Untamed - A. G. Howard Page 0,92

ten feet from the ground, my skirt ballooning around my head and all the blood rushing into my skull. The creature’s drool oozes from my shin to my thigh.

“Morpheus!” I screech, furious he’s already beneath me standing on the grass, safely out of reach of the creature.

The noose on my ankle tightens and I feel my body being dragged upward toward the snarling bandersnatch pup. I wriggle.

“Morpheus, get me out of this!”

“Get yourself out. It’s imperative you do it. Cut yourself free.” He uses his blue magic to guide the vorpal sword up to me.

I snag the blade’s handle but pause. The second I’m loose, I’ll descend headfirst to the ground. There’s not enough distance for my wings to slow the fall.

“Oh, get on with it,” Morpheus scolds, impatient. “You bloody well know I’ll catch you. Why else would I be standing down here?”

“Well,” I grump, “my first guess is so you can see up my dress.”

“I’ll admit, the view is spectacular. But that’s merely a happy coincidence.”

“As if anything with you is ever a coincidence.”

His smug chuckle grinds through me.

Snarling, I sever the tongue with one clean cut. The bandersnatch yelps and I regret having to hurt him.

My stomach flips as I fall, but Morpheus catches me, just as promised.

“Well done,” he says like he has so many times throughout my life. He cradles me close.

I tighten my arms around the nape of his neck, my head snuggled under his chin, reluctant to let him go. He squeezes me against his warm chest, as if he shares my hesitation. Then he sets me down. Without explanation, he flies up to the cap where the bandersnatch is bellowing. Soon, the creature grows quiet.

I stare at the beast’s severed tongue. It flops on the ground beside me as if alive, hissing—strange sounds like whispers—as it slithers ever closer. I back up a few steps.

Morpheus returns from atop the mushroom, picks up the vorpal sword I dropped, and wipes blood and sparkling magic from the blade before slipping it into his jacket pocket.

“What did you do with the bandersnatch?” I ask.

“I put him back to sleep for the journey to your castle. When he wakes, he’ll be healing and ill-tempered, so we will need to have him confined.”

“Healing? How? The bandersnatch’s hide is indestructible, not its tongues.”

“True. However, they’re regenerative if they’re cut with the vorpal sword. It will grow back. And the severed tongue”—he glances down at the bloody detached piece, which has found its way to the tip of my boot—“becomes an extension of the beast’s spirit.”

The oozing, slimy appendage pats my toe, making sucking sounds, like a plant searching for a place to root. The whispers it emits become louder, but still impossible to decipher. I shudder and prepare to kick it away.

“No. Pick it up,” Morpheus insists.

I shudder again.

“Since when have you been squeamish, my fair assassin of bugs, flowers, and mutated prisoners?” Morpheus teases.

“Since I saw the damage those tongues can do. When they carried you away to what I thought was your death.” Remembering how horrible it was to watch him be swallowed alive stings my chest and my eyes.

Morpheus smiles gently, obviously pleased I’m still affected by his sacrifice over a year ago. “You want I should have faith in you. Then show me the same courtesy. That tongue retains the most integral part of the bandersnatch. Each of these creatures has something unique to them alone. Something that soothes them. They’re born with it. Take off your gloves and hold the tongue in your hand—flesh to flesh. Let it impart the wisdom. Thus, you’ll know the word which will tame it, in its own language. It’s a form of Deathspeak, but because you spared the beast’s life and took only its tongue, it doesn’t bind you to the bandersnatch’s command. Instead, it binds the beast to yours.”

Pressing my lips together, I do as he says. The moment my bare skin touches the squishy, warm tongue, the whispers rush through me, lighting my skin for an instant, then fading. The tongue withers to a black, dried thing, and I toss it down.

The word spins inside me . . . in a language I’ve never heard. Yet I know exactly how to articulate it.

I start to speak it aloud but Morpheus touches a finger to my lips. “Never tell anyone the word. You’ll only pass it down to another Red Queen, should one succeed you some day. Not even your king can know it.”

He crouches to