Erik’s face screws up. I can smell blood on him from Kian’s teeth slicing into his skin.
Malix speaks up. “Can you even create the antidote to the shadow venom? Or were you lying? Just stringing us along like a fucking cheat?”
The witch’s eyes are so wide I can see whites all the way around his irises. His gaze pins on Malix, and he gasps out, “Yes! Yes, I really can! It’s on the altar! It’s almost ready!”
Malix latches on to his words. “Almost?”
Erik clutches at Kian’s fur. A single tear slips down his cheek as he gazes up at Malix. “It’s missing an ingredient.”
“An ingredient you have?” Malix prompts.
“No,” Erik admits. “But the source is close. Just two tablespoons of sap from the Tree of Life. Once that’s added, it’ll do what you need it to do.”
“So just that one ingredient?” Malix says. “Just that, and it’ll work? Everything else is already done?”
“Yes! I just need to get the sap!” Hope flares bright in the little worm’s eyes.
He thinks he’s safe.
Too bad he’s so naïve.
Frost’s cold voice cuts through the night air. “Good. Then we don’t need the witch anymore.”
Kian growls, then clamps down on Erik’s neck and rips out his throat.
I manage to stay where I am and not make a sound, but the brutal violence of it turns my stomach. Erik’s green eyes stare up at the starry sky, his eyelids twitching, as his entire life’s blood spills from his ruined neck. There’s nothing left of his Adam’s apple, his skin tattered, most of it gone… all that’s left is exposed viscera and gushing blood, bubbling as he struggles to breathe through ruined airways.
He goes still in less than five seconds, the light fading from his eyes.
Kian shifts back. Black smoke and shadows swirl around him, and his nightmarish shadowy wolf limbs sink into his form like they never existed at all. Then he’s on his feet, naked, covered in the witch’s blood from his thick lips down to his navel. The sight is almost as terrifying as his shadow wolf.
“What do we do with him?” Malix asks.
“Bury him. Right here,” Kian adds with shrug. “I’m going to go clean up.”
Frost glances around the yard, then angles off toward a lean-to shed against the back of the house. Presumably for digging implements.
Malix crosses his arms over his chest and steps over to stand beside me, both of us looking down at the dead witch. “You okay, kitty?”
“I hate you,” I reply, irritable at his incessant use of the rude nickname. “I’m fine. The asshole didn’t have good intentions for me, so I’m not mourning his death, if that’s what you mean.”
“So you’re okay with killing,” Malix says.
I glance over to find his violet eyes staring at me in the darkness. “When the situation calls for it.”
That irritatingly adorable grin
cuts across his face. “Maybe you’re not a useless kitten after all.”
“I really hate you,” I growl.
Frost returns from the lean-to with three shovels. He throws one at Malix, then offers another to me.
I glare at him for a long moment before snatching the shovel from his fingertips.
Guess I’m digging a damn grave.
Chapter 16