Page 89 of A Hunt Bound in Blood
“Any better ideas?”
“None whatsoever.”
I raked my fingers through my hair and gave the glade another pass. She was right. Flight was our best option.
Accepting it, visualizing how everything would play out, I let my wings loose and shivered when the feathers caught the cool midnight breeze. I was relieved they’d had a few hours to heal before we attempted this wild, improbable feat, and that we’d left our bags behind. “All right then, let’s get this done. How much worse can these trials get after this?”
Glory glowered at me for tempting the Fates, and I winked in return. “Hey, at least if they do, we only have a few more to go.”
With a stiff smile, she slid her arms around my neck. The smell of her clouded my senses and sent my head whirling. “Time flies, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know about time, but I do.”
She rolled her eyes, and I grinned as I leapt into the air and beat my wings to take us up around the trees and into the night sky. I couldn’t help but soar a little higher than was necessary, giving us both a chance to appreciate the flickering stars and crisp white moon. It was a beautiful night, and we were about to spend it stealing treasure from under the noses of a dozen drakes.
I fucking loved my life.
My heart racing with the thrill of the hunt, I secured my hold around Glory and flew us over the glade. At first, I feared the beating of my wings would wake the creatures, but when none of them stirred at the sound or the shift of the air, it occurred to me that they were used to it, living next to dragons as they did. With that small, tiny advantage in our pocket, if we moved quickly enough, it was possible we wouldn’t fail before we began.
I angled us so we hovered vertically over the pedestal, but Glory was right. There was no safe space to land. She frowned at the waiting clue for a long while, until I was certain she would ask me to pull her back up so we could figure out a second plan. But then she leaned towards the left, reaching farther, farther. I kept my grip tight on her waist, but the look she shot me told me that wasn’t what she had in mind. She had to drop lower if she wanted to read the script etched into the stone, which meant…
I cursed under my breath and slid one arm along her side, giving her space to climb down me until her ankles were hooked in my armpits. I kept my arms wrapped tightly around the backs of her legs and helped her dip low enough that her fingers brushed the pedestal.
Her muscles tightened and flexed with the effort of staying in place, but she showed no sign of discomfort or fatigue. If we hadn’t been dangling above all these drakes, I might have laughed at her and called bullshit. She might claim this adventuring life was too messy for her, but the woman was a natural. I thought of all the times on my previous hunts when this lithe figure might have helped me avoid one scrape or twelve and found myself wishing it were possible for us to confront them together in the future.
My thoughts also veered in another direction while her head sat near my ankles. Other activities we might get up to in a similar position that didn’t involve deadly challenges or infuriating puzzles crafted by homicidal mages.
But even as fantasies of both varieties played out in my head, they were accompanied by the depressing acceptance that neither would come to pass.
I refocused on the task at hand and watched the drakes, alert for any sign that we’d been noticed. Beneath me, Glory jerked as though she’d experienced some kind of pain. One of the nearest drakes twitched, and I tensed, braced for the creature to awaken. The scent of blood filled the air, and the drake twitched again. Raised its head. Its eyes remained closed, but it craned its neck left to right, trying to follow the scent. A second one stirred. A third. The first one blinked open its golden, fire-touched eyes.
In another breath, the lot of them were awake and surging towards us.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck! How are you doing down there, Buttons?”
The nearest drake snapped at Glory, and she swung to the side to avoid its teeth. My arms slipped on her calves, dropping her a few inches, and I rushed to tighten my grip. The clue was so close, and she was right there. Holding her as I was, I couldn’t do anything to help except fly us away, and I knew if I did that before she unravelled the puzzle, she’d never forgive me.
The drake snapped again, and I was on the verge of accepting Glory’s rage when she tapped my leg. I hauled her up, flying us higher over the glade and back out over the trees. My heart battered my rib cage as the first drake screamed at us, and I flew the opposite way of our camp in case they followed us on foot.
With more dexterity and fearlessness than I would have imagined possible from the once-reserved mage, Glory climbed up my body and twisted around until her arms were tight around my neck, her knees clenching my waist. She graced me with a wide grin, and my smile grew to match. She’d gotten it. “Tersey thought the drakes would be a test, but we outsmarted him on that one. To the hells with him. We’re one step closer, Cammon. This amulet is almost ours!”
She was so excited, so proud of herself, that I didn’t have it in me to be anything other than ecstatic over our success.
“Were you hurt?” I asked.
Her brow furrowed, then cleared. “Bastard demanded a blood sacrifice.” She held up her hand to show me the nasty gash, and I swallowed my urge to drop her off and return to the glade to slaughter every last drake and turn the pedestal into rubble.
I circled back to our camp, retrieved our bags from the tree, and when I landed, Glory’s arms remained around my neck with her body pressed against mine. The headiness of her desire made my body rage with yearning. I could barely breathe with the heat of it.
Beneath the physical arousal lurked something more visceral. More terrifying. More important for me to deny if I wanted to walk away from this mission emotionally unscathed.
Somehow I overrode my wishes and my nature and managed to pull her arms free. “I’ll go light a fire.” My voice was husky, lined with the effort of maintaining this unfamiliar, uncomfortable self-control. “You probably want to get started interpreting the next clue.”
The taste of her confusion and the prickly aftertaste of hurt pained me, but I accepted it. I couldn’t share her bedroll tonight. I needed space to think. A chance to disconnect.
She frowned. “Cammon… I—” She cut herself off, gave me a slight nod, then turned her back on me to pull out her bedroll for somewhere to sit. And in her silence I knew she’d realized the same thing I had.
What we’d had was incredible. A once-in-a-lifetime experience and a memory to hold on to during the nights ahead. But our futures were as incompatible as Tersey’s explosive potion and air. When this mission was over, we were over.