Eldritch (The Eating Woods, #2)

by Keri Lake

I lit the fireplace in the room across the hall for her, then headed to the room adjacent to Zevander’s. A cold breeze danced over my feet before I’d even opened the door, and when I stepped inside, the temperature nearly stole my breath. The windows had been knocked out, the curtains blowing in the breeze as rain pattered across the stony floor. “Absolutely not this room,” I muttered to myself.

Ummmm?! Sound the fuckin' alarm

Slowly turning around brought two glowing eyes staring down at me from the rafters there. I gasped and lifted the torch to find an owl perched on the wooden beams overhead. How he’d gotten inside, I didn’t know, seeing as the window and door were both closed. Instead of pondering it too long, I exhaled a shaky breath and tiptoed back toward the corridor, closing the door behind me.

Uhhhhh hello what! Why is she ignoring these possibly crucial red flags

“You’re a fate I never dared to dream, moon witch. The stars I was never meant to grasp. But seeing how this gluttonous world devours the unclaimed, I’m calling you mine.” He dragged me into a kiss that burned across my mouth and deep inside my chest.

“Does it make you nervous?” he asked, as if he’d read my mind. “I worry that I won’t be able to accommodate.” I couldn’t imagine the pain, given the size of him.

Heat spiraled through me. Building. Tensing. Climbing. I’d felt that sensation with him before, knew what awaited me. My eyes rolled back, drool dampening my mouth and cheek, trapped behind his hand.

“Do you feel that? The burning need that you can’t quite pinpoint? The pressure and heat rising in your muscles?” He spoke through clenched teeth, as if the sensation angered him. “I feel it every time I look at you. This maddening need consumes me.”

He jumped in front of his target, and a blast of heat struck Zevander as the black flame bounced over his skin.

Oh wow this is time overlapping!

For reasons he couldn’t reconcile in his head, though, the sight of himself stirred a jealous rage. Zevander jerked his elbow, hitting him in the groin, and the older self grunted, adjusting his leather trousers.

Hahhaha

“You should’ve perished alongside your mother,” Sacton Crain snarled. “Silver-eyed devil.”

“My mother was Vonkovyan?” “Lyverian.” He spat the word like it was a rancid taste in his mouth. “Nothing more than a slave.”

“Choose what? They would’ve found a reason to burn you for something. They never bothered to know your heart.” He drew a dagger from his hip and held the pointed end of it over his own heart. “Do it. Shove it into my chest.” He forced my palm over the hilt. “I’d sooner suffer the pain of this blade than see the hate in your eyes.”

“You’re wrong. This is the first time I’ve ever felt something more than the pain. I saw the flush of your face,” he said, brushing his knuckles over my cheek. “The parting of your lips for breath.” His thumb caressed my bottom lip. “I’ve never watched something so beautiful in my life. Like the sun breaking over the horizon. It was ecstasy.”

He trailed his fingertip down my temple. “I would call you the soft glow of moonlight in a pitch-black world. A prayer I never spoke aloud, but somehow the gods answered anyway. The strike of lightning I dare to behold without flinching.” His brow flickered as he ran his thumb over my bottom lip. “The reason I breathe.”

Slowly, she sauntered toward him and lowered herself between his legs. “Give me your seed. Bond with me. And I will deliver your vengeance on a golden platter.”

A silvery opalescent fluid that, upon entering a mate’s body, was known to be the most transcendent pleasure in existence. It required a very sacred ritual and the exchange of blood. His stomach sank at the thought, but with his last breath, he would see to it that the attack against his family was properly avenged. “I’ll do it.”

“No. I will not. Why are we connected? Who are you, and why do your afflictions look like my brother’s?”

He’d always imagined death to be the most painful experience of all, but it wasn’t. Living was far more painful than dying.

Eyes rimmed in dark circles, as if she’d not slept, at all, she stood heaving. “King Jeret…has summoned…you.”

As we approached the decayed shelter, I took notice of strange fissures along the cracked dirt, much of it covered by the forest’s vegetation. Interspersed in the surrounding forest lay toppled and decayed trees, as if they’d been knocked down by something and left to rot. Frowning, I stared off at an exceptionally large oak that’d been entirely uprooted.

“What do you suppose did that?” I asked as we passed it. “Could’ve been a violent storm. I’m not entirely familiar with your world to say for certain.” “We have been known for the occasional tornado, but those roots are so…extensively disturbed.”

As I approached, he doubled over, wheezing to catch his breath, and pointed toward a figure hunched in the distance. “Aleysia! She’s…she’s…not…herself!”

“A tree. A horribly mangled tree in the woods.” She stared off as if she were looking at it right then. “And there was a beast inside of it.”

“I was told that my ancestry is Corvikae. Is it possible that I might be Lyverian?” “They are the same. As I said, Corvikae came here from Aethyria.” Her brow raised as she stared back at me. “And you, child. You look very much like my sister.”

“My mother was a slave.” “Your mother was the daughter of a great priestess. She was taken many years ago by the Red Men.”

“Do you know what the mark on your arm signifies?” “Only that I have some strange connection with the dead.”

“Strange connection, indeed.” She sipped the water and cleared her throat. “You are Vasmora.”

“A death vessel for the goddess. It seems you were chosen to serve as her corporeal entity. Through you...

“That’s where my blood magic comes from? Morsana?” “Sweet child, it is not a simple blood magic that you possess. It is eldritch. A...

Dravien snorted. “You speak bird dragon now?” “I just feel like he wants us to go inside.” “Of course he does. There’s probably a nest full of them inside, all starving.”

Raivox roared again, flapping his wings and leapt into the air, hovering over the chasm. A smiled tugged at Zevander’s mouth. “Hello, shitbag. Nice of you to show up.”