Page 8 of Courting the Fae Captain (Romancing the Realms #4)

Brown hair fell into my face, and I spat it out of my mouth in disgust, realising it was indeed hair , not fur.

The light was bright enough now that I could vaguely make out a female’s features as she lifted her head and glared down at me.

And oh, she was not happy. Perhaps not even sane, judging by the crazed look in her eyes.

She shrieked and raised something sharp and curved into the air.

A blade? No, a bone. That was a fucking Fae bone she was about to impale me with.

And by the looks of how pale and clean it was, it had been down here for some time.

Gods, how many females had died in this place?

I was wrong. We weren’t in a maze. We were in a fucking crypt.

The air whooshed out from between my teeth as I grabbed her hand and curled my fingers, clenching my nails deep into her skin. The bone lowered, the makeshift blade dropping dangerously close to my eye.

I couldn’t even call for help, not as I dared a split-second glance at Sherai, who was battling her own attacker.

Gods help us, we were not one day into the Rite and females were already turning murderous.

Is this really what we were reduced to? A pack of starved dogs in a wild frenzy as they battled over the only prey?

I knew what wild things did when cornered.

Kick a dog enough, and eventually it loses itself to basic survival instincts.

It bites, it mauls, and it tears its attacker apart.

The captain wouldn’t know what hit him. Or maybe he would revel in the brutality of this game. The basic instincts and the primal hunger that lived in all of us. And yet, the thing about the circle of life is that there’s always something stronger. Always a bigger fish. And today that fish was me.

I pushed all my energy into my core, twisting her hand just enough to slip out of harm’s way.

The bone struck the stone where my head had been, and she hissed as I twisted and punched her in the throat.

She uttered a strangled cry as she choked, her hands grasping at her windpipe.

The creatures could be heard down the tunnel, no doubt curious about our tussle.

I didn’t hesitate to grab the makeshift bone knife, but I did freeze as I looked down into her eyes.

Wide and green and not full of anger or hate, but …

fear. She was afraid, and fear made people do irrational things.

I couldn’t bring myself to slide the knife home.

It would have been so easy to slip it beneath her ribcage, to angle it just so.

A mercy, even, compared to the beasts that prowled this place.

Or I could be the bigger person. I could reach out my hand.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said softly. “We can leave this place together.”

Some of the feral glassiness in the female’s eyes left, a look of relief easing her features, but then she glanced over my shoulder, and that fear came right back.

“Aeris.”

The name was a garbled plea, and I looked to find Sherai in a rear chokehold from the female behind her.

The look in that one’s eyes? That was altogether different.

Determination and indifference. She was not someone to cross, but I took one look at the hopelessness in Sherai’s eyes and knew I’d stop at nothing to get her out of here.

“Let her go,” I said slowly. Authoritatively.

To my surprise, the female listened. She bared her teeth, her brows raising ever so slightly as she took in a second threat. “Aeris?” she asked. “Aeris Lockhart?”

Alarm bells rang inside my head as she cocked her head, her lips thinning as she seemed to look at me in a new light. Well, that was comforting. I didn’t let her see my concern. Not as I grinned and saluted her. “The one and only.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she shifted her stance. The female barely spared my weapon a second glance. No, this one was certainly no stranger to combat. I adjusted my own stance, lifting my weapon, ready to lunge if necessary.

I’d shifted my focus so completely onto the females that I forgot about the very thing we’d each been running from.

A massive shape leapt from the darkness.

I saw it from the corner of my eye and frantically spun, shifting out of the way as it landed on the female behind me.

She screamed, the sound immediately silenced as the creature found her throat and ripped the whole thing out.

In the light, I finally saw what it was we’d been trying to escape.

It was a monstrosity. Patchy brown fur, milky eyes, and a maw full of rows upon rows of rotting brown fangs.

It resembled something akin to a wolf, but twisted, somehow.

As if even the gods couldn’t work out how to finish making it.

The grizzly head turned, and even blind, those eyes met mine, as if seeing into my soul.

There was a sound further back down the tunnel, and I knew it had to be the other two beasts on their way.

I glanced at Sherai, at the door looming just out of reach, then back to my opponent, silent and watchful. She grinned slowly as she caught my stare, and I knew there was no getting out of this. Not with a beast on both sides.

There was only one option. I looked at Sherai again, trying to convey my plan, and miraculously, she dipped her head almost imperceptibly back.

This was it. The last mad dash. Without waiting, I threw the bone blade at the female’s feet, who hissed as the weapon clattered loudly in the silence.

The beast roared, thundering past me as I squashed my body against the wall before launching back into a run.

Sherai bolted at the same time, and we grabbed for each other’s hands, sprinting as hard as our legs would carry us. Golden light spilled out from the cracks around the door frame. It groaned and clanked as we slid the bolts back and hefted the heavy thing with all our might.

Behind us, snarls and the female’s shouts broke out.

I could only imagine how that struggle was going, but I couldn’t afford to turn back.

Finally, the door widened enough for us to slip through, and then we were almost falling over ourselves in the rush to get in and get the door shut.

We’d just about got the unbelievably heavy door closed again when a bloody hand grabbed the frame and shoved with surprising strength.

I grunted, my shoulder too spent to put any more weight into the task, and a moment later, the female slipped through the crack, helping to close the door forever on the beast on the other side.

We slid the bolts home, and I had a momentary thought of whether we’d just sealed any other females left inside forever. But I was too afraid to risk leaving the door unbolted, even if it was ridiculously heavy.

The beautiful female who’d attacked us turned around and smiled with bloodied canines. “Welcome to the Rite, ladies. May the best female win.”