Fall of Ruin and Wrath (Awakening, #1)

“And how did I do that?”

“Play coy all you want. It won’t work for much longer,” Muriel snarled. “There’s only one reason why you were willing to risk your ass to get that information from us.”

“Speaking of that information,” the Lord replied. “Was any of it true?”

“Fuck you,” spat Muriel.

The Lord sighed.

“How do you think the King’s going to respond when he learns of what you were looking for?” Muriel shot back. I truly had no idea what they were speaking of. “The King’s going to have your head.”

“Doubtful.” The Lord chuckled again, and the sound raised the hairs on the nape of my neck. “I’m one of the King’s favorites, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“Not after tonight,” Muriel promised. “Not when he learns the truth.”

The truth of what?

The Lord had stopped coming closer. He now stood a few feet from us. “I’m curious, Muriel, as to why you actually believe the King would hear of anything that has occurred this night? Or even last night?”

Muriel stiffened behind me, seeming to sense the not-so-veiled threat in the Lord’s words. A stuttered heartbeat passed. “I’m leaving.”

“Okay?” The Lord cocked his head.

“I mean it,” Muriel said, and I thought I heard a tremor in his words. “You come after me, I’ll rip her heart out.”

“Does it look like I’m trying to stop you from leaving?” the Lord asked.

It didn’t.

It really didn’t.

I didn’t know why I expected anything different from the Lord. Even my Hyhborn lord. He’d needed my aid last night. He clearly didn’t need it tonight. I was a fool, because a feeling of . . . of betrayal settled in deep, which even I could admit made no sense. Just because I had helped him last night didn’t mean he was obligated to me.

Gods, I really wished I hadn’t thought of him when I touched myself.

My heart sank as Muriel moved us back through the wisteria vines. The fragrant limbs fell in place, forming a curtain that quickly obscured the Lord. Muriel was dragging me farther into the trees— away from the manor, and that was bad, because I seriously doubted this Hyhborn would let me go once he was clear of the Lord.

Panic exploded. I struggled wildly, kicking at Muriel’s legs as I beat on his arm. Each blow I landed sent a ripple of pain up my arm and leg. I gagged, eyes widening as he spun us around. I flailed against his hold, throwing my weight in every direction.

A guttural sound of warning echoed from Muriel as he lifted me off my feet. “Keep it up and I’ll— Fuck.”

Something large and dark crashed into us, knocking Muriel back several feet. He slammed into a tree, the impact shaking him first, then me. He grunted, his grip remaining as my legs started to cave.

A blur of movement whipped the loose hairs around my face. I saw a glimpse of a hand coming down on Muriel’s arm, then a flash of the milky-white lunea blade. The pressure lifted from my neck, but there was no time to feel any relief, to even catch my breath. Another hand clamped down on my arm. I was flung sideways— thrown. For a moment, I was weightless among the sweetly scented blossoms. There was no up or down, sky or ground, and in those seconds, I realized it was over. The running. The loneliness. It was all over. The Baron was going to be so sad when he found my broken body.

I hit the ground hard, rattling every bone in my body as my head snapped back. Stunning, brutal pain whipped through me.

Then there was nothing.





CHAPTER 10


Out of the fog of nothingness, I felt . . . I felt fingers drifting along the sides of my neck and under the thick twist of my braid, along the back of my skull. The touch was featherlight, but warm— almost hot, moving in soothing, barely there circles. I felt the touch of something softer against my brow.

“Is she going to make it?” a man asked.

I didn’t recognize the voice, but I thought his had the same inflection of speech of the other Hyhborn’s. I couldn’t be sure, because I slipped into the nothingness again, and I didn’t know how long I stayed there. It felt like a small eternity before I became aware of that featherlight touch along my arm— a thumb moving in the same slow, gentle circles just above my elbow. The touch wasn’t hot this time, just comforting and . . . and disarming, stirring up a prickly sense of awareness I couldn’t make sense of. I was too warm and comfortable to even try. I heard that same voice again, sounding as if it were on the other end of a narrow tunnel.

The man spoke again. “Want me to sit with her until she wakes up?”

“Offer is appreciated, Bas, but I’m fine where I am.”

Some of the fog cleared then as that acute sense of awareness increased. That voice was closer, clearer. It was him. My Hyhborn lord who . . . What had happened? Flashes of memories broke through. The gardens full of softly glowing orbs. My intuition. Blood splattered along the pale blossoms—

“You sure?” Bas’s voice was louder now. “Your time is better spent elsewhere.”

“I know it is,” the Lord responded. “But I’m quite enjoying the peace and quiet.”

“And the scenery?” Bas remarked.

“That too.”

A low, rough chuckle came from this Bas, and then there was the silence of unconsciousness again, and I welcomed it, feeling . . . feeling cared for.

Safe.

So I let myself slip away.



Slowly, I became aware of a pleasant scent. A woodsy, soft one. I also became aware of my head resting on something firm, but not nearly as hard as the ground, and then the distant singing of night birds and insects. My heart kicked up. I was still in the gardens, lying half on cool grass, but my head was—

The thumb on my arm stilled. “I think you’re finally waking up, na’laa.”

My eyes fluttered open and my breath caught. The Lord’s face was above mine, cast mostly in shadow. Only a thin slice of moonlight cut through the canopy of limbs above us, glancing off his jaw and mouth.

He gave me a faint smile. “Hello.”

Bits of what had happened came back in an instant, propelling me into action. Jackknifing upright, I scurried onto my hands and knees, backing away several feet.

“You should know by now.” The Lord’s hands fell to his lap— the lap my head had been resting in. “That I’m not going to harm you.”

“You said you didn’t care if my neck was snapped,” I panted, arms and legs trembling with the rush of leftover adrenaline.

“That is what I said.”

I stared at the shadows of his face, dumbfounded. “I helped you last night and you let him take me— ”

“But I didn’t let him take you, now did I?” He crossed an ankle of one long leg over the other. “If I had, you wouldn’t be alive. He would’ve snapped your neck or ripped out your heart as he threatened.”

He had a point. I could recognize that, but the fear and anger, the sense of betrayal and the icy panic, were flooding my system, chasing away that strange and completely idiotic feeling of safety, of being cared for.

I lifted a shaking hand to my throat, still able to feel Muriel’s grip pressing in, bruising and crushing.

“Are you in pain?” the Lord asked.

“No.” I gently prodded the skin as I rocked back on my haunches. The skin there was a little tender, but nothing extreme, which made no sense. I clearly remembered falling— no, being thrown aside and my head hitting something hard, then sudden, violent pain before the nothingness. I lifted my gaze to the Lord once more, recalling the warmth of his touch and the brush of something softer against my forehead.

“Contrary to what I led the dearly departed Muriel to believe, and unfortunately, you to also think, I didn’t allow him to continue to use you as a shield,” he said. “I stopped him, and you were caught in the middle of that.”

The memory of something hard crashing into us— a flash of a hand landing on Muriel’s arm— rose. “He . . . he threw me.”