CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A TALE SPUN BY NIGHT
I rushed to Eric, hands going out to grasp my cousin’s shoulders, shaking him, shaking him. He groaned and his eyelids fluttered. I winced to see his hazel irises overlain with crimson. And his normally ruddy face was pallid and wet looking—except where black and blue tattoos gleamed sullenly and intricately.
I shook him again. And again his eyes fluttered, then opened fully. He gazed at me without recognition, with an inarticulate madness etched in his pupils. I slapped him.
“Eric. It’s Ruenn. Eric!”
He murmured, then jolted as my slap seemed to register. Or perhaps it was just my voice. I remembered how it had affected him during our fight, how each time I’d spoken he had paused. But it wasn’t enough merely to “affect” him. I needed to find a way
