Page 3 of Dream Reaper

But it also acted as a beacon to Talos.

He would see her unless she found some place to hide, some place so deep and dark it could smother the glow of her magical chains. She didn’t care what direction she went, as long as it led her away from Talos, away from that hissing whisper in the trees.

The pain in her side had become unbearable, and yet onward she ran. She couldn’t stop. If she did, Talos would capture her and slice a blade across her throat.

Or perhaps he’d stab it into her back, breaking through the bones of her spine, or driving hard into the base of her neck where it met her shoulders…

The ravine opened and spat her out into a small clearing illuminated by moonlight.

She darted across, her boots crunching against dead, brittle, long grass. Without a thought for direction, she plunged out of the moonlight and back into the darkness of the trees.

Any minute she would feel the cutting stab of the blade in her back. Perhaps he’d grab her by her hair and jerk her head back⁠—

She never saw the ground disappear ahead of her.

One minute she pounded between two crooked trees, and the next she pitched forward in a free fall.

Screaming, she tumbled, the drop so sharp she feared she had walked off the edge of a cliff. But the frequent jarring of her body against the ground suggested she rolled down a steep incline. Every thump sent jarring pain into her bones and muscles.

There was so much pain, she didn’t know what hurt and what didn’t.

Over and over, she rolled until even the screams were stolen from her lungs. At last, she skidded to a halt in a tangle of undergrowth. She heaved, half retching as she stared up at the claw-like tree branches above her. The branches and the sky and the moon spun in sickening circles.

Breathe, she told herself. Just breathe…

She inhaled sharply, then gagged and sobbed. Every bone in her body hurt—had she broken everything?

Slowly, Ava tested first her fingers, then her arms and shoulders. She rolled first one, then the other. So far so good. With a groan, she pushed herself up onto her elbows and lifted her left leg, then her right. Her body screamed in agony.

But both legs lifted and settled at her command.

No broken bones, then.

She didn’t know if she could walk, let alone run anymore, but Talos’s curses echoed through the forest above her on the ledge, where she had tumbled into her freefall. Biting down on her lower lip, she pushed herself up onto her feet and leaned against the tree until the world stopped spinning.

Then she plunged into the undergrowth once more, her steps a drunken stagger.

Above her, Talos bellowed her name around foul curses. “When I catch up with you, I’m going to cut your fingers off one by one⁠—”

She blocked him out, focusing on her breathing, on the crunch of dead leaves beneath her feet, and on the glow of her enchanted bindings held in front of her face to keep whip-like branches from slapping her and gouging out her eyes.

She stumbled onward, deeper into the forest. It didn’t matter where she went, as long as she got away from Talos.

Falling down the ravine may have been a blessing in disguise, for it would take him longer to slide down and catch up to her, unless he wanted to risk a headlong tumble as wild as her own had been.

She hoped his overwhelming sense of self-preservation would make him more cautious than that and give her a big enough head start.

Something burst from the darkness between two trees and slammed into her.

A scream died in the back of her throat as she skidded sideways and crashed into a thick pile of leaves and ferns. A heavy weight pressed down on her, crushing the breath from her lungs. Tree branches swayed above her, and the moon hung coldly above her and offered no support or hint of escape.

How had he caught up to her so quickly?

She opened her mouth to scream, but a hand covered her face. A finger smashed against her nose, partially blocking her nostrils.

She bucked her hips and thrashed, but her kidnapper held her more firmly. Then, the branches, trees, and mocking moon disappeared from view as something warm and leathery slipped over her face. It brushed against her forehead as it slithered over the back of her head, as if it meant to swallow her down into the damp soil against her back.

This wasn’t Talos. This was some unearthly thing that had climbed out of the bowels of the Shadewood.