Chapter 26 · The Hunter's Mark

The golden eyes blinked again. Slow. Deliberate. Like it had all the time in the world.

I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. The rope dug into my ribs as I hung there, twenty feet down, staring at something that wore my own eye color like a stolen coat.

"Ella." Drake's voice came from above, tight with worry. "Talk to me."

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.

The thing at the bottom smiled wider. Its teeth caught the faint glow—too many, too sharp, arranged in rows that went back and back into a throat that shouldn't exist. But the eyes. God, the eyes were mine. The exact shade of gold-green my mother used to trace with her thumb when I was small, before the monastery, before everything went to hell.

"Ella!" Drake's shout cracked through the stone. The rope jerked as he started climbing down.

That snapped me out of it. "Stop. Don't come down here."

"Too late." His boots scraped against wet stone. I could hear his breathing, harsh and uneven. The sanctified silver was still burning through his veins. He shouldn't be moving at all, let alone descending into a well that smelled like old blood and older magic.