When the Woods Go Silent (Haret Chronicles: Dark Fae #1)

CHAPTER FORTY

R UBY

I pull slowly onto a winding dirt road, chewing my lip because I still haven’t decided if coming here is a good idea.

What if Arlo is just as pissed at Torrence for fighting him? He could be luring me into some sort of trap. I should have asked Torrence if Arlo had magic. I have no idea what I’m driving into here. None of this changes how badly I want answers.

I decide I’ll just take a look.

I can turn the car and race away if things look dicey.

The woods are thick on both sides, the gnarled tress nearly forming a tunnel for me to drive through. Shadows dance across the packed dirt as I slow the car even more. After a deep turn, the road spreads into a circular driveway and the trees part to form a wide, sunny clearing. The view of an enormous chalet built into the hillside behind it makes my jaw drop. Holy crap. Is this really the bachelor pad Torrence didn’t want me to see?

It’s time to be real with myself - I’m absolutely going to knock on this door and figure some things out.

The house is an older style, but it’s well-maintained. Rocking chairs line a shaded front porch, and there’s a large concrete parking pad on the side, surrounded by banks of flowers and bushes. Two cars and a motorcycle are parked here, none of which I’ve ever seen before. When I glance up at the house, I see a few of the windows are open to the late spring breeze.

It’s stunning, like a photo from a home magazine.

Torrence might not be a vampire, but this place is definitely giving wealthy supernatural family. My mood is perking up a bit, and I’ve conveniently dismissed the fact that Torrence didn’t actually invite me here. Probably, he just didn’t want me asking too many questions. After admitting magic to me this morning, he’ll definitely be over the fear of me figuring out his other secrets.

I park my car in line with the others, stepping out and scanning the house one more time. Which door should I knock on? The front kind of looks like one of those formal-only situations. There’s an open garage, but that’s way too casual. Or I could walk up the spiral stairs to the long, enclosed deck that could be hiding anything.

I’m still debating when something tickles my brain, and I spin in a full circle. A prickle forms at the base of my neck, and I get an overwhelming feeling of being watched. Everything is quiet - silent, actually. No birds sing, and the breeze has died away.

The woods around me have gone silent.

My heart is the only sound that dares to make a sound, and soon it’s all I can hear. What is happening here? What has happened here, to make the whole forest hold its breath?

What magic is finally ready to be found - is it dark or light, dangerous or wonderful?

A door bangs open above me like a shotgun blast, and I swallow a yelp. Shouting, two voices on the deck, two people I can’t see at all. The harsh, guttural language that I recognize now but still don’t understand. I’m stuck between the thrill of listening to a magical language, and a shudder at the pure rage that surges through the voices.

One I recognize, no matter the language.

“Torrence,” I whisper, suddenly bursting into motion as I realize he’s up there with someone, and one of them is about to get hurt very badly. Shutting out the possibility of my own danger, I clatter up the spiral iron staircase, around and around until I reach the wooden deck that spans the entire back of the house. I’m walled in now, with the house along one side, high railings on the other, and only the very back open to the wooded hillside beyond.

That’s where I see the two men, far enough away that they haven’t noticed me yet.

But as I catch my breath and inch forward, I see that it’s definitely Torrence, facing away from me. And Arlo, who’s looking right at me now, grinning like a maniac through the thick black liquid that drips down his chin. One eye is swollen shut, and his clothes are covered in even more of the blackness, as though he went face-first into an oil slick.

Arlo says something, but all I catch is my name before someone groans wetly to my left, and my head whips to the house wall, which is studded with wide glass windows that offer a full view of the inside of the house. I go completely still, forgetting all about Arlo and Torrence as my mind struggles to understand the panes of shattered glass and streaks of oil-black liquid, still bright and shining in the sun.

Beyond the glass, bodies.

Legs twisted under torsos and arms bent at impossible angles, and... blood, I realize with a surge of fear. So much black blood, pooling thick and viscous on the tile floor of a massive kitchen. Some of the bodies don’t even have heads.

I bend sharply at the waist, bile spilling from my stomach as I dry heave. What the fuck happened here? Did Kier or someone else attack them? Did Arlo do this?

Did Torrence ?

I stumble back a few steps, grasping blindly for the railing of the spiral staircase, and my head swims with dizziness. A thick laugh echoes across the space, followed by the crunch of bone on bone. I see Arlo go down on his knees again, no longer able to smile through the blood.

I drove here thinking I could stop two friends from fighting, but this? This is so much more than that. It dawns on me that Arlo brought me here on purpose. He wanted me here, wanted me to see this. To be witness to whatever it is.

But why? What does he gain?

“Don’t leave yet, Ruby,” Arlo calls suddenly, the words slurred against his mouthful of blood.

“Tor?” I call weakly, stumbling forward even though I know I should be running down the stairs. I can’t make myself leave him.

He goes still at the sound of my voice, his back to me as I skirt around a long picnic table, his name echoing on my lips in barely a whisper now. When I’m close enough to actually see him, I freeze again, my voice caught in my throat.

The pure rage on his face tells me he’s barely aware of where he is, much less that I’m here, too. All he sees is Arlo, bloodied before him. Broken, but still laughing like a psychopath.

Torrence doesn’t even look human anymore. Nothing like the handsome man I saw this morning. Whatever I might have imagined a gobbelin to look like, it wasn’t this. His skin is mottled ice gray with rivulets of red like veins of fire, and his amber eyes have gone from glowing to molten lava. Rows of sharp animal teeth glint in the flash of sunlight on ice, and I stumble backward, nearly falling on my ass as I see the enormous ice dagger he’s holding, longer than his arm.

I try to move my legs to back away, to turn, to run. But I’m numb with shock, and it’s too late.

Arlo rallies and lurches to his feet, suddenly swerving around Torrence to reach me. My body is rooted to the deck, panic washing over my eyes as I feel his cold hands close over my throat and squeeze. My breath slams against his choke hold, and my arms flail uselessly as he lifts me right off my feet like I weigh nothing. I kick out at him, but he’s like a wall of stone, his icy grip so deadly tight I think my neck might snap before I suffocate. The edges of my vision are already growing dark.

Then Arlo is ripped away, his body smashed down onto the deck, and I tumble down, sprawling on my back, coughing and gasping. Scrambling backward, I’m still too slow, and I see everything .

A hoarse cry rips from my aching throat as Torrence plunges his ice dagger into the center of Arlo’s neck, letting out a chilling war cry as he forces it down Arlo’s chest, shattering bone, shredding the skin, and spilling blackened blood and coils of intestines across the pale wooden deck.

Arlo’s psychotic laughter dies in a gurgle of blood spilling out of his mouth. Nausea swells into my aching throat again, and I clamp my teeth together against it.

I have to get out of here. Finally, suddenly, adrenaline shoots through my blood, giving me the flight response I need. I roll to my feet and bolt back down the stairs, the thunder of my sneakers on the metal steps all I can hear over the heaving of my own breath.

Thank the Goddess my keys are still somehow clutched in one hand, and I’m in the car and slamming the door shut before I even look back to see if Torrence followed me. I don’t care if he did.

I don’t know why they were fighting or why Arlo tried to hurt me - all I know is that I have to get out of here, and fast.

I swerve the car in a rough turn, barely avoiding the rose bushes crowding against the house and peel out onto the dirt driveway, my vision a mess of blurry tears as I fumble to get my seatbelt fastened.

What the hell did I just witness? What the fuck did I just survive ?

And the question that won’t stop repeating in my mind, like the drum beat of an approaching army - why ?

Why, Torrence? Why, Arlo? Why? Why? Why?

The sharp bend in the driveway comes all too quickly, and I over-correct the steering wheel, screaming hoarsely as the trees loom in my windshield, impossibly close and devastatingly solid.

The last thing that crosses my mind before the impact is Rose’s worried face as I left this morning.

I shouldn’t have run out, and now, I’ll never get to tell her sorry.