Page 6

6

DAIN

T he stench of burnt flesh still clings to the cavern walls, thick and sharp, but it’s the silence that unsettles me.

Too still. Too expectant.

They aren’t gone. Not all of them.

I lift my head, listening.

A shuffle in the deep. A guttural chuff from something too large, too hungry, waiting just beyond the tunnel’s bend. Another breath, slow and measured, laced with the foul, wet musk of something that should not exist.

More are coming.

My claws twitch at my sides, shoulders tight with the fight behind me, of the fight still waiting ahead. I could take them—half-broken as I am, I could still tear through them, rip them apart piece by oozing piece.

But her. My gaze flicks to the girl.

She’s still slumped against the cavern floor, trembling from the backlash of magic she shouldn’t have. Her body doesn’t know how to handle it, doesn’t know how to breathe without choking on the remnants of whatever power just ripped through her.

She’s pale. Too pale.

A part of me resents her weakness.

A larger part of me resents my own. I should leave her here. Let the creatures finish what they started.

But I don’t.

My hand moves before I can force myself to care about the consequences.

My claws wrap around her arm, dragging her up, pressing her against the cold rock to keep her upright. Her body shudders beneath my touch, pulse erratic beneath fragile skin. She makes a soft noise, not pain, not fear. Something else.

Something I do not like.

Her gaze is slow to rise to mine, unfocused, hazy, like she’s fighting to hold onto consciousness.

I should let her collapse.

Instead, my grip tightens.

Her breath stumbles. I feel it, the way her muscles go tense beneath my palm, how her lips part just slightly, confusion flickering behind her storm-gray eyes.

She doesn’t understand why I’m still here.

I don’t either. But I don’t have time to think about it.

The clicking starts again.

The cavern walls tremble. Dust cascades from the ceiling, slithering over stone like sand through a glass. The creatures are closing in.

She sways. Her knees nearly give out.

I snarl, catching her before she drops.

I should leave her. I should leave her, I repeat to myself. Instead, I hoist her up, forcing her to move.

Her fingers curl into my arm, weak and trembling, but she doesn’t fight me. She clings.

I hate the way it feels. The proximity.

The way her breath warms the my throat, the way her body molds too easily to my own.

I hate that she fits there, like something meant to.

I jerk my head toward the deeper tunnels. “Move.”

She doesn’t argue. She doesn’t have the strength to.

I drag her with me.

The tunnels curve into blackness, a deeper dark than what we left behind, one that presses, thick and full of something ancient. My skin prickles at the familiarity of it.

This place was never meant for escape.

Something shifts in my mind, an old memory crawling from centuries of stillness, something I should not recall yet do.

The dark elves spoke of it.

A way out.

Not a door. A stream.

Water that cuts through the lower ruins, a vein of something older than the temple itself. They talked of it when they thought I was asleep, whispered of it as if the walls could listen.

They thought I was stone. They thought I wasn’t watching.

“Where are we going?” Her voice is too soft, too human.

I don’t slow.

“Out.”

Her fingers twitch against my forearm. “You remember something.”

It’s not a question.

I do not like that she sees it.

“I remember many things,” I mutter, guiding her deeper, further into the dark, further away from the things that should have already killed her.

Her pulse flutters against my grip. Too fast.

“You think this is an escape route?” she breathes.

“I think it’s our only route.”

She exhales through her nose, barely keeping up with my pace, but she doesn’t complain.

She is stronger than she looks.

But not strong enough.

A sound slithers through the tunnel behind us, distant but closer than before.

They are still hunting.

I tug her forward, ignoring the way she fits too perfectly beneath my touch, ignoring the heat that curls in my gut at how easily she follows.

She is mine. I do not like how easily that thought comes.

I do not like how true it feels.

I lean my head to the side, thinking. Why do I feel this way toward a human girl?