Page 33

The Cliff

Callum

He couldn’t get the image of her from his mind.

He’d peeked.

Of course he had.

He was as much a red-blooded male as the next guy.

Standing beneath the glittering water, she’d looked like a fucking goddess, the droplets clinging to her tan skin like diamonds, studding her dark hair with stars that trailed down her back.

His mouth had gone dry and had yet to recover, no matter how much damn cactus juice he drank.

As they made their way back to the hut, Callum looked at it with a critical eye.

With the height of the plateau, it was unlikely that anyone would be able to spot it.

Even if they did, at a distance it would likely look more like a lefiin than anything else.

Should be fine to leave it standing.

The fact that it would avoid breaking Rumi’s heart by harming the vines that sheltered them was just a bonus.

They gathered their things quickly, and he tried and failed many times to keep his eyes from straying.

He told himself that he was only assessing her strength, making sure she was ready to head out.

A practical reason for his gaze to keep wandering her way.

He caught sight of her hands.

Soft with a slight line of calluses across the top of her palm.

“I’m gonna check this ledge for a good trail,”

he said as she strapped her shinweed satchel to her back with a cord and secured her newly made bow to it.

When she’d made that cord, he had no idea.

Cal tore the sleeve of his shirt, pulling narrow strips from the material as he studied the slope.

A few moments later, he turned back to her.

“May I see your hands?”

He held his out, palm up, waiting for her reply, his lungs cinching with each heartbeat.

She looked from his face to his hand and back, mulling it over before resting a hand in his.

Had his heart really just stuttered? Like a giddy schoolgirl’s?

“We’re gonna go down side-by-side,”

He told her.

“There’s only a few parts we’re going to need to climb down.

I’ll talk you through those.

Your legs are gonna burn when we’re done.

But then we can rest.

At least, for a few moments. Now that the rain is gone, I figure they’re coming, so we’ll need to hustle.”

He carefully lifted her hand and gave it a quick squeeze.

“For luck,”

he explained as he wrapped her fingertips with bands of cloth, securing the vertical strips to her palm.

He tore small pieces to secure the loop over her fingertips.

He looked her in the eye, sharing his unshakable confidence.

“Feet next.

This will be brutal barefoot, unfortunately.

I’m not much of a cobbler, but let’s at least get something on the soles of your feet.”

“My feet are accustomed to being bare.”

“Sure, in soft mossy beds and trees…not climbin’ down a cliff.”

She shrugged like it was nothing, but he gripped her foot in his hand and wrapped the fabric around it for whatever meager protection it could provide.

“I figure it’s like climbing trees, actually,”

he counseled.

“Always keep three points attached to the rock face.

You’ve got two hands and two feet.

Three of those must always hold the rock.

Are you ready?”

“Like climbing trees,”

she repeated and bobbed her chin, “I can do that.”

She sounded confident enough and took a deep breath before sharing a smile.

“I am ready.”

Cal took a few sideways steps.

“Set your feet sideways, lean your shoulders uphill.

Can you feel how gravity doesn’t grab you as hard? Side step, one foot then the other.”

He flashed her a smile.

Side by side, they picked their way down the rocky slope.

Time seemed to stop, and every so often pebbles would skitter down the rocks, dislodged by one of their feet.

The sun pierced through the grey, cementing their need to keep moving as the clouds continued to part, the rays hot and sharp against his body.

The rocks burned his fingertips and sweat trickled down his neck.

But the ground was dry—that was all that mattered.

“I miss the rains,”

she whispered softly enough that he knew it wasn’t meant for him.

“Now comes the hard part,”

he informed her, shuffling to a narrow ledge and dropping a length of his rope over her shoulder.

“Remember, three points of contact,”

He looped the rope over and around her, making an H-shaped harness with the knot centered on her chest.

He tied the other end around his waist.

“Let’s go,”

he instructed.

“Hold the ledge with your fingertips.

See the rock with the band of white? Move your right foot to it.”

He heard her mumbling to herself as she pressed her body against the burning rocks and stretched her foot toward the white-banded stone.

Her arms shook and she gritted her teeth, obviously trying to will her mind to forget how the stone burned her fingertips.

He was doing the same.

“Climbing trees.

Climbing trees.

Climbing trees,”

he caught her muttering to herself over and over.

She yelped as one of her hands slipped and gravity snatched at her, but her foot found the white-banded rock and she caught herself.

Thank whatever gods she worshipped, because Cal’s heart was in his throat.

When her breathing was under control, she tried again while he called out instructions, pointing out handholds and rocks that looked secure from above.

Then, she reached an area barren of any secure hand holds.

Fuck.

He could see her arms trembling.

“What do I do?”

she called, her voice edged with hysteria.

She blinked up at him with those damned dark doe eyes.

Cal sidestepped, then climbed lower, setting his toes and gripping the stones until he reached her.

“Step on my knee, then grip my leg.

There’s a path we can walk down that’s really close.

You can do this, Rumi.

I know you can.”

Her shaky exhale made the strands of hair by her face twist and dance, seeming at odds with her rigid body.

She released one hand to climb to his knee but must have felt herself slipping as she immediately grabbed for her handhold again.

“I…I do not think I can do it…”

she whimpered, pressing her face into the stone, her whole body quaking.

“Callum? Promise you will take my body home.”

She risked a glance at him from beneath her arm.

Callum offered her his hand.

“You can do this, Rumi.

You’re going to walk back into the forest to meet your lover boy and have little saplings, remember? But first, take my hand.

I’ll be your third point of support.

I won’t let you fall.”

Her breath shuddered and she squeezed her eyes shut.

The sweat trickling down her cheeks looked like tears.

She slid her hand along the wall until she met his fingertips.

He wrapped his hand around hers.

Sure and safe.

His eyes stung as sweat collected along his lashes, but he didn’t look away from her, not for an instant. All that mattered was getting out of here in one piece. He would do it. He’d get them both out.

A grunt rumbled from behind her teeth as she eased down, his arm giving her leverage to reach further for purchase with her toes.

Her body stretched, fingers brushing his knee before they clawed into his leg.

He caged his own grunt of pain behind his teeth, willing himself to be the strong support for the both of them.

Ignoring the way his own muscles burned.

Laboriously, she slid lower.

Her breath hissed with each exhale and it echoed up the cliff side. She found a toehold. Her foot slipped and rocks clattered beneath them. She slammed into his knee, her fingers scrabbling against his pants, tearing the fabric. Her cry shot through the desert as his hand tightened around hers to keep her from falling to her death. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Rumi dangled in the air, one arm wrapped around his thigh, the other clutching his hand for dear life.

“I’ve got you.

I won’t let you fall,”

he repeated, growling against the force it took to keep them both aloft, his own muscles shaking with the effort.

He wasn’t sure how long he could continue to hold them both.

“Can you reach a better spot with your toes?”

“Yes,”

she replied after a moment, her voice barely there.

He could feel her pulse racing beneath his hand, and she pressed her face to his thigh as she gathered her strength.

He didn’t dare rush her.

Sweat stung his eyes, but he kept his gaze steady on her.

When she stretched her toes, finding a suitable spot for her feet, her grip around his leg loosened and she wrapped her fingers around a small ledge.

But she didn’t let go of his hand.

So it continued, Cal guiding them down the cliff face with clear instructions and patience learned from years of tutoring other soldiers.

The spiky grasses brushed their legs as they touched the earth—she landed lightly on her feet and his own thumped to the ground beside her.

“We made it,”

he told her, affirming they were both alive.

Her breath arrived in shaky gasps, and his wasn’t much better. “Now,”

he said, looking around, willing himself not to pant, “we need some shade.”

She collapsed on the ground beside him, barely able to whimper her thanks or her agreement.

He knelt beside her and his hands slid beneath her neck, lifting her head to press the rim of the waterskin to her lips, the cool liquid sloshing within.

“You did well.

That was not an easy thing,”

he said quietly as she allowed him to pour the water into her mouth.

Precious droplets dribbled down the sides of her cheeks and he found himself staring at her lips and the way the water sparkled against her tawny skin.

In the sunlight, he couldn’t help but notice the barest hint of warm brown in her eyes.

It reminded him of the dunes.

Damn sun was getting to him.

“There’s a spot of shade behind that hill over there.

Can you walk that far?”

“I will do what I must,”

she whispered in response, blinking up at him.

She wrapped her quaking arms around his shoulders and he helped ease her to her feet and they both began the slow shuffle toward the shade provided by the small hill across from them.

Absently, he remembered the strength she’d carried when he’d first arrested her.

While she was regaining it, slowly, she’d lost some of her muscle in her time here.

When he looked at her, really looked, he could see the signs of something that hadn’t been there before.

A haunted, resigned sort of look.

What had Sullivan done to her?

A low growl from behind him stood the hair on the back of his neck on end.

Rumi heard it too and froze.

The whole ravine went still.

“Is it a windwolf?”

she asked, barely making a sound, frozen in place.

He risked a slow glance over his shoulder, taking in the dune-colored fur and crimson spikes.

Large paws with sharp claws clutched the edge of the ledge just on the other side of the ravine.

Green eyes reflected the light as it crept toward them.

“Razorcat,”

he replied, almost inaudiblly, his lips hardly moving.

“A desert cat the size of an ox with a hearty appetite for meat.”

“We can take a cat,”

she said, craning her neck to look behind her at the razorcat as it prowled closer.

“I’ve hunted larger.”

Her nonchalance confirmed his suspicions about the creatures detailed in Gallilian reports.

Maybe this would be smoother than he thought.

“I’m going to draw my piercer while you—”

his gaze snagged on the uneven crest of the hill they’d been wandering toward and his heart sank in his chest while adrenaline spiked his blood.

Fuck.

He glanced around for an escape and swore again.

“Rumi, we need to run.”

“What? Run from that? I can shoot it.”

She shifted and angled to see better as she drew her bow from her back.

The grace with which she did so implied years of practice.

But that wouldn’t matter here.

“Listen, we gotta get out of here.”

Callum’s eyes were trained on the hill where the rains must have washed away the ground to reveal the patterned ridges of a massive shell—textured hexagonal shapes laid over one another like scales.

The fucking death trap.

He’d been so foolish.

So caught up in thoughts of her that he hadn’t noticed the danger right before him.

He grabbed her elbow and began hastily dragging her out of the ravine.

“Hey!”

She shouted, her shot going wide and ricocheting off the cliff.

“I had a good—”

“Blood and bone, Rumi—run!”

No sooner had he said the words than the cat pounced.

Its feline roar pummeled the cliffside, but it garbled into a mew of pain as a massive head shot out from beneath the hill and snatched the predator mid-pounce.

Rock and dust sprayed from the speed of the strike, clattering around them as the jaw of the snapper fractured the stone mere feet from them.

The screech of rending stone rang against his bones.

Callum didn’t stay to stare at the gargantuan bony head and dull eyes the size of his torso.

He threw Rumi over his shoulder and bolted, running as fast as his legs could carry him, ignoring the loud crunch of bone as the giant tortoise-like beast feasted and the dying screeches fell still.

The ground rumbled beneath his feet as the snapper moved, hopefully, to settle once more, content with its meal.

“Holy gods,”

she whispered in awe, apparently watching the scene behind them as he continued his mad dash through the sands.

Stupid.

He was so stupid for not seeing it.

Everyone knew the signs of the snapper and he’d walked right into it.

“It is huge! It came out of the hill.

What is that thing?”

“Snapper,”

he panted, darting over the rocks and gravel washed off the plateau by the rains.

“That giant’ll eat just about anything that falls into that channel.”

He sucked in a breath as he moved.

“Mostly, it eats during the rains when things get washed down the ravine it creates.

They don’t normally come this close to a city.

Damn it, I’m an idiot for not seeing it sooner.”

He fell silent as he ran out of breath, his lungs pumping as he carried her away.

Fuck.

They’d need to find another route.

This was going to extend their journey.

“It looks like a turtle,”

she said, propping up on her elbows to better see behind them.

“It has a wrinkly neck!”

“Is it giving chase?”

“No, just sniffing…now it is going back into the hill—er, the shell.”

“I’m getting real sick of carrying you everywhere, Twiggy,”

was all he said.