The Griever's Mark (The Griever's Mark series Book 1) by Katherine Hurley Read Free Book Online

asking! And not fighting you!”
    That shuts me up.
    We stare at each other.
    I say, “Yes, I am Leashed”—the word is filth in my mouth—“but I didn’t choose it, whatever you might think. I have to go. If you won’t save yourself.”
    “Astarti, please—”
    That’s the last thing I hear from him, and the last image is his hand reaching for mine as I enter the Drift.
    I haven’t gone far when I feel a pull on the white thread of my Leash. The pull is nothing like I felt when I entered the Current. This slides into me, violates the boundaries of my very self. Even within the Drift, distanced from my body, I feel sick.
    Two forms approach.
    Belos I recognize at once. Even if I couldn’t feel him at the end of my Leash, I would know his energy anywhere. He is like dozens of people blended into one. Logan’s energy is wild, but it’s a wildness that moves together, with its own strange rhythm. Belos has no rhythm, no flow. He has absorbed the energies of so many, and they fight within him. It’s unnatural, nauseating.
    As the two draw near, I recognize Theron. Theron’s energy, as usual, is controlled. Tidy.
    Belos stops before me, and the white Leash pulses between us. I feel his anger through the Leash, and I try to step back. Belos squeezes, and a shock of pain surges through me.
    “You know better.” His voice is strained within the Drift. It’s not easy to make sound here.
    I am silent. There is nothing I can do or say. Leashed, I’m at his mercy, which is not something he generally shows.
    But when I hear a scream of wind, a mad lash of sound, I realize that Belos is not the most immediate threat.
    “The Hounding,” says Theron, and I can hear his fear despite the strain of speaking here.
    Wind, sharp and furious, slices through me, disrupting my energies, disorienting me. Theron screams and disappears along his mooring. Belos snarls as the wind plucks at his chaotic form. He vanishes. For one moment, I think I will get to choose between Belos and the Hounding, but then, with the wind shrieking around me, my Leash is tugged, crippling me with a wave of nausea.
    I am ripped along my mooring.

     

 
    Chapter 6
     
    I FALL TO my knees in a field, freezing from the fierce wind of the Hounding, wracked by nausea from the pull on my Leash. The corset digs into my ribs as I hunch around my rebelling stomach. The patter of fleeing hooves and frantic bleats of sheep tell me I am far from the eyes of people. Of course. Belos would want it this way. He bends over me, harsh breaths ruffling my hair.
    “How did you do it?”
    “Do what?” I force out through chattering teeth.
    “Don’t play with me. You traveled from the courtyard. How?”
    I climb to my feet, making Belos take a step back. If he wants me on my knees, he’ll have to force me.
    He doesn’t. His arms are crossed, his neck too tense, his footsteps a little too quick. He’s shaken. Why?
    Behind him, Theron shifts uncomfortably, his eyes darting to me then away.
    “I don’t know. I don’t understand.”
    “You fell,” Belos prompts. “And then?”
    I hitch the front of my tattered dress a little higher. I don’t like feeling this exposed in front of Belos. What I wouldn’t give to trade this dress for pants and tunic, these sandals for a pair of stout boots.
    “Yes, I tripped over the tree roots. I fell... into the tree.” I shake my head in frustration. “I don’t understand what happened.” I watch Belos warily, waiting for his anger, but his crossed arms only tighten.
    He asks testily, “But what did it look like?”
    “Kind of...gold. And it was strange. I was swept along, like there was some kind of...stream?” I avoid the name Logan called it, not wanting to open the door for other questions.
    Belos and Theron exchange a look.
    “How did you get out?”
    My heart thumps with the memory of Logan, but I say, “I don’t know.”
    Belos’s arms uncross. “Describe it.”
    I try to remember the sensations, to imagine