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Enosh rose and slipped me off him, gingerly brushing the mink of my dress down. “No, Ada, you shall look like a goddess, with a crown upon your head like none before.”
No, not a crown.
Not until this was over.
“Make it a tiara.” I spun around and pointed up at the mow. “Using his jawbone.”
“That can be arranged.” Enosh shaped breeches around him as he stared at the mow, where strings of braided skin writhed and slithered, lowering a bound Arne down from it. “Between us, mortal, I have fantasized about many a punishment. Oh, so torn was I between all the possibilities of how to make you pay for what you have done to my wife.”
I watched how the grayish-brown vines of skin stood Arne up, the veins on the white of his eyes bright red and visible even in the dim light. “Let me do it.”
“No, Ada.” Bone knife already shaped in his hand, Enosh cut Arne’s nightshirt, laying the trembling man’s torso open to the cold. Enosh set the pointy end of the blade against Henry’s stomach, an inch above his navel. “I swore to avenge you. And little one, this mortal is mine to punish.”
Instead of driving the knife into the bastard’s belly with a turn as he deserved, Enosh gingerly cut along his skin with the precision of a bricklayer. One long line from navel to the hem of the cotton trousers.
It didn’t bleed. Barely.
Arne trembled, throwing himself forward, only to bounce back at the mercy of hair strings tied to the wattle in the walls to bind him in place. “Please… it wasn’t me. Rose killed her!”
“Liar,” I scoffed. “But don’t worry. She’ll be next.”
And if all worked out, the last.
“Shh… stop moving, mortal, or I might damage an artery.” Enosh pushed one finger into the cut, then another, letting it rip open into an oozing gap as Arne stared down at himself, too shocked to even scream. “Death shall be your friend, mortal. But only until my brother shackles your soul, for you shall serve a higher purpose. An honor, truly.”
Enosh pulled back, his fingers hooked around… something. Intestines? Yes. Oh, that was even better than stabbing.
Pale pink and streaked with blood, Arne’s guts emerged from the hole in his stomach. The rippled organ lowered to the ground in sheer never-ending length—one foot, two, three… oh, goodness. It eventually changed shape and turned a grayish-brown, covered in a layer of mucus.
Enosh gave a little tug.
That was when Arne screamed.
“See, mortal, you shall remain alive like this for a while, watching your sustenance turn to shit.” Enosh stepped back from the tangle of guts on the ground and haphazardly wiped his bloody hands on a nearby rag. “Terribly painful, dying of a wound from the belly. Even more so if something tugs on the organs.”
“Disembowelment. How lovely.” Yarin leaned in the doorframe, and I only now noticed the commotion outside as corpses chased people from their homes, filling the night with their screams. “You wife’s thoughts told me you are in need of me?”
“Only after a few hours of suffering, so he may reflect on what happens to those who dare touch my wife.”
I nearly moaned at the violent possessiveness. “What will you do to him?”
A smile came to Enosh’s lips, not as rare as they used to be but all the more stu
A shaggy, mange-infested dog stepped into the house, its body covered in festering wounds, its eyes milky white. The dead beast immediately bit into Arne’s guts, tugging without ripping, letting the man jolt from his state of shock and scream.
Oh, how he screamed, and squealed, and shrieked, but the ear-stabbing sound soon muffled behind a gag of skin that wrapped around his face—a sight that brought another rotten smile to my face, just as my title commanded.
“The sun is nearly coming up. We shall spend the day here so you may warm yourself by the fire.” Enosh rubbed his palms up and down my arm. “Traveling by day will only get us seen and cause surrounding villages to flee. This woman who knows of your father might get away, so we shall ride there tomorrow night and find her in the morning.”
Yes, we would find her.
Then, I would kill her.