When I got my hands on Wychthorn again I was going to toss her over my lap and spank the fuck out of her ass—punish her as the sly disobedient child she was.

Fucking Wychthorn!

I wanted to fucking throttle her.

At first, I thought she'd simply run away, gone back up into the city to disappear and have her own fun.

But that wasn't Wychthorn. Well, it was, but I just knew there was more to it than that.

And that bag of hers. It was huge and stuffed to the brim. I didn't know much about girls' handbags, but even I should have suspected something was up, especially when I'd heard the constant rustle of plastic coming from its depths.

Think. Fucking think!

I stalked the last platform we'd departed from. My long strides were furious and my heavy footfall rang against the walls. Mortals drew away and averted their glances, knowing without fully realizing the darkness pacing back and forth within their midst.

Wychthorn had been down here for a reason. She'd been riding the lines in a seemingly haphazard route. I sorted through my memories. We'd kept crossing this line. This one in particular. Several times.

Her scent still lingered. That tart fragrance of sweetness and flames and something else. It smelled of blood. Pig's blood.

Pig's blood...pig's blood...and these tracks...

What did I know about them?

Ah...Hellsgate!

She didn't...she wouldn't...surely not...

Unless she has a death wish.

A sinking feeling fell through me like a stone falling through water. I knew without a doubt why we were here, what she sought—the catacombs. And in the catacombs, an ancient creature...the Uzrek.

***

Over the years I'd done my homework on this world I inhabited. Whenever I could, I'd dig around in our library, hauling out ancient dusty tomes my ancestors had penned with ink and quill. I wanted to know what I was. What lurked beneath my skin? Were we one or separate?

Down here, beneath the earth's crust, was the Uzrek.

A creature so old it had lived in the time when our god Zrenyth walked the earth and expelled his last breath before succumbing to the Great Slumber. Zrenyth's last breath had been infused with immense wild magic, and it spiraled out into the world to birth the Horned Gods.

If anything living or not-quite-living would know what I was, the Uzrek would.

I rifled around in my tote, ripping apart the thick layers of the package I'd triple-bagged to keep the scent from Graysen. Dropping the pig's entrails, chicken carcasses, and an ox's heart onto the roughened floor of the cavern, I stepped back and waited. Water dripped from the cavern's ceiling, the damp air so cold I began to shiver.

And waited—

And waited—

And—

My blood chilled.

The fine hair on my body prickled and my skin pebbled with goosebumps.

A scraping sound echoed from the tunnels—

Something hard raked against the coarse stone. Thumping. I couldn't see anything as it approached, but I felt the power trembling through the air. And it felt wicked and insidious and malevolent.

Sage circled around me, hunkering low in a predatory gait with his thin lips pulled back to expose sharp teeth. A long vicious snarl crawled from his throat.

The power inside me roiled beneath my flesh, extending claws and fangs—What is it, what is it, what is it...?

Whatever I did. I could not look at the Uzrek.

A hollow voice scratched out, "What do we have here?" Then the Uzrek's voice crept inside my mind, coaxing—Raise your eyes and stare at me...

But if I did the Uzrek would know my darkest fear.

I kept my gaze locked on my feet. My numb toes had gone bluish and the skin puckered from standing upon the icy stone floor of the catacombs.

Raise your eyes. Just look up and I'll give you the answers you seek...

I fisted my fingers, welcoming the biting sting of the nails digging into my soft palms. Lies. Lies. Lies. It was ancient and cunning and it would steal my fears. My eyes strained with the effort to keep from looking at the beast. But how I wanted to... Just one glimpse...

Just look up. See me...

Gazing beneath the safety of my eyelashes, I watched the tattered edge of a robe flail around gnarled hooves—split like a goat, the tips curving up. The Uzrek stepped closer. His hooves clattered upon the damp stone floor before he stopped to tower above me. His essence was a bone-chilling sensation against my flesh—a frozen northern desert of ice and snow, a perpetual winter.

Fear fisted my heart.

What am I thinking? This is the Uzrek.

He will devour me!

Run! I need to run now!

But the creature that resided inside me, with its power coiling around my bones, whispered—Let me see it. Let me taste it. What is it, what is it, what is it...?

My teeth chattered and my fingers trembled as I ran their tips through the adamere beads of my bracelet—My roots are deep. My strength is stone. My breath the wind. I bow to none.

But right now, with my limbs quaking and my heart racing, I might very well fall to my knees and beg for my life. Oh gods, what have I done?!

"Pretty little creature..." The Uzrek rumbled out loud. "You know what I yearn for..."

I heard a noise like a snapping of hinges and a rasping sound as if a thick tongue dragged across sharp teeth.

A slurping.

A wet crunch.

A satisfied noise from the back of his throat.

"I am grateful. I've not had anything quite so delicious for a very, very long time. Not too many mortals find their way down here anymore. And I am too old, too tired to hunt."

My voice broke and quavered with fear. "I came to ask a question."

A clacking sound, like talons rapping against bone. "No one's come to visit the likes of me in a long, long while. Why should I not set aside your question and devour you instead?"

Fear froze me in place. The Uzrek very well could. That was the risk I'd taken. But the Uzrek...surely he could sense I was other. That perhaps I should be the one to be feared.

Sage growled, then suddenly shook his head furiously, his paws raking frantically at his big ears.

"Sage?" I whispered. My wolf whined in fright. The horrifying sound sliced through me as my wraith-wolf collapsed to the ground and writhed. "Sage!"

I fell to my knees, running my hands over his misty body. He whined, convulsing and shivering. "Please..." I begged the Uzrek. "Let him go!"

An awful laugh rumbled out, filling my head with ancient, cunning mirth, that crowded out every other thought. My bones felt brittle as if they might snap into shards at the merest breath of wind. "I know your secrets... I know what terrifies you, young Wychthorn."

Gods, I hadn't...I hadn't looked it in the eye. I hadn't!

"Your dog knows your secret..."

The flashlight winked out.

The strands of fairy lights next.

Pitch black—absolute darkness—draped itself around me. A heavy cloth dropped over a birdcage. A moonless winter-night sky.

I can't see, I can't see, I can't see—

I screamed, the terrified sound resounding in the tomb. I fumbled with the backup flashlight, my fingers trembling so badly I couldn't even find the switch. And then it fell from my shaky grip, striking stone and rolling away.

I couldn't breathe.

I couldn't breathe.

Gods, I can't breathe!

Terror ensnared me—the kind I'd not felt since I was seven years old and shoved inside the tithe prison, the door yawning shut, a hard thunk as the last sliver of light faded.

Horrible wet wheezing sounds—that's me!

I mentally spiraled inwards, just as I'd done as a child, confined in darkness and crippled with fear.

The ground trembled. Wind raked. In my blind panic, the dark power residing inside me had ripped free. The stale air in the catacombs charged and the trembling grew to a violent quake that cracked a rent in the cavern's stone wall.

I toppled sideways, falling...it felt like I was falling forever. The sensation of being adrift—

I was just a whisper of thoughts floating in a sea of nothingness—

My shoulder struck the stone floor and a jolt of pain ripped across my flesh. I tried to suck in air, but my lungs were iron. Unyielding.

"Breathe, young Wychthorn," the Uzrek whispered. "Ask me what you came here for."

The flashlight burst into life and yellow light illuminated the damp cavern floor where I lay. The strand of fairy lights winked awake, twinkling with radiance. Sage whined and licked my face with his misty tongue.

Light...I can see...I can see...

I was gasping for air, my cheeks wet with tears, as I shook in terror. Run...run from here. Don't ask, just run!

It took a long time to collect myself. To suck in lungfuls of oxygen and stop myself from shaking so badly my knees knocked and my body wobbled as I got to my feet. Sage tucked himself close to my side and his presence gave me courage.

I licked dry lips. My mouth was bone-dry and I cleared my throat yet my voice remained hoarse and raspy. "Please...I want to know what I am."

"And you think I know the answer to that?"

There was no need to keep averting my gaze from the Uzrek because he already knew my secret fear—my utter dread of darkness.

I raised my eyes and looked at the beast.

What was described in those dusty books I'd scavenged in our library did the Uzrek no justice.

He towered above me, enormous and hunched over. A tattered robe, not of silk or linen or wool, but dried and cracked skin. It was mortal flesh flayed and stitched together with dried sinew to cover a body covered in downy-gray fur. He clasped a staff in one taloned hand. It was a bone, a thigh bone perhaps, and so big I knew it hadn't come from any human or animal that walked the earth.

Thin lank hair twisted around a crown of horns. His head was large, with a nose that was snout-ish like a bull, and his mouth was so wide it stretched from side to side of his face. He gazed at me with pinprick eyes. Blind, I realized. He was blind like a mole. But why should he need to see in the dark?

I swallowed, my throat feeling like sandpaper, and asked again, "What am I?"

The Uzrek leaned down so close that his hot putrid breath washed over me. Wide nostrils flared as he inhaled, drawing in my scent, and he made a considering noise in the back of his throat. It was a long moment before he spoke. "I cannot say."

My stomach sank.

Such a foolish thing to wish for—to gain an answer from a creature that had hidden away in a dark pocket of the world for millennia.

Then his voice slithered along the rough-hewn walls. "You are ancient and you are freshly born. You are new, yet you've chewed beneath the earth and soared amongst the heavens. You are a stranger and familiar...but I cannot name you."

I felt crushed. "You do not know."

"No..." he answered, cocking his head to the side. "I cannot say."

My eyes flashed wide and every cell in my body honed in on those words. Even the creature inside me paused. "Cannot say? You do know."

His mouth pulled wide in a mockery of a smile and his rotten, stumpy teeth were stained yellow by the glow of my flashlight. "I suspect it will be far more interesting to discover it for yourself."

"You'll not tell me," I pressed as a flash of anger ignited. I didn't come all this way not to find out when it knew what I was!

His mouth pulled wider and with a flick of a thick drooling tongue, he tasted the air.

"Can you answer this, then?" I raised my chin, straightening my spine. "Am I me? Or am I...me and it? Or am I...just it?" Because I'd never been sure what this thing inside of me was, where my identity began and where it ended.

"You are you. No more. No less." The Uzrek sniffed my scent again. "But, you are missing..." The Uzrek paused, his massive head swaying sluggishly to the side as if something or someone had distracted him. A cruel smile curved his thin, wide lips. "Ah, you did bring me something alive and sweet and juicy to salivate over. Thank you."

"Wychthorn," a gravelly voice echoed in the darkness behind me, "back away."

I whirled toward Graysen.

What is he doing here?

How had he figured it out?

Graysen stepped into the faint lines of my flashlight. He stared past me at the Uzrek and had a dagger gripped in either hand.

I hesitated just as a dark thought regarding Graysen entered my mind.

No...no...

Warning roughened my voice. "Crowther, you need to leave—"

"Not without you," Graysen snapped back.

The Uzrek's hunched body weaved toward Graysen, and the heavy thunk of its bone staff against stone cracked through the cavern.

I slid sideways, stepping into the beast's path. "He's not for you."

The Uzrek stilled, his lank hair brushing bony shoulders. Pinprick eyes stared blindly into the darkness above Graysen's head as he said, "You do realize, she considered whether or not to let me pick the gristle from my teeth with your bones?"

Graysen stepped flush to my side but didn't look at me as he replied, "I can't say the same thought of offering her to you, didn't cross my mind either."

The beast laughed then. And his laughter sounded like strands of leather cutting flesh. "This is true."

The Uzrek dipped its massive head closer to Graysen, who held himself rigid as the creature's mouth yawned wide, tongue lathing the air. "A thief. A death-dealer. A spinner of deceit." He gave a considering pause before murmuring to Graysen. "Such a strange fear to have... Delightful. And far too late to save yourself from it."

Graysen's mouth slackened and he blinked rapidly. Startled eyes darted my way, then he shot his gaze back to the Uzrek. Strong fingers tightened around the hilt of his daggers.

The Uzrek rumbled between blackened gums, "Nevertheless, Deceiver, I shall suck the marrow from your bones." The beast lunged so swiftly I barely registered it moved. Bone-staff rising—

Went to strike—

The thing inside of me growled, low and vicious, winding power around my bones.

"No!" I roared—

Just as Graysen went to shove me aside—

I skipped in front of him, hands flung outward, balled into fists. A warning of mighty, thrumming power punched through the cavern in a rush of dark magic and slammed into the Uzrek.

The beast stumbled back, limbs flailing. He righted himself, his massive head jerking in my direction and he scowled fiercely. I feel your claim—his cruel voice sung inside my mind—but you have another choice.

Mine—I hissed back, my voice joined by the creature inside me—MINE!

The Uzrek drew in an angry breath and snarled.

But even more eerily, his snarl cut away as his shoulders suddenly jostled with the laughter spilling from his throat. The sinister sound rippled fear down my spine as he swung Graysen's way. "You do not know what you are either, son of the Wyrm," he spat, seeming to look between us as I pressed myself against Graysen's side, clutching his arm tightly with a hand. "Do not know what you mean toge—"

The Uzrek reared back, his large body moving impossibly fast. "Something comes—"

And then the Uzrek was gone, vanishing into the gloomy tunnel from which he had earlier slunk out.

Then it was just Graysen and me and Sage and an oily feeling of dread seeping into my heart.

Graysen instantly rounded on me, a strange mixture of fury and disbelief and awe carved into his handsome features. "The Uzrek! Are you out of your fucking mind?!"

Maybe. Definitely. My mouth parted to reply—

They arrived. Whatever the Uzrek feared, whatever they were—they'd driven an ancient malicious creature into hiding.

Brilliant wrathful light popped through the cavern briefly before disappearing into the void of darkness.

Swifting.

They were swifting in.

Graysen snapped his head sideways, staring deeper into the pitch-black cavern. "Fuck!"

He tore the flashlight from my hand and ripped the fairy lights from my shoulders, tossing them wide. Radiant illumination rotated around the cavern in arcs, before the flashlight and string of lights landed in clattered thuds to skid noisily across the cavern floor and rest so far away they barely could be seen.

Darkness enveloped me and I was sucked straight into terror. My heart punched furiously against my ribs. I can't be in the dark!

I lunged toward the flashlight. Graysen bound an arm around my waist and hauled me back. "I c-can't...I c-can't see..." I wailed, thrashing in his grip. My throat constricted and my breath was hard fought for. "I...I..."

"It's okay. You're not alone, Nelle... Fuck, I'm here, I'm here!"

I choked for air, trembling, tears now free-falling. I can't see...I can't see anything...

"Breathe," he urged gently. I felt his hands cradling my face, his breath kissing my cheek. "I've got you... I've got you, Nelle..." I clutched his wrists, trying to suck in oxygen. To shove the terror aside.

More golden light was swallowed up by the dark.

I didn't know what was happening. Didn't know who they were. Everything narrowed down to heartbeats.

One beat—Graysen whirled taking me with him. The sound of spraying stone cut from the cavern wall exactly where we'd stood a moment ago.

Two beats—He shoved us both down onto the cavern floor so hard the air punched from my lungs and he protected my body with his own.

Three—Sage sprung. A frenzy of rageful barking and bones breaking cleaved the quiet.

Four—A strange guttural noise tore through the cavern. Then silence.

Five—"Stay down," Graysen hissed, rolling away. Gone in a blink.

Six—I can't see...I can't breathe!

A seventh beat—The Uzrek's ancient, hollow voice crept into my head—Breathe, young Wychthorn... You're not alone... You've never been alone.