from the dead for you. I have to hope she can stop the killing for you too.” Every word was dragged from his lips. Exhaustion and blood loss getting to him.
He could stop any soldier he wanted and command them to take Draeven back in his stead, but he did not trust any other to get him back in time. Not when his life was already waning . . . but there was one. One who was strong enough to carry his hand. One who could run near as fast as a horse.
Lazarus took a breath and then released the troll.
The shadow of its soul slipped forward and cemented. A beast nine feet tall with skin hard as leather. He looked similar to men, but there was no mistaking what he was. Not with the height and the misshapen face.
Lazarus looked at the beast he hadn’t dared let out since Quinn’s death, but he was the only one that could do this.
“You take him to Lorraine and stand guard at Shallowyn. If he dies, so do you.”
Draeven’s eyes fluttered, a brief look of surprise, but not alarm.
“You said you’d never forgive me for what happened to her,” Draeven rasped as the troll leaned down and lifted him as if he were a mere child and not a man.
“I don’t have to forgive you to not want you dead,” Lazarus replied. True and yet, not the whole truth.
“Be safe—” Draeven’s rasp of a warning cut off as blood tinged his lips.
“Take him. Now,” Lazarus commanded. The troll nodded once and turned, running the opposite way of the battle and toward the manor. Toward Shallowyn.
Soldiers cleared the way, stepping aside at the mere sight of the beast.
Lazarus pushed aside the worry that tugged him. Draeven would make it. He was strong. But the fight for his life was his own now. His and Lorraine’s.
Lazarus feared Draeven was right. Quinn . . . she was just getting started.
Chapter 38
Edge of Darkness
“When we are nearest to the end, it is the things we want most that we cling to.”
— Draeven Adelmar, rage thief, left-hand to the King of Norcasta, dying
Draeven hissed in pain as the troll ran, unintentionally jostling his wound.
It was bad. He knew it was bad, but he couldn’t die now.
He wouldn’t. Not when they were so close.
Not when there was a beast tamer he was waiting to see again.
Draeven didn’t notice how he was fading. Nor did he realize when Shallowyn came into view. It was only when shouting started once more that he even tried to stir and found it difficult.
Panic started to set in as he tried and failed to open his eyes.
His chest felt like it was on fire.
“Get me a healer,” a strained, curt voice commanded. He knew that voice, though he couldn’t place it. Not with the pain consuming him.
He didn’t notice when they laid him down. There was no relief when the breastplate was pried from him, followed by the chainmail. The burning, though, that worsened as the tunic beneath his armor was cut away.
Voices drifted in and out.
Darkness was closing in.
And the barest touch of cold reached for him.
But a face swam into view. A face he dreamed of often. Gray skin the color of winter skies. Obsidian horns and a head full of silver hair. Blue eyes brighter than the sky and more piercing than the sharpest sword.
A keen intelligence shone through them. Her strong will conveyed in the set of her brow. But it was her lips, so full, that made her an open book to read. They showed her kindness and compassion, even when her haunting, piercing eyes could not.
Draeven thought of her face, and he held on.
Even as the burning lessened and the cold creeped closer and closer.
He thought of her and a warmth stirred inside him, battling off that chill.
A fire raged inside him.
Rage that she had left without so much as a word.
Longing, because he missed her.
While their time together had been brief, something in him called to her. Understood her. And felt it calling in return.
It was that call, that desire, that burning that fueled him.
He needed to see that face again before it was all over and the dark realm claimed him.
And so Draeven held on.
He held onto that light though the darkness threatened to claim him, but when he opened his eyes, it was not that face that looked at him.
Cast in shadows with only candlelight to show her features, a very tired Lorraine sat