These two gray creatures had to be the Masons that Brenya had talked about—the ones that were trying to kill the people Grace loved.

Torr sneaked out from behind one of the glowing boulders near the pair. His sword was in his hand, as lethally beautiful as the man himself. He moved silently, his breath misting in the cold air.

Grace stared in a surreal kind of trance. She knew his life was in danger and that he was going to try to kill those gray men. She knew that no matter what she did, there would be pain. And yet she still couldn’t pull her gaze away from the scene, as if her watching could somehow alter the outcome.

Torr slipped behind the large boulder they were working on. In a blur of flesh and steel, he moved in for the kill, cutting cleanly through the waist of one of the gray men. It fell into two pieces, but there was no blood, only a spray of fine sand spewing through the air in the wake of Torr’s blade.

The second man screamed in rage and panic, and slammed his hammer down with brutal force. The Hunter he’d been chipping from the stone was broken free, missing one of its legs.

Its jaws snapped as it lunged for Torr. He leapt out of its path, but because of its incomplete form, its aim was off, causing it to veer toward Torr anyway. He brought his sword up at the last second, lodging it in the thing’s jaws with two hands.

Blood leaked from Torr’s palm where he braced the blade with his bare hand. The Hunter’s body bowed and its single back leg scrambled awkwardly, trying to gain traction.

Grace couldn’t breathe. She was terrified for Torr but even more terrified that anything she might do would distract him and make things worse. She hated being stuck here, able to do nothing but watch and pray, but the alternative—getting Torr killed—was unthinkable.

The tall gray man knelt next to his fallen partner, aligning the two severed halves of his sandy body. There still was no blood. Whatever made up those guys, it wasn’t flesh and blood—not as she understood it.

As she watched, the gap between the two halves of the gray man’s body began to close. The whole one picked up his heavy hammer and moved around to angle himself behind Torr.

One blow from that hammer, and Torr would be dead. She didn’t care how fast he healed. A crushed skull was going to be fatal.

She had to do something without making things worse. And she had to do it now.

Grace rose from her hiding place and took a step out onto the charred ground. A chill sank through the thick leather protecting her feet, as if she were standing on ice. Without making any noise that might distract Torr, she began waving her arms.

The gray man who was about to bash Torr’s brains in saw her and started to come her way. That was exactly what she’d hoped for, but she certainly hadn’t realized just how fast legs that long could run.

Holding back the squeak of fear that rose to her throat, she sprinted into the woods. There was no way she could outrun him, but she could hide and give Torr a fighting chance.

Chapter 17

Torr was going to throttle Grace. Assuming he lived.

He’d seen the Mason sneaking up on him, knew it was a threat. He’d had another seven seconds to kill the wounded Hunter, which was more than enough.

If she’d been a Theronai, connected to him in the way his mate would have been, she would have known his plan. She would have seen his thoughts and stayed silent and hidden.

Of course, if she’d been a Theronai, she probably would have already used magic to shatter the Hunter to splinters.

Now, not only did he have to disable the Mason but he had to find it before it had time to kill Grace first.

With a spurt of brutal rage, Torr wedged his foot between himself and the Hunter and shoved the creature back. The move gave him room to regain his balance and fix his grip. He held the sword in both hands and swung hard just as the Hunter came back inside his reach, forcing it backward.

As he moved forward, with one hand he picked up the giant hammer the fallen Mason had dropped, and with the other hand he sheathed his sword.

One wicked slam of that hammer against the side of the Hunter, and it shattered, screaming as it died.

The Mason on the ground had nearly rebuilt itself, but Torr didn’t give it a chance to finish the job. Instead, he smashed its head with the heel of his boot and crushed its chest with the hammer until it was a pile of sand.

Let it rebuild that.

Anger and fear fueled his steps as he raced in the direction Grace had gone. His heart pounded, but it was less a sign of exertion than of his terror that she would get herself hurt.

He could not lose her again. He would not.

His ears drew him in the right direction. The sounds of thrashing brush and Grace’s heavy breathing grew louder.

She let out a breathless cry of fear—the kind of sound that only a woman who knows she’s trapped can make.

Torr forced his legs to move faster. He slashed at the branches that barred his path.

In the distance, he caught glimpses of the sandy-skinned Mason between the trees. It had stopped and was now circling a single location.

Torr looked up and saw that Grace had climbed a skinny tree and was struggling to get higher, out of the Mason’s reach.

It grabbed the tree in both hands and began shaking it.

Grace screamed and hugged the narrow trunk with her whole body. She was flung around, slammed into the branches of nearby trees.

She slipped down a couple of feet, and Torr could see the bright stain of blood left behind on the trunk where her skin had been torn by the rough bark.

A red haze the same color as the blood flooded his vision. Rage took over his limbs, giving him seemingly endless strength. He bellowed as he charged. His attack was less about killing the thing than it was about getting it the fuck away from Grace.

Torr’s face must have been scary, because the Mason looked over its pasty gray shoulder and then set off at a dead run.

Torr ran faster.

He tackled the Mason from behind. It flipped over, trying to slam its hammer into Torr’s head, but he was already inside its reach, making the tool nearly useless.

He didn’t waste much time dispatching his foe, not with Grace bleeding and in need of aid.

The Mason’s body was heavy, smooth and hard to grip, but Torr managed to get a firm hold on its throat and started squeezing. Sand crumbled in his hand, cutting off the Mason’s cries of pain. A whooshing rush of air blew dust into Torr’s eyes, blinding him.

The hammer fell against his calf with enough force to send a riot of pain up his spine. Two huge, rough hands gripped his shoulders and started twisting. He felt like he was going to be ripped in half, but it didn’t stop him from clawing his way through the Mason’s thick neck.