Page 80 of When Ashes Fall

Gizzi climbed my pants and shirt before settling on my shoulder. “I can smell him nearby,” Gizzi told me.

“Magnazius said he’s in the barn.”

“Oh, is that what Magnaaaazius said?” Gizzi muttered as he drew out the horse’s name.

I scratched his head. “You’ll always be my first and my favorite.”

Gizzi huffed, but he didn’t complain further. I descended the stairs as Knox emerged from around the corner of the cabin. He still hadn’t bothered to find clothes.

He froze when he spotted me, and his gaze fell to my neck. Only a couple of his bruises remained visible, but did remorse flash through his eyes when he spotted them?

That arrogant prick doesn’t know how to feel remorse, I reminded myself.

And while that was true, I was sure I saw some guilt in those orange depths before he bowed his head. Then he lifted his head and jerked his chin toward the roof.

“Why is there so much smoke?” he demanded.

My teeth ground back and forth as I glared at him. “I cleaned up the mess you made.”

When his eyes shot back to me, whatever guilt might have been there was gone. A steely coldness had replaced it.

“It’s time to return to the castle,” he stated. “You’ll ride Magnazius while I follow.”

So not only had he probably damn near broken his neck to get away from me last night, but now he wouldn’t even sit behind me on the horse. “He’s your steed; you should ride him. I prefer to walk anyway.”

“That’s not an option.”

I contemplated flying across the distance separating us, launching myself onto him, and clawing out his eyes. Once I ripped them free, I’d shove them down his throat so he could choke on them and hopefully never talk again.

I smiled grimly at the image, lifted my chin, and descended the stairs with a regal bearing I didn’t feel. Instead of walking toward Magnazius, I strode toward the castle. If he intended to chase me down and throw me on the back of the horse, then so be it, but I did have options, and defiance was one of them.

I didn’t make it thirty feet before the clip-clop of Magnazius’s hooves sounded against the brick roadway. Before he reached me, I veered into the grass to cross the front yards.

The pounding hooves grew louder as Magnazius bore down on me, but I didn’t turn to look at them; if Knox decided to run me over, so be it. Magnazius would shy away from trampling me. The horse was nowhere near as big a prick as his owner.

I was stepping around a small garden fence when Knox’s arm hooked around my waist and he plucked me off the ground. A scream of rage and frustration built in my throat, but I managed not to embarrass myself by releasing it.

He tossed me across his lap, so I lay facing the ground with my ass in the air. Gizzi’s claws dug into my shoulder as he scrambled to keep his grip on my shirt. My head bobbed up and down with the rhythm of the horse, my stomach rolled, and my hair fell forward to block my view of the ground.

“Can I bite him now?” Gizzi demanded.

I contemplated this as I braced my hands against Magnazius’s side and lifted myself enough to ease the pressure on my stomach. “Will one bite really kill him?”

“Yes.”

“Can you give him a half bite or something to make him really sick but not kill him?”

“It’s all or nothing.”

While I’d really like to tear out Knox’s heart, I wanted to be the one who killed him, not Gizzi. “No. No biting today.”

“But you’re saying there’s a possibility in the future?”

“I never rule anything out.”

“Yay!” Gizzi cheered.

CHAPTER FIFTY