Page 41 of Taste Me
The skeletons re-form and launch at us, but Nolan is ready with another set of bullets. Bone shards splatter across the floorboards that splinter apart as the ground continues to shake.
I have to reason with my sister and somehow convince her to do something she’s never done before.
Leave me.
Too many souls are being forced back into their decayed bodies,I tell her as I feel everything that’s going on. It’s not just the prior residents of this cottage.
It’s half of Lapland.
The insides of my mind feel as if they’re being shredded apart, sending lights sparking behind my eyes. The spirits cry with their endless death knells.
Because they’re supposed to be at peace—a peace that’s been denied.
They’re suffering, Fallon,I tell her as I try to get her to see reason.Their screams are ones of pain and they have no choice but to obey Daithi. Don’t you remember what that’s like? Being forced into obedience to a monster? Icannotleave.
Her jaw flexes and I know it’s a low blow, but I’m determined to make her listen to me.
“Tick-tock,”Daithi says as he picks up the skull of one of the dead and strokes it.“I’ve summoned the undead in the surrounding vicinity and well into the city. They’re killing anyone in their way and adding to my number.”He chuckles as his words confirm what I’m feeling.“Recently dead bodies of the more powerful families living in Lapland will be much harder to slow down, even for your trigger-happy archangel.”
Nolan’s nostrils flare as he points the gun at Jasper’s head. “I think it’s time to end this little game. You can’t control much if you don’t have a body to inhabit, spirit.”
I throw myself in the barrel’s path and glower at him.
Nolan growls. “Fallon. Control your sister. This spirit is using illegal necromancy magic and must be dealt with.”
That only pisses me off more.Fallon, control yourmate, I retort, even though only she can hear me.
His brilliant gaze flares with heat as he continues. “Not to mention I know who this spirit is, Fallon. He’s the one who bound you to thatfreak.”
“I know, Nolan. But we can’t kill him,” she says, giving me a small sense of relief. “If he dies, so does my sister.”
Nolan gives her a look that says that’s not enough to stop him, but itisenough to make him hesitate. He slightly lowers his gun.
I don’t know how long this standoff might last, and time is running out. The ground trembles with the rumble of the dead and the rising cries of the dying and recently departed.
Nolan might be the queen’s mate, but he’s also Kaspian’s trusted warrior. He will protect the king’s interests, and right now, Daithi is doing more than summoning lost spirits.
He’s killing Kaspian’s people.
Death rolls through me as I feel each and every one. Their screams add to the growing number, giving me a splitting headache, and I brace my temple. I know Fallon has to feel it, too.
I can stop this, but you have to leave!I shout at her.
I’m not entirely sure if that’s true, but I have a theory. One that might save us.
Or doom us all.
Either way, I don’t want Fallon here for the experiment that might cost us all our lives.
“You cannot stop this yourself,” she snaps. “And I amnotleaving without you!”
It’s clear my sister won’t leave without me.
You give me no choice, Fallon.Tightness pulls at my eyes, the telltale sign of unshed tears I’m usually pretty good at holding in.
If she refuses to leave, then I have to make sure she has no reason to stay.
Rushing to the dagger I dropped, I rear back and poise the metal over my throat.