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

choked and gasped, trying not to think about it, trying not to remember and in so doing, remembering it vividly.
    “Morgan,” Merlin said.
    I looked wildly around for him.
    He sat not far away, rocking and wide eyed, pale and wet. Red marks pocked his face and hands.
    I dry heaved and cast my gaze around, trying to track where the Gray might be. Where it had gone. Had Merlin destroyed the thing? Or should I run?
    I looked behind me and all I saw was a boggy stain upon the green faerie grass. Merlin had somehow gotten us away. But not far enough. Somewhere, down there, it waited. I tried to get up. To stand on shaky legs and flee up the hill toward the pond. The leaf boat. Safety. But my extremities shook. My muscles could not hold my weight. I fell and began crawling.
    “Morgan,” Merlin said again with a hoarse voice.
    I glanced at him. I kept crawling but fell artlessly to my belly. My knees and arms did not wish to support me.
    Merlin scooted toward me. He trembled and moved in slow inches.
    “W-w-what was that?” I whispered.
    He reached toward me with a hand covered in bite marks.
    I flinched away.
    Merlin took in a great shuddering breath. “We are safe for now,” he whispered. “I was lost in that thing. Unable to fight it.”
    “We are safe?” I studied his haunted eyes.
    He nodded. My wizard would not say those words lightly.
    I let myself fall to the ground and roll onto my side. “I was lost too,” I said and swallowed down another wave of retching. “I tried anything to escape. I….”
    “As did I.”
    We sat in silence. It had been a long, long time since I had been unnerved and bested. So long, perhaps, that I had thought such a thing could not happen to me, nor my wizard.
    He rubbed his trembling fingers across his cheek where an angry red circle of teeth had left their mark.
    I did not glance down at my own body to track the bruises and bites upon my person. “We were lost. And then what happened?”
    “I am the gatekeeper to Hell. The one who holds the monsters in. I weakened, and the door opened. Cerberus attacked the thing and made it release us. Then he carried us far enough away that we would be safe.”
    “Good dog,” I said. “I assume he took a more ferocious form than when we met him?” The dog had appeared as a tail-wagging three-headed mutt to us.
    “His body as wide as the moon, as dark as the night. He came howling and thrashing with three great heads full of the sharpest teeth.”
    “The best dog,” I said and felt the shaking of my body lessen. “He didn’t destroy the Gray though, did he?”
    “Cerberus tried to drag it to Hell, but it would not go,” Merlin said.
    I breathed in an underlying stink on the air and nodded. I luxuriated in the pleasure of breathing without fingers and tongues probing my nose and mouth.
    “We should not attack it again,” Merlin said.
    I nodded quickly. “We need research. And back-up.” I pushed myself up to sitting, and then slowly stood, unsteady but not falling down. “Come then, the sooner we understand what it is, the sooner we can slay it.”
    Merlin’s brow creased. Again, I saw that he knew something.
    Merlin was having trouble standing, but rather than help him up, I put my hands on my hips. “It almost killed me. Tell me what you know.”
    “I… don’t know anything with any certainty. I don’t.” He did not look at me. He could not.
    I took a lilting step up the hill, and Merlin did the same. We walked like either the very old or the very young, close to falling down with every step. We hurried as best we could. I did not dare to turn around to see if the thing was watching us.
    When we reached the top of the hill, we saw the mouse faerie and the wood nymph sitting in the boat, waiting for us.
    “Leaving like cowards?” the nymph asked in a high and clear voice.
    “Didn’t even injure it, did you?” the mouse added.
    “It would do no good for both of us to be swaddled and helpless for the rest of our days.