white. The other, blue and bright, gazed at her steadily. He gave a quick grin. “Thank you.”
She smiled. “It’s what I do.”
He nodded once, sharply, and turned back around.
Z hopped out of the car and grasped her around her waist. “I’ll carry you to your ride. And it won’t hurt to see if he can take us both.”
But as they rounded the front of the car, they understood quickly the bird could not take them both. It’d be a miracle if he could take her.
He was huge, but as ragged and torn as an old sweater. His feathers were dull and sparse. Raised, healed scars covered his body. He kept his face turned away from them.
Even through the haze of pain and sickness, Rune’s heart tightened with sympathy. He’d been through some bad, bad shit.
She didn’t weigh much, but still. The battered bird was not going to carry her easily. Jeremiah, back in his human form, stood beside the bird.
“Come,” he said. “Before he changes his mind.”
She didn’t argue, but turned to Z for a kiss.
Maybe a last kiss.
His lips barely touched hers before Elias called from the car. “We have to leave now.” His voice was tight with impatience and something else.
Fear.
“Crawlers are close,” Jeremiah said. “Get on him if you’re going.”
“Wait,” Z said. He took her shoulders. “Bite me. A little blood will help you get where you need to go.”
She was too tired to argue.
Z pulled one of his blades and sliced into his bottom lip, and before she knew what he meant to do, he glued his lips to hers.
She drank his kiss.
“Princess,” Elias yelled. “Now or he leaves without you.”
The bird knelt in the road, and without another hesitation, she motioned for Z to help her climb atop him.
It was time.
And it felt like the end.
The end of her time with Z.
She shook her head, hard, and fell against the bird’s back, her hands tangled in his feathers.
Z.
“Soon, sweet thing.”
The bird rose into the sky, groaning and creaking like the bones of a hundred year old man.
Rune closed her eyes.
Z.
Silently she cursed life, and fate, and sacrifice.
And love. She cursed love as well.
The wind caressed her skin, and she allowed a few tears to fall as her heart was once again shattered.
Her blood seeped into the dry skin of the bird, and he seemed to fly faster.
Taking her ever onward toward a fate that was, maybe, worse than death.
Chapter Sixteen
She realized vaguely that the bird was descending. Seconds later, he slanted his abused body and let her roll off his back.
She hadn’t the strength to break her fall, but landed with a bone-shattering thump on the hard ground.
He didn’t drop her and leave, though.
When she gathered the strength to struggle to her knees and lift her head to look, he was sitting a few yards away, watching her.
“Flesh?” she croaked.
He merely watched.
And she could see the madness in his small, black eyes. He continuously tilted his head with quick movements and darted his eyes, as though keeping watch for danger. Then he would put his disturbing gaze back on her.
She fought her way to her feet, pretty sure she wasn’t going to be able to walk more than a few steps without collapsing, despite the little bit of energy she’d gotten from Z’s blood. It was wearing off quickly as the rot overpowered it.
And that pissed her off.
She threw her head back and screamed in rage—or tried to scream. What came out was a hoarse cry. That act threw her off balance and she fell backward and hit the ground. Hard.
“Son of a bitch, bird. Fucking bird. I broke my ass.”
That struck her as funny. She began giggling and couldn’t stop, though she hadn’t the breath or energy to laugh.
The rot was eating her brain.
Brain in a jar.
“Shut up,” she whispered.
The bird’s stare was somehow more curious, as though he waited eagerly for what further entertainment the demented princess would offer him.
At last, she stood and stumbled to the bird. “Where do I find the Flesh lord? I’m going to need you to shift and…”
She frowned.
The bird turned his head, but not before she spotted something close to human shame in his eyes.
She was good at recognizing shame.
“Poor little guy,” she murmured. “Poor little guy.”
He didn’t move.
She reached out, slowly, carefully, and ran her hand over one of his tattered, filthy wings. Even that small attempt at comforting the bird wore her out. “What happened to you?”