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A thick leg emerged next, the hulking form of a cave beast appearing from the darkness as it stepped into the circle of light from Caelum’s torch. He put it in my hand, wrapping my fingers around it as he reached for one of the swords strapped to his back at all times.

I stared on in horror as the creature’s face came into view, its glossy black eyes too large in its face. It had no lips, only two rows of enormous pointed teeth that protruded from its snout. It stretched out a hand covered in mottled gray skin, jagged and sharp nails at the end of almost human-like fingers. It stood on two legs, thighs as big as my torso, and its ears pointed like horns toward the sky through the hair that sprouted out of the top of its head. When it took another step, the tunnels shook, knocking me sideways with the force of that step as it opened its mouth and roared.

“Run!” Caelum ordered, pushing me toward the other tunnel that would lead to the hatch to get into the safety of the Resistance tunnels below.

“No!” I protested in spite of the fear surging through my body. Our vow stuck in my head.

We lived together. We died together.

“Estrella!GoNOW!” Caelum roared, something Other flashing briefly in his eyes as he leveled a glare at me. The creature charged at Caelum as my feet carried me away from the fight. I hadn’t even realized I’d made the decision to run, meaning to stay with him, but my legs moved against my will, terror thrumming through me as I raced down the corridor.

He was the best fighter I’d ever seen. If anyone could survive long enough for help to get to him, it was Caelum. I sped around one of the corners, dropping the torch as I fumbled with the hatch and tried desperately to heave it back. The stone was heavy, threatening to crush my fingers as I shoved it to the side and lowered myself in. The compulsion to flee left me the moment I was tucked within the tunnel hatch, leaving me gasping for breath as I turned to watch for Caelum.

I reached back up to grab the hatch, ready to seal it behind me at a moment’s notice. The roar of the cave beast echoed down the cavern toward me as I watched for any sign of life from Caelum.

Listening.

An animalistic roar answered the beast’s bray, thunderous and murderous, making the tunnel walls around me shake.

I stayed with my head poking out of the tunnel entrance, rooted to the spot and unable to move and get help as I watched the shadows dance in the distance. In terror, I watched the dark blood splash against the cave walls and heard heavy footfalls land on the ground with every step they took.

The fight continued on, giving me just a moment of hope that Caelum was still alive, but even if my body seemed unable to return to his side, I couldn’t leave him, either. When silence fell in the tunnel, I slid aside hatch the rest of the way and pulled myself up, staying close to the entrance in case what came around that corner was the beast that would haunt my nightmares.

The sounds of what had been fighting faded into the distinct squelching of tearing flesh, and my heart leapt into my throat with a strangled sob. I couldn’t make myself walk away, not even when blood ran down the tunnel toward me, staining the ground with the macabre scene.

I stepped forward, needing to see for myself that he was gone, disbelieving that my new reason for living had been taken, too. I didn’t know who I would be, what I would do without him, and I immediately regretted not giving him the words he’d said to me, not letting him know how I felt before I lost him.

Steady, soft footfalls came from around the corner of the tunnel. Caelum’s fingers gripped the cave wall as he pulled himself along around the bend and toward me. He was drenched in blood, his clothing stained and his hair turned red with the blood of the creature that seemed larger than life.

I raced forward, touching trembling fingers to the sides of his face.

“What happened?” I asked, trying to glance around him to see what remained of the cave beast.

“Dead,” he groaned, drawing my attention back to him. I dropped my eyes to his blood-stained tunic, peeling apart the fabric of his shirt where it gaped at the front. Three enormous slashes cut through his clothing from where the beast must have swiped at him, the skin torn and bleeding.

“You’re hurt,” I said, wrapping his arm over my shoulder. “You need a healer.”

“Not that bad,” Caelum said, shaking his head. “We aren’t human anymore, remember? It will heal.”

“What do you need?” I asked, helping him down the hatch and into the tunnels, pulling the stone closed over my head. We turned back toward the main caverns, making our way toward the sure punishment, for his beating of Jensen, that would wait for us.

“To clean it before it heals,” he said. I nodded, trying not to think of what would wait for us as I guided him toward the bathing cavern. The risk of infection was far more important than the risk of other women seeing him naked.

I’d find a way to deal with the jealousy festering inside of me if it meant Caelum himself wouldn’t fester and die. “How are you alive? I don’t understand,” I murmured as we walked.

“Viniculum,” Caelum said, the explanation somehow making sense. I’d seen what mine could do, turning a man into a pile of snow, but where mine seemed to be connected to the winter, something in Caelum’s appeared delighted in the butchering of life.

In dismantling it bit by bit.

His hands were drenched in blood, as if his body had been as involved in the fight as the Faerie magic coursing through him. Or maybe it was his own blood staining his skin, his own blood and bits of flesh embedded under the edges of his nails.

We stepped into the bathing cavern, all attention turning to the man covered in gore as I guided him to the side of the pool. People scurried all around us as I tore his ruined tunic down the front, shoving the scraps of fabric off his shoulders and kneeling at his feet to tug off his boots and socks. He stumbled slightly as he untied the laces of his pants, shucking them down his thighs and stepping down the steps into the water.

Even bathed in blood, he cut an impressive figure that the women nearby couldn’t keep their eyes off of. “Estrella,” one of them said, stepping up beside me as I watched Caelum lower himself into the water. “Are you hurt?” she asked me, glancing down at my bloody clothing and my hands that were covered in Caelum’s blood.

Or the beasts. I didn’t even know.

“He protected me,” I said, shaking my head as he emerged from the surface of the water and turned to look at me. He pinned me with an intense stare, rubbing his hands over his skin to wipe away the worst of the blood.