Page 23 of A Hunt Bound in Blood
The demon did have a point about the low odds, but there were too many unknowns.
“All right.” I arrayed my fingers to ensure there would be equal pressure on each button. “Here goes nothing.”
Holding my breath, I squeezed the box and pressed all three at once.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then the top of the box slid open, revealing a strip of parchment inside.
I started to exhale my relief when a low rumble caught my ear. Except it wasn’t a noise. It was a tremor in the earth. Cammon tensed beside me and rested his palm against the ground.
“Well, that doesn’t sound—”
A deafening crack interrupted him as the earth split open beneath us. I grabbed the clue and scrabbled at the grass to find stability, but the ground gave way, pulling me down. A shriek of terror slipped from my throat, and I curled my fingers into the dirt, desperate to hang on. Darkness opened under my feet, and glinting at the bottom of the now gaping hole were rows of sharp spikes that threatened to tear me apart if I lost my precarious grip.
Olodin’s bookcases, this is how I die.
I squeezed my eyes shut so I couldn’t see the cause of my impending impalement. My lungs burned with withheld screams, and my heart beat so frantically I tasted blood.
“I guess we found the cave,” Cammon said through clenched teeth.
Slitting one eye open, I stared at the demon dangling beside me. Despite the tautness of his neck as he held himself in place on the edge of the sudden cavern, he appeared to be taking our situation in stride, as though he encountered giant rows of spikes every day.
I, on the other hand, struggled to keep my panic at bay. My pack had never weighed so much, and my fingers were cramping. We needed to pull ourselves up, but my grip was too slick. And always—always—in the back of my mind, there was my fear that if I showed too much strength, Cammon would discover what I was.
The earth shuddered again as the cavern grew wider, and a large rock tumbled into the gaping maw to shatter against the spikes. Another scream slipped from my throat, and I shut my eyes and tore at the ground for purchase. With every racing beat of my heart, I asked myself if dying by royal executioner would be worse than being skewered by those teeth. Assuming my thrashing heart didn’t give out first.
“I don’t suppose you can use your magic to help us out here?” Cammon gritted out, finally giving away a smidge of the terror currently shrieking through my limbs.
I squeezed my eyes so tightly that black spots scurried across the backs of my eyelids. Of course he would ask.
“I can’t,” I said between forced breaths. “That’s still not… how my magic works.”
Although I couldn’t see him, his silence spoke volumes. Incredulity. Disdain. The same expressions my fellow mages gave me whenever I failed to prove my worth. He could judge me all he wanted. My answer wouldn’t change.
He grumbled something under his breath, and the next thing I knew, his arm was around my waist. My eyes flew open. He’d swung himself towards me, pulling himself close, until his chest was seamless against mine. I stared at him in shock, wanting to shove him away but not at the cost of plummeting to my death.
“What are you doing?” Was he going to drain my emotions to strengthen himself? Use me as leverage to throw himself out of this hole?
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
I blinked. “I really don’t.”
His red eyes gleamed over his grin. “Then this is going to be fucking terrifying.”
His chest flexed, and then, to my mind-crushing shock, the sun disappeared behind two massive, black-feathered wings.
Cammon
XII
My heart raced with the thrill of soaring over the mouth of that spiked cavern and towards the safety of the road. The rush of that almost fall, the shock of the woman in my arms, the brush of wind through my hair as the world became smaller beneath me—this was why I chased after every rumoured treasure that came my way.
This evening, we were the only ones in the sky except for a few birds that soared along with us. There were no threats, no dangers to detract from the pure enjoyment of this moment.
The setting sun cast a softly golden glow touched with streaks of red and orange across the tops of the trees. My wings caught the wind, carrying us higher, the tatters of my shirt billowing around me. From this distance, I got a full look at the size of the trap Glory had inadvertently triggered and was astounded to find a quarter of the glade gone, easily three metres around. All that unnaturally green, trimmed grass had fallen into the gaping pit.
There was no way Glory would have been able to pull herself out of that chasm on her own, and by the emotions I tasted wafting off her, she knew it. The sharp tang of her terror tickled my taste buds, but beneath it, nourishing me more than her fear, was the refreshing, almost citrusy flavour of exhilaration. Her arms were around my neck, clinging to me so tightly she risked cutting off my air supply, but she kept peering over to stare at the world below and her eyes shone with amazement.
Her response bolstered mine, pushing me to flap my wings and take us higher, faster. Carrying all this weight, I wouldn’t get us far, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t have fun on the way.