Chapter Forty Five

NOLA REYNOLDS

The weight in my stomach churned almost painfully when I closed my eyes and the picture of Mary’s puckered stump of head came unbidden to rest under my eyelids until I snapped them open.

I could still see that her head had been bitten through by the yellowed pikes until the balls of her eyes sagged outward.

I'd done that, me.

“The creature bit her head off when it went into rigor,” A sullen-looking woman came up to press a wet towel to my head sometime after the Lycan had released me to look over the prisoners.

We had taken some in the clash, and I watched the contorted frame of their bodies as some of the iron nettle-armored guards poked them into the metal cage that had been fastened to the raft behind the food carriage.

I nodded briefly in acknowledgment, settling on the thick bark of a fallen tree branch as she patched me up, the line of maidens beside me scooting away when I settled in, as though whatever accident disease I had was contagious.

I didn't blame them o