Shadow World (Dark Fae- Extinction #4) - Quinn Blackbird Page 0,1

looking wild and savage. He looks from me on the floor to the fire growing behind me, as though just now really grasping that I’m here, tethered to him.

Amber hues crack through his black eyes like spears of realisation. He can’t draw this out, not with me trapped between a sword and a fire.

Cliff ends it, fast. So fast that I realise this man was never a challenge to him, even with all his muscles and determination, he was nothing to a dark fae, because in a mere blink, the man is collapsing to the porch—missing his jaw.

Cliff stands over him, holding that missing piece in his bloody hand.

The man’s screams are distorted by a sagging tongue and that’s all it takes before I’m crouched over on the floor, vomiting all over the place. I could have gone my entire life without seeing anything like that.

Somehow, it’s much worse than a decapitated head or severed body. The image is burnt into my mind when I hear the sinking of a blade crunching into a skull, and I know Cliff has finished the job.

The screams stop abruptly.

I stay crouched on the floor, beside the growing heat of the fire, in danger of being consumed by ravenous flames. I try to catch my breath post-sick, spitting out the bitter flavour from my mouth.

Bootsteps storm by me.

Through teary eyes, I look up as Cliff marches through the lower flames and snatches up the torch. He turns on me, his brow furrowing as our gazes lock, and he pauses for a mere heartbeat before he advances on me.

Scooping me up by my underarm, he hauls me out of the door and down the porch steps.

At the edge of the firelight, he stops and looks over his shoulder at the cottage. The flames have reached the door and are starting their ascent up the frame, devouring.

I throw a glance up at Cliff. His mouth is turned down at the corner, the frown still etched into his face. Black eyes reflect the flames.

Now, I’m no dark fae-reader, but it looks as though he regrets that this cottage is burning. It looks as though this is the last thing he wanted.

Loosening his grip on my arm, he turns his face to me. His hand slips away then reaches up for my jaw. A moment’s hesitation snares him before he presses his thumb to my damp lips and, slowly, he drags it along a droplet of sick, wiping it away.

I drag myself closer to him. His fingers slip away and shift to the nape of my neck as I bury my face into his chest and nuzzle into him.

Frozen for a moment, he’s stiff against me. Then his arm comes to loop around my back and he holds me to him.

We stand there as the cottage burns. He watches, I stay huddled against him. Neither of us speaks.

He holds me the whole time.

2

Of all the things I could say about Cliff, being predictable in his unpredictable behaviour is one of the most honest. I honestly expected him to shut down after he held me at the cottage—but for whatever reason, he hasn’t.

I mean, he’s still what and who he is. There’s no warm cuddly moments to be found with him. He doesn’t kiss me in the dark, tell me how much of his heart I hold in my grip, or caress me.

What he does do is let my hand clutch his as we trek through the rocky plains leading to Perche National Park. Already, some lots of thinning trees have sprouted around us in the blackness. And all the while, I hold his limp hand in mine, my fingers clenched tight where his are relaxed.

With my free hand, I fish out my third cigarette since leaving the cottage. The stress of it all is still coiled tight around my stiff bones, and it’s all too much for my mind to start processing yet. There’s too much to unpack. So instead of dealing with all that mess, I smoke.

It helps for a while. I’m distracted by the taste and the movement as well the heat of Cliff’s lifeless fingers that mine are hooked around. At least, I’m distracted until that familiar skittering sound rolls ahead in the thick dark.

Despite knowing that they can’t come near me with a dark fae beside me, a shudder is quick to crawl up my spine and tremble my shoulders.

“I’m hearing them more and more,” I mutter, side-stepping closer to him. I lean my