Royal House of Shadows: Part 7 of 12 by Jessica Andersen

Author:Jessica Andersen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2016-06-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

One second Dayn was locked on Reda’s mouth with nothing in his head except: Need. Want. Now.

In the next, she screamed and jerked away from him, her face ashen with shock, her mouth a round O of horror as she whispered, “No. Dear God, no. You’re...”

Startled, he reared back. “Reda, what—” And he felt his lips slide over his secondary canines. His fully extended secondary canines. The ones that were a good bit bigger than the witch’s, and made for the exact same purpose. “Oh, shit. Wait. I can explain.” He took a step toward her, reached for her. “It’s not—”

She broke and bolted, scattering like a wild hare into the nearest section of trees, which put her headed away from both the cabin and the cave.

He went after her, but let her get ahead and moved only fast enough to keep her in sight. Not just to give her some room, but to give himself some, too. Because he was suddenly very not okay with what had just happened.

He’d seen the female blood drinker feeding from the gnome’s neck vein, and he’d damn near lost his mind. Or maybe he had lost it there for a few seconds, because that was the only possible explanation for him trying to kiss Reda with his fangs up close and personal. “Wait,” he called, lengthening his strides to catch up to her. “Please, just give me a minute to explain.”

She threw a panicked look over her shoulder, then at the surrounding forest. And, seeing a lighter spot off to one side, swerved and bolted toward where the normal forest trees gave way to a roughly circular patch of scattered trunks whose roots overlapped and intertwined in intricate patterns.

“Reda, no!” he shouted, accelerating after her. “Stop! Those are borers! The ground isn’t safe!”

But she just kept going. Either she didn’t believe him, or she didn’t think a tree could be worse than a vampire. She plunged into the grove, pounding across the root network, seeming not to notice how her footsteps suddenly echoed hollowly.

Cursing, Dayn followed her in, staying close to the skin-smooth trunks and leaping among the sturdier roots. The surface gave like a mattress beneath his boots and the stink of sulfur wafted up, warning that the grove was fully mature. The roots of the carnivorous trees had pushed aside the earth, creating a hollow to collect their digestive acids.

Too late, she understood. She stopped abruptly near a large parental tree, hands outstretched for balance, and looked back at him with new horror written on her face.

And she fell through.

“No!” He lunged for the ragged hole, stopping on the last sturdy root and coughing against the sulfurous stench that rose up from the torn spot. His gut wrenched. “Reda!”

Then—thank the gods—a wrist-thick root near the edge of the hole shuddered and he heard a low cry of, “Help me!”

“I’m coming.” Yanking off his sword belt, he jammed the leather-sheathed short sword into the huge trunk of the main borer, fisting it so hard that the blade sank in, leather and all.

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