Shadowfever (Fever #5)

by Karen Marie Moning

“I didn’t mean to kill you!” I cried. Crouching on the floor, it began to change. Oh, yes, I’d killed it. This was exactly what had happened when I’d killed Barrons. Apparently dying forced them to transform. I was transfixed, unable to look away. I would own this sin like I owned all my others. I would wait until he changed and would commit his face to memory so, in the new world I created with the Sinsar Dubh, I could do something special for him. Perhaps I could save him from becoming what he was. What man breathed inside this beast’s skin? One of the other eight Barrons had brought to the abbey the day he’d broken me out? Would I recognize him from Chester’s? Its horns melted and began to run down the sides of its face. Its head became grossly misshapen, expanded and contracted, pulsed and shrank before expanding again—as if too much mass was being compacted into too small a form and the beast was resisting. Massive shoulders collapsed inward, straightened, then collapsed again. It gouged deep splinters of wood from the floor as it bowed upon itself, shuddering. Talons splayed on the floor, became fingers. Haunches lifted, slammed down, and became legs. But they weren’t right. The limbs were contorted, the bones didn’t bend where they were supposed to—rubbery in some places, knobbed in others. Still it bayed, but the sound was changing. I removed my hands from my ears. The humanity in its howl chilled my blood. Its misshapen head whipped from side to side. I caught a g...