forward, carefully. Cautious of the animal in front of him.

But Garrik was not too far gone for the stillness to go unnoticed.

For the motionless bodies littering the battlefield or the shape on the ground with a dagger at its heart to go unnoticed.

For the countless younglings clinging to Jade, who held one in her arms barely old enough to walk.

Was not entirely stolen by serpent darkness to not recognize?—

He said nothing. Only breathed as he laid the babe in Thalon’s arms, never removing his sight from the Raven still breathing and on his knees inches from the water.

Thalon and Jade. They had saved him for him.

Wicked delight bloomed in his chest.

Perhaps the male knew what came next. Garrik was tempted to ask him but …

A thousand daggers dawned into existence, claimed by the whirling tendrils mimicking his hands. All at once, they sliced the male’s flesh—mere surface wounds. Garrik’s eyes took on a villainous quality as crimson poured out, collecting at the edge of the pool until it was more blood than water.

Garrik fisted the male’s armor, pulled his graying face to meet death calling in his own.

“Ever watched something disappear beneath the surface? It’s a slow, agonizing thing,” he repeated the male’s words from earlier.

Then said, cruel and cold and final, “Deep breath now,” before shoving his face in the bloody pool.