The Brush of Black Wings by Grace Draven

Author:Grace Draven [Draven, Grace]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Magic, fantasy romance, sorcery, romantic fantasy, wizards and witches
Goodreads: 21897507
Publisher: Smashwords
Published: 2015-07-13T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

Martise’s first impression of the half world to which she had been taken was the stench. She dry-retched at the smell—the same charnel house odor that surrounded Megiddo when he first appeared to her in the temple. She bent at the waist, ready to empty her stomach between her feet. Mercifully, nothing came up, and she straightened, using her free hand to shield her nose and mouth as she breathed.

Neith’s snow-flocked forest had yielded to a gray wasteland. Spires of mountains rose in a far distance, silhouetted against a dull twilight with no emerging stars. Martise’s first glimpse of this strange place lasted only a moment before she yanked her hand out of the demon king’s icy grasp, his geas on her broken. She fled, pain rippling up her wounded calf as she raced toward a horizon where bleak sky met dead earth. There was no logic to her flight, no destination she tried to reach—only the terrified instinct of prey escaping predator.

Her shallow pants sounded thunderous in her ears, the only noise in a place drowned in silence as she ran. And she ran for naught.

Megiddo Anastas suddenly appeared out of thin air in front of her, once again enrobed in fabric made of shadow and the souls of the damned. Martise yelped, almost cannoning into him before she veered to the side and fled in another direction.

They played this diabolical game for several minutes until Martise, whose frustration began to eclipse her fear, stopped and glared at her captor. A foul wind rose from the gods only knew where, whipping dust into small whirlwinds that danced across the barren landscape. Neither cold nor hot, it whipped her loose hair across her face, obscuring her vision until she tucked it behind her ear. She and the demon king stared at each other as the wind keened around them.

“You can run forever, and you will find no end.” He still spoke in Glimming and as someone who once tried fleeing as she did and discovered an unavoidable truth. Martise shuddered. “Where will you go?” he asked, head cocked in puzzlement, as if she were the most interesting thing he’d come across in a long time.

“Away from you,” she snapped.

He smiled, and the hairs on her arms rose in warning. If he were representative of his brethren, then the five Wraith Kings were aptly named. Megiddo might be handsome were he human. He possessed an elegant face with a high forehead and long, patrician nose accentuated by the way he wore his hair-scraped back at the top and sides. The slight upturn to his rigid mouth hinted at humor, though considering the smile’s wearer, Martise wasn’t inclined to return it. His features were younger, more refined than Silhara’s. Not nearly so harsh and so much more dead.

Leached of color, his skin was a ghastly marmoreal in both shade and texture. No human, no matter how fair, sported so pallid or smooth a complexion and still breathed. Even the lead paints

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