The King's Leash (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 7) by Katherine Sparrow Read Free Book Online

must have been making similar calculations, for he knelt and pulled a long staff from his bag. It was gnarled, made of red wood, and thrummed with powerful destruction magic.
    “The Gray sounds like one of those depressed bands Lila enjoys so much,” I said lightly as we started walking down the hill.
    “Or some ridiculously expensive cocktail at one of the bars that caters to the suited,” Merlin added.
    We began to move slower as a tickling and bitter sense seeped into the sweet faerie air. The woods around us became increasingly withered, with dulled bark and pocked leaves. The forest path led us around a bend, and then we saw it.
    It was a thing made of shadows and cobwebs. It was hard to look at, for it fluttered in and out of reality or perhaps operated on some other plane. It stood in a clearing full of mold and mushrooms that spread out in a wide circle from where it stood. The Gray undulated strangely from where it seemed stuck to the forest floor. It stretched forward and back again, like it was trapped and struggling to break free. It seemed to be raging against itself.
    I instinctively took a step back from it. I stepped into a puddle of the gray muck. It made a squelching sound.
    The Gray seemed to sense us and grew stiller and more solid.
    It was easier to look at now, and I noted it was roughly human-sized and shaped. I could also make out that across its surface there were… mouths and hands beneath a skin-like surface. All of them reached and grasped outward. Seeking something.
    The Gray was made of nightmares, and it reminded me of something. My mind skipped erratically backward, searching for whatever I had seen that was similar.
    “Let’s be done with this,” Merlin said, and hit his staff against the ground. I nodded and pulled my strongest spells into my hand.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 6
    Mouths and Hands
     
    Merlin threw exploding magic at the Gray, and I quickly followed with disruption, chaos, and beheading spells.
    Our bright magic flew straight and true toward the Gray.
    It didn’t make any motion against the spells, but instead let itself be hit, in four quick successions. Our magic seemed to do it no harm.
    Magic leaves trails, and our spells left a trail between us and the Gray. The creature pulled on the connection between us. It tugged hard. Merlin and I stumbled forward.
    “Gods and monsters,” I swore under my breath.
    I tried to sever the strands of magic the Gray somehow used to drag us closer. Merlin blasted a steady stream of spells out of his staff. They all hit the Gray.
    None of the magic slowed it down. The Gray pulled our kicking and writhing forms over the mucky ground, closer and closer. I fought tooth and nail, sending out half a dozen breaking spells. Nothing worked.
    The Gray gave another strong tug, and then it engulfed me.
    It surrounded me, enveloping and cocooning me on all sides with a sticky cobweb. Through the strange membrane I felt mouths clamp down on my arms and legs. Teeth bit me. Fumbling fingers tried to tear off my clothes. I opened my mouth to scream a word of power: to activate a spell that would set this thing on fire.
    But the moment my mouth opened, fingers grabbed my tongue and pulled at my lips. They tasted of coal and ash with a hint of iron: of stagnant blood. I tried to spit the fingers out. I tried to rear back and away, but the fingers held tight. A mouth bit my cheek. The gauzy barrier between those teeth and me kept it from tearing into me. Fingers wound through my long hair and yanked it backward. A dozen mouths sucked and bit at my throat. They moved with the nauseating motion of chewing, of eating.
    I tried to bite back. I tried to punch and kick the thing away, but there was no getting away. It was on all sides. Above and below.
    I convulsed frantically as teeth gnawed at the back of my knees. Tongues wriggled between my toes. Mouths and hands tried to tear through the thankful thickness of my heavy skirt. They