Ride the Storm (Cassandra Palmer 8)

“Neither will you,” she said, turning around for the first time.

And for a moment, I forgot everything, even why I was there. Because she was beautiful. No, I thought, in stunned amazement, she was beautiful, achingly, heartbreakingly, unbelievably so. Raven-dark hair, flowing like a river almost to the floor, eyes like a sea storm, blue and gray and glinting in anger, a face so perfect it hurt, like a force of nature carved in flesh. Blue robes that flowed about her like waves when she moved and grabbed one of the witches.

And slit her throat.

Chapter Twenty-six

I stared at the dying woman, thrashing in Nimue’s arms, and a horrible sense of déjà vu slammed into me. Her hair was long and half gray, and I couldn’t see her face. But, for a second, it was Rhea all over again. A fact only heightened when Nimue looked up.

And the beautiful blue eyes flooded black.

Black like the endless night sky, without any stars. Black like the pitiless depths of the sea. Black like the eyes of a monster, a monster I’d seen before, a monster that—

Eating you, he’s eating you. He’s—

The room seemed to telescope, and that horrible feeling I’d kept having broke over me, freezing my limbs, tightening my throat, keeping the scream that was building trapped inside.

Until Nimue grabbed another victim.

And I made a sound that the fey didn’t seem to notice, but that had Pritkin’s head jerking around. Our eyes met, and suddenly, everything was happening at once: Arthur bellowing, women screaming, Pritkin out of his bonds and lunging, the room dissolving into chaos as a mob of fey jumped for him and he jumped for Nimue—

And wrenched something off her neck.

“Ohshit!”

I started, because all that had taken a couple seconds, and suddenly something was streaming at me over the heads of the crowd. Something on a fine gold chain, something that gleamed in the lamplight, something I would never catch in a million years, because I had the coordination of a clumsy two-year-old. Something that my hands plucked out of the air anyway, at the same moment that Nimue looked up.

And our eyes met.

“Vlva,” she spat.

“Sybil,” the spell dutifully translated.

“Fuck,” I whispered.

And then I turned and fled.

“Get the girl!” someone yelled as the room exploded in spells, and the two guards on the door sprang at me.

“Protect!” I gasped, and my knives all but leapt off my wrist, with no restrictions this time, because I didn’t have time for any. I didn’t have time for anything, except running like a madwoman, my weapons sending the guards staggering back as I pelted down the connecting chain of rooms, with no idea what I was doing.

Until I looked down.

And saw a bright silver key resting in the palm of my hand.

Okay, I knew what I was doing.

I just didn’t know where—

“Secure the pr

incess’ chamber!” someone yelled.

Yeah, but where was it?

“No, you dolt. To the left!”

Thanks, I thought wildly as my knives caught up in time to send two more guards diving out of the way. I ran out of the queen’s chambers and took a hard left. And kept on going, my weapons weaving a deadly web across the corridor behind me, while what sounded like every guard in the world thundered after me.