Page 128 of Of Bargains & Betrayal

“It’s harder than you thought it would be?”

“Yeah,” I warbled. “And I don’t know what to do. It’s like I can’t breathe anymore. I can’t sleep. I can barely eat. And I’m so fucking sad, Gallan. Everything is so bleak, and I can’t see an ounce of light in any damned direction anymore.”

Gallan pulled me to a stop just before the street yielded to an empty lot and a small copse of trees. He clasped my shoulders and fixed me with a look full of so much conflict, I didn’t stand a chance at holding myself together. My lips trembled, and I clamped my hand over my face as an ugly noise clawed its way out of my chest.

“Oh, princess.” Gallan folded me right against his chest, smoothing a hand over the back of my head and the other across my back. He rubbed in soft, soothing motions while I wrapped my arms around him and utterly unraveled. “It’s always darkest before the dawn. You know that, right?”

Goddess take me.

When was the last time I’d been hugged? When was the last time I felt that squeeze of reassurance? Or a physical pillar of support? The soothing wrap of arms trying to chase away my woes?

Hugging was one of my favorite things in the realm, and my life in Odessa had been full of proper hugs, not those half-assed single-arm things people liked to pretend were the same. To Eilir’s credit, they had tried their best with their thin, wooden body and branch-like arms, but it usually just amounted to them wrapping themselves around my arm and squeezing it until it felt like it’d fall off.

Streja might have been the last person to give me a proper hug, and that did little to soothe my state.

But Gallan held steadfast, rubbing my back and keeping me upright until I wasn’t sure there was a tear left in my body and a measure of embarrassment crept up my chest. Here I was, warbling away to a revered member of the Elixia after pulling them out of bed in the wee hours of the morning. Someone who had arguably seen me at my worst during those days in the dungeon but likely knew little else of me beyond that. I was well on my way to making sure everyone in Grimmoria thought I was an absolute basket case, one breakdown at a time.

“Thanks, Gallan,” I rasped as I went to break away from him. He wouldn’t let me budge. “It’s alright. You can⁠—”

Gallan squeezed me and hissed, “Quiet.”

I tried to glance up, but couldn’t move an inch.

“I don’t mean to alarm you, love.” Gallan’s voice was still barely a whisper, but it sounded like it was coming through clenched teeth. “But we’ve got some undesirable company. Three, by my count. Do not freak out, okay? I need you to ease up on those little toes, peek over my shoulder, and stay calm.”

Undesirable company.

I didn’t need to ask for clarification to know we’d drawn the attention of some of the sick shifters I’d been so convinced weren’t real. As for staying completely calm, there seemed to be a bit of a miscommunication between my head and my heart on that. The fraught muscle pounded at an uncomfortable rate as I slowly rose onto my toes, still leaning on Gallan for support, and got my first glimpse of one of the creatures.

It was unlike any wolf I had ever seen—more like a distant, mutated relative of the steely gray canines who called the mountains of Odessa home.

These shifters had horrifically arched backs, with segments of vertebrae sticking up through their patchy black fur. Pallid gray skin filled the gaps, full of weeping sores, and covered most of their heads and muzzles. White, soulless eyes gazed back at me, a permanently gaped maw dripping yellowed saliva onto the ground.

My stomach churned, and I gripped Gallan a little tighter.

“One more?” he whispered.

“Yeah,” I croaked.

There were four of them surrounding us, and their heaving, crackling breaths drew closer, as did the stench of something unmistakably rotten.

“Listen to me.” Gallan slid his hand off my head and slipped it between us. He pried my fingers off his shirt next and guided them to where I’d fastened the bright iron dagger to my belt. “Arm yourself, princess. Slowly. Got it?”

I gripped the hilt and slid it from the sheath, keeping it close to my body. “Got it.”

“Good. Now, step around me. Back to back.”

My legs ardently did not want to move, but I forced myself the few tight steps around to mold my back to Gallan’s, my head tucked between his shoulder blades.

The diseased shifter behind us was closer, and I could glimpse two of the three others in my periphery. Whining. Drooling. Reeking.

I readied my blade, tucked down against my wrist, but I couldn’t get my hand to stop shaking.

A ring of blue fire kicked up around us, as high as my hips, and I tensed. It was feet away, but the heat still licked at my skin. The wolves let out a series of low whines and yelps, lowering to their haunches.

“Just buying us a second,” Gallan called back. “We aim to kill, okay? You are granting them mercy. And goddess help you if one of them bites you. Incoming!”

The wolf straight ahead lunged through Gallan’s nytefire, the sizzle of its sparse fur be damned. I panicked and flung myself to the side just as the nytefire vanished, narrowly dodging the fetid body, only to end up directly in the path of one of the wolves flanking us.