Beryl turned her vicious gaze on Ryder. “Will you do as I ask? Will you kill Harvey Combs and rid the world of his filth? Or do I need to take your little hound and make her my pet?”
In Ryder’s arms, I laughed.
“Defiant dog,” Beryl said. “You will break faster than the dragon. Alvin has already done half my work for me. He’s made you brittle. If I give you a taste of an escape, your defiant attitude will shatter.”
Ryder pushed me behind him. He grasped the medallion around his neck and tugged. The cord tightened. I watched it dig into his skin. Crying out, I grabbed for the cord and tried to pull it. Ryder didn’t stop, though.
“I’m done with this,” he snarled.
Beryl watched Ryder suffocate. She didn’t seem bothered by his dangerous display of anger. I nearly begged her to stop. The cord dug into Ryder’s flesh. It was so tight that it drew blood.
Just as Beryl’s face lit up with laughter, a loud crack echoed through the room. Beryl’s glee faded. Her smile fell into a dark scowl.
I expected the medallion to fall away, but it didn’t. The cord loosened bit by bit, allowing the gash in his neck to heal. I leaned around to peer in front of him.
The medallion sat in the palm of his hand. A crack ran down the center of the red gemstone. Beryl’s surprise quickly turned to anger. She glowered at us. Though I wanted to hide behind Ryder, I stepped up beside him.
I waited for him to push me back, but he hadn’t taken his attention off the medallion yet. A look of shock still painted his face.
“Stormrider, I will force your hand one way or another. If I could kill that sniveling meatbag myself, I would have. You have no choice anymore. Your fate has been sealed. Do not cry to me over your own stars.”
I tilted my head as I tried to digest Beryl’s statement. I’d expected her to threaten me again. She seemed to think that I was Ryder’s weak spot, after all. Instead, she acted as though breaking the medallion had done something.
Ryder shook himself. He grabbed my hand and yanked me towards the exit. We climbed the stairs in silence. Was Beryl just going to let us go? I’d expected more. She was playing at something, and I had a bad feeling that we were walking right into her trap.
I tried to stop Ryder. Upstairs, in the restaurant, I dug in my heels. Ryder paid no attention to my efforts. He kept pulling, as if he needed to put as much space between himself and this establishment as possible.
I scowled at the back of his head. “You need to slow down. Something isn’t right.”
“No shit,” he muttered. “We’re still on fae territory.”
“No, that’s not it. Beryl is up to something. If we keep going…”
Ryder wouldn’t listen. He dragged me along, out the door and into the open street. Though it was still daylight, that didn’t stop me from nervously scanning our surroundings. This wasn’t Syracuse. We were in the heart of Lakesedge.
We needed to stop and call someone for a ride. The further we walked from Beryl’s restaurant, the more trouble we would find. I could feel it in my bones. We were leaving the urban areas and heading closer to the rural edges of the city. Tall trees could easily hide predators out for the hunt.
I wasn’t sure how I knew he would be there. Perhaps my hound had developed an instinct for such things.
Ryder wouldn’t stop, though. He kept walking. I doubted he was even paying attention to which direction he was going, because we weren’t heading back to the apartment. We were getting further and further from the city.
When the tall grass to my left rustled, I pulled Ryder back. My hound yipped inside me as a furred blur leapt past Ryder. A wolf landed on the asphalt and skidded. The smell of predator filled the air now. He looked at us with one gleaming eye and licked his chops.
Harvey prowled with his head low. He didn’t even look at Ryder. I had a feeling Harvey knew that Ryder couldn’t touch him.
This is what Beryl had meant. I realized that now. She’d somehow known that Harvey was out for the hunt again. What Beryl didn’t know was that my command kept Ryder from hurting Harvey. Even if Ryder wanted to kill Harvey, he couldn’t.
I was practically alone again.
Though I scrabbled for my arcana again, I felt nothing but fire across my tongue. It mingled oddly with the cold fear trying to fill my veins. All I could do was hope that the command I’d given Harvey a few nights ago was still as strong at the one I’d given Ryder.
“We’re not playing this game today,” Ryder growled.
The air around him rippled. I could see the form of his dragon starting to manifest around him. Panicked, I glanced around. There weren’t any street signs out here, so I didn’t know if we were in Lakesedge anymore.
Just in case, I grabbed ahold of Ryder to stop him. Startled, he blinked at me. Confusion flickered over his features for a brief instant, then he lifted me into his arms. I caught a flash, a glimpse of Harvey’s claws bearing down on me. Ryder spun, putting his back at an attack that rocked his body.
This wasn’t what I’d wanted. I didn’t want Ryder taking the blows for me. He wasn’t a meat shield. He didn’t deserve to endure pain on my behalf.