Page 127 of Gravehouse

“Tie her up,” I say as if talking to a toddler.

Khloe snorts. “No offense, big brother, but?—”

“—oh you are so dead, Asher! You go against the fucking Conduct! You go against generations of loyalty, blood?—”

Khloe’s elbow slams into her face and Camille drops to the ground with a thud.

“If I knock her out we don’t need to tie her up.” Khloe shrugs, moving for the alcohol cabinet on the floating shelf by the back wall.

“Asher!” Atlas snaps from the entrance. “She will die out there.”

“She won’t,” Khloe says. “And we all know why.”

Exactly.

Khloe shoves Camille with her toe. “So how bad of a number has Emeric done on her?”

Atlas sucks in a breath. “You did make sure before you let her run off, didn’t you? Because if you hadn’t, we’re all fucking dead.”

My eyes roll. “Well-the fuck-aware, dipshit.”

Why didn’t I just knock Ivy’s ass out and tie her up in the basement...

“Everyone cliff side.” I grab the hoodie off the sofa and shove it on. “We’ll meet you all there.”

“Boss?” Devon hollers from behind me. I glance over my shoulder at the arm in the sling. He looks fucked up, but Ivy did a good job of missing a killshot.

Again.

“What?” I snap, still wanting to kill one of my own soldiers for touching her.

He clears his throat. “It could be too late.”

CHAPTER

TWENTY-EIGHT

IVY

I run.

Snow bites into my bare feet. Dead leaves whip my ankles, catching against the thin cuts already striping my skin. I shove through the trees, dragging air into my burning lungs.

Le Boucher is Asher.

“How the fuck did I miss it?” I gasp, stumbling over a buried root.

Asher watches me enter a room as if everyone around us has forfeited the right to breathe.

Pathetic, Ivy.

My foot slides on frozen mud, sending me shoulder-first into a pine. Bark tears my palm when I catch myself. I stay there, bent over, breath sawing through my chest while the woods tilt around me.

Footsteps crunch behind me, locking my knees. Fuck! No way did he catch me.

A hooded figure ducks into view, shoving the fabric back. A woman. A branch snaps to my side, and my head whips toward the sound, eyes blurred.

“Ivanya,” the woman whispers. “Let me hel?—”