Page 98 of A Subtle Scar

“Behind you. This is bothersome. Go get us some rope or a burlap sack. They’re still moving.”

Hermes growled again. I would have taken a step back at his anger, but he had me clutched to him so there was no way.

Hermes said, “This place is all messed up. If I leave, I don’t know if I’ll be able to come back quickly.”

He looked down at me, and unless I was mistaken, his honey eyes were glimmering.

“Not a kinky request, but do you have handcuffs on you, baby?”

“What? No. Oh, I see. Watch out!”

Another rock, and he caught that one without really looking that way.

“Well, that is…Ronny, we are moving forward. I want to see what is fucking with the place. Baby, stay close.”

I couldn’t have moved away from him if I’d wanted to, which I did, for the sole purpose of being able to move and defend myself. And them. Not being able to see Charon was unsettling.

Hermes wasn’t having that. His hold on me was iron. He walked deeper into the cave and walked me with him, the black rock shiny with moisture, the light bursting and ebbing as people moved their flashlights and Charon made those behind us stop moving, their flashlights collecting on the cave floor.

The rock thrower, or one of the rock throwers, cowered on a ledge higher up, and Hermes spotted them before I did, going by his head snapping that way. They had no flashlight with them, but an old-fashioned camping lantern, which they jostled when Hermes glared at them. It was then, the faint globe of light moving over the rock around us that I got a better sense of what the cave ahead looked like.

There, ahead of us, it was even wider than all the spots we’d passed before, and the walls seemed to be rounded, reaching up and down as if we had come out somewhere in the middle of a drill shaft.

Hermes walked up to the ledge. The rock thrower was a kid, by the looks of it. He was dirty, but I didn’t think he was older than fifteen, if that.

“Don’t,” Hermes said, eyeing a rock in the kid’s hand.

“You’ll kill us,” the kid said, eyes wide and scared shitless.

He threw. Hermes caught the rock like he had done before and tossed it right back at the kid, except with more force.

It shattered on the ground next to the boy, and he squealed, shielding his eyes with filthy hands.

“The next one will hit you where it hurts, so keep your fucking hands off the fucking gravel and go to your corner,” Hermes said.

Wings fluttered, and something in me relaxed when I smelled the warmth of cedarwood.

“They are moaning, and I did knock out a few,” Charon said. “Our boyfriend broke bones.”

Hermes grunted. “He’s decent in a fight. And very sexy.”

“So stop coddling me and let me walk on my own,” I said as Charon fell in step on our other side.

He looked down at me with his onyx eyes. “There is no need to be excessive. Stay with Hermes, darling.”

“I have a black belt in Aikido. Second Dan, if anyone cares.”

Charon petted my head. “That’s very nice, darling. Stay with Hermes.”

I frowned, but this wasn’t the time or place to discuss their patronizing behavior.

Something hit Charon in the shoulder, and he turned.

“D-diseased m-monsters,” the kid stammered.

He’d slunk back against the cave wall. I felt sorry for him.

Charon spun, and the air rushed past my face when his wings came around. He rounded on the kid fast, his wings spread so far the feathers brushed against the stone enclosing us.