A Scream That Shatters by Cully Mack

Author:Cully Mack [Mack, Cully]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781916097018
Publisher: Cully Mack Publishing
Published: 2019-12-02T16:00:00+00:00

❊　26　❊

Tur crouched in the crevice watching the dark-robed women weave their way through the city towards the wooden platform. His heart beat fast and he welcomed the heightened senses that always came with battle rush. Somewhere above him, the demarcation line of the glimmering dome stood. He knew they’d crossed under it by the sweltering heat and humidity.

‘Do you think Usemi knows we’re here?’ he asked as the dark-robed women ascended onto the wooden platform.

Mirah crouched right beside him, the small space in the crevice forcing them to lean against each other. He tried to ignore his prickling skin as though her touch released in him a power of his own.

‘Either he’s not here,’ she answered, ‘or he’s waiting for us to make our move.’

He glanced down at her and almost smiled. She’d seen the flames before he’d returned to the forest. Irate, she accused him of sending a beacon to announce their advance. How was he supposed to know the barn filled with Usemi’s crates would explode like that?

He’d refused to return the stallion. So what if the bay he gave her couldn’t outpace it. If she’d tethered it better, the stallion wouldn’t have bolted in the first place. Somewhere between the raging, her eye flicked at her staff. She’d huffed with resilient determination before

storming off, and he’d understood why his heart still beat in his chest.

She’d not spoken for the rest of their journey. It reminded him of when she’d left him in the shallow chamber with the dead chimera, and how she infuriated him as they crossed the mountain range. The Beast had ensured her survival then, and he hoped it would do the same again now. She whispered something and her eyes widened.

‘What? What is it?’

He scanned over the city and its enormous boundary boulders and saw no immediate danger.

Mirah gazed at him and her expression made his heart stumble.

‘Usemi’s chimera, it’s a glamour, they’re not all real.’

He forced his gaze back to the reptiles basking on the boulders. They looked real enough to him.

She tugged on his shirt, and when he turned back, the excitement in her green eyes ignited a spark in his own. He flexed his hands, ignoring the urge to rub them together. He’d never seen her look this way.

Golden light emanating from the dome stole her shadows and lit up her eyes, and then his tongue was in her mouth. He didn’t dare glimpse her face, couldn’t bear to see her wrath.

A silent roaring magnified in his chest and crescendoed. Never had he felt more alive even knowing today would probably be his last. At his touch, she softened and the entire world faded into oblivion. Delving, exploring, stealing an instant so immeasurable, time itself paused… and he glimpsed what might have been. He would have stayed there in this moment forever and it pained him to withdraw.

‘Mirah, I’m sorry.’

Her eyes flickered with confusion. ‘It’s all right. I understand.’

She didn’t understand, and he knew it. She had no idea how he felt about her.

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