Page 49

“Before the tree, we made a bet over who could hold out the longest against stampeding deer,” Samara said smugly. “You lost, Cali, but you split the herd.”

“We need to discuss fun ways to celebrate a birthday.” Kieran shook his head. “I’ll give you a hint . . . it should involve too much wine and sweet treats. Not rampaging, horned monsters.”

“Don’t tell me how to celebrate my birthdays, pretty boy.” Cali shrugged.

Faint vibrations started to rumble through the ground, and we all looked towards where a dust cloud was rising into the sky. The deer were still far enough away that I couldn’t make out individuals, but Cali wasn’t wrong; the herd was massive.

One-on-one, Lunarian deer weren’t dangerous.

True, they were large—about the size of an average horse—and the twisted horns that rose from their skulls were as sharp as any dagger, but generally, they avoided conflict.

It made them hard to hunt because at the first hint of danger, the entire herd took off.

Exactly like they were doing now, with their heads lowered so they could spear or trample anything in their way.

We had the unfortunate luck of being in their path. We’d never outrun them, and if we tried, the trapper spiders would be on us immediately.

I knew what Samara was suggesting. It was absolutely crazy . . . but it could work. Maybe. Like a fifty-fifty chance. Honestly, we had no other options because that fucking herd would be on us in minutes.

“We need to group together and make ourselves as small as possible if we’re going to pull this off,” I ordered.

Roth grabbed Samara and tugged her close while Draven, Kieran, and Alaric closed ranks around them and I stepped to Samara’s back.

“Rynn!” Samara yelled.

The large white wolf shoved her way between all of us, and I flinched when she nipped my leg but shuffled a little to make room for her.

Cali moved to stand in front of us, her black, leathery wings tucked in tight, and her deep red hair spilling down her back like liquid fire as the afternoon sun finally broke free of the clouds.

“Might want to prepare yourselves,” she warned in a low, dangerous tone. “There’s bound to be some spillover with me being so close to you all.”

All we could do was wait for the herd to reach us. If this was going to work, the timing needed to be absolutely perfect. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a few long legs prod out from the earth before quickly sliding back beneath the trapdoors. The vibrations were making the trappers antsy.

“Get ready!” Cali ordered as the deer thundered towards us, blood already staining some of their stark-white horns.

I threw my arms around Samara and ducked my head, nestling into her hair, then I breathed in her scent deeply to ground myself as I heard Cali snap her wings open and release a bloodcurdling scream.

Chaotic magic full of unyielding rage brushed against my mind, and the thread connecting me to Samara thrummed between us as if it was anchoring me to her. I held on to it as the deer raced past us—not into us.

Fuck me. It actually worked.

The ground shook as the deer thundered across the badlands. Then the spiders attacked, and terrified shrieks filled the air.

Cali cut her scream off, her magic abruptly vanishing, and I instantly straightened. The bulk of the herd had passed us, but there were still stragglers trying to catch up to the rest.

That wasn’t the problem though. Random deer, we could dodge.

No, the problem was that the spiders were launching themselves out of their trapdoors.

If they caught a deer, they did their best to drag it back into their tunnel.

Sometimes they won . . . sometimes they found themselves speared and stomped to death.

The hard white surface of the badlands was quickly being stained with red blood and a dark green ichor.

Amongst all the chaos were the trappers who hadn’t caught anything but also hadn’t been trampled—they were hunting now.

It was hard to believe something so large could be lurking beneath the surface.

Their bulbous abdomens were a deep red, and it was the only part of their bodies that had coarse hairs covering it.

The rest of their bodies were a shiny black, including the three-inch curved fangs, which delivered a toxin that would start breaking down tissue almost immediately.

A thick carapace protected the top half of their bodies, and the exoskeleton on their legs was equally strong.

The abdomen was the most vulnerable spot, as it was the only soft bit of their bodies.

I’d learned from experience though that they could shoot those fucking hairs to burrow under your skin or puncture your eyes.

There was also the small problem that the spiders were taller than my waist, and if they reared up onto their hind legs, they would tower over me.

I loved me a good fight, but I also wasn’t an idiot.

“ Run !” I shoved Samara and the others forward.

Nobody needed any further encouragement as we took off at a dead sprint.

Deer snorted as they galloped past us, but an enormous one with horns stained completely red, bits of torn flesh still hanging off them, altered its direction to charge straight for us.

Kieran was in front, and he started to veer left, only to jerk back when a spider leapt from a trap.

Draven’s whip wrapped around one of the trapper’s outstretched legs, bright red spikes shooting out from the whip a second before he yanked the whip down. The spider let out a high-pitched shriek as it crashed to the ground and its injured leg snapped in half.

“Take out the fucking deer!” I yelled.

Another spider leapt from a trap, only for Cali to dive from the skies and shove her blade into the space between its abdomen and upper body. The thing let out an ungodly sound, and Cali screamed as its hairs shot out and pierced her wings.

Alaric and Kieran raised their swords as the enraged deer got closer, only for a white blur to leap from the side.

Rynn’s jaws closed around the deer’s throat as her body continued its forward momentum and swung to the other side, jerking the deer with it.

The two men were too close to change course, so they jumped over the deer while the rest of us went around it.

To her credit, Samara didn’t slow down, not even as Rynn and Cali continued their respective battles.

I felt her worry through our link, but she had absolute faith in her friends to come out on top.

More spiders poured from the earth, some finding prey to occupy themselves with, others still looking.

If we stopped, we died.

“Six trappers up ahead!” Draven warned, then glanced over his shoulder to make sure I was with Samara. Unlike the others, he trusted me to keep her safe.

A trapdoor opened to our right, and Alaric shoved Roth left before rolling underneath the spider as it launched itself out.

Silver flashed, and dark ichor poured onto the earth as Alaric sliced open the underside of the trapper’s abdomen.

Without missing a beat, he sprung back to his feet and was running again.

I didn’t have much time to be impressed though because the spiders Draven had warned us about darted forward. Rynn and Cali hadn’t caught up to us yet, which meant it was the six of us against the six of them. Not the odds I would have preferred.

“Make room!” Samara shouted.

Alaric grabbed Roth’s hand and pulled them to the right while Draven and Kieran went left, giving Samara a clear shot at the spiders.

Samara slammed to a halt and snapped the crossbow up.

In the span of a single breath, two bolts soared through the air.

Two spiders jerked and crashed into each other as a bolt sunk into the exact two-inch spot on their heads I’d told Samara about earlier.

She reloaded the crossbow and fired again. Two more spiders went down.

The others raced ahead, even as the two remaining trappers keyed in on them. Samara took out the one on the right, and Draven’s whip cracked, taking out two legs of the one on the left.

Samara swung the crossbow onto her back again, but I grabbed her before she could dart after the others.

“Wha—”

Her words were cut off when my mouth crashed against hers in a quick but brutal kiss.

I pulled back and grinned wildly at her. “Nice shooting, my queen. Now it’s time to run.”