Page 45

Neith

W e pick up the pace again and I’m grateful that we stopped for a moment, because I needed that time to catch my breath, but I’m slowing down now, and although the guys aren’t moving at human speeds for me, they have slowed down from what I know that they’re capable of.

I’m just grateful that I’m moving faster than a human, if I’m being honest. We get there relatively quickly, but I’m huffing and puffing, and desperately begging my leg not to cramp like it’s threatening.

The guys all look at me concerned, but I wave them off.

“Can you climb up the cliff?” Van asks.

I nod, “Yeah, I’m already feeling better. I’m not used to pushing my body like that. Besides, I love climbing, far more than running. I hate running.”

“Good to know that’s not changed,” Van grins. “Alright, Griff, Reed, I think it’s probably safe to fly now, but take it cautiously, we’ll follow your path up.”

“Got it,” Griff replies. “I’m going to lead you guys in a slightly serpentine route because there are a couple of caves that have those creatures in them, and I want to avoid disturbing them at all costs.”

“Smart,” I reply, and Griff smirks.

Reed and Griff launch themselves into the air and hover close to the edge of the cliff while the others all start to climb.

It doesn’t escape my notice that River and Ransom stay on the ground until I have begun to climb.

I end up climbing side by side next to Raiden, and over the sound of the growing wind, I can just about hear him muttering under his breath.

“You okay?” I ask as quietly as I can.

He glances over at me and smiles, “Yeah, I’m just annoyed that I can’t do certain things.”

His eyes dart up and focus on Griff and Reed, and I frown slightly before I realize what he’s trying to subtly hint at.

He wants to fly, and he can’t, because the Reaper council hasn’t yet summoned him, and we’re hoping that he won’t be summoned for a while.

If we renew their interest in him though, he will get put to the top of their list and get summoned the second that we leave the Choosing.

There are things that we want to do and make sure that we have in place before Raiden gets called on.

I know that one of the things that Raiden wants to make sure that he does before he gets called is to do some more research into the fact that the current reaper council isn’t actually supposed to be in power.

The original council was somehow left behind in Trieneliea, something that a lot of supernaturals who have the memory are suspicious about.

Unfortunately, there is nothing that anyone has been able to do about their suspicions because by the time that everything had calmed down after the mass eviction from Trieneliea, and the gates closing, the new council had gained too much power, and no one was able to go against them.

The fact is that the reapers were in a new realm, one that some had never been to before and they came from a war-torn world, they needed someone to look to for guidance and while tensions were high and emotions were spiraling, the new council stepped up and took the place that the old one left.

If you didn’t know anything about the reapers, then I suppose you could argue that they did a noble thing and helped out when it was needed.

However, I do know the reapers well enough, and how the council has changed the narrative around the reapers and made them into something to fear is extremely suspicious to me.

Plus, one or two council members not making it through, I could maybe believe, all of the original reaper council not coming through the gates before they closed. That screams suspicious to me.

Where it’s going to get complicated for Raiden is that his father is on the council and has been from the beginning, from what I can tell.

There is no love lost between them, quite the opposite, in fact his dad is an asshole, but he is still Raiden’s father and if it turns out that he was a part of doing something abhorrent, then it is going to affect Raiden.

He won’t have to deal with any of it alone, we will all be there for him every step of the way, and if they think for one second that they can summon him and we won’t come as well, they’re in for a shock. Raiden is going to have backup and people who will fight in his corner.

I almost want them to try to treat Raiden like I know they do because I am literally itching to say something.

It infuriates me that the only reason that they treat him so badly, and have treated him so badly for his entire life, is because he is supposedly so weak and therefore a lower tier than they are.

It’s even more frustrating that we have recently learnt that the old council didn’t run things in the same way, and that power levels meant almost nothing.

In fact, thinking about it, the weaker and more boring that he can make himself look now, the better.

The more the council members who are no doubt watching the Choosing will think that whatever power surge they felt couldn’t possibly have come from Raiden, and was some kind of glitch or something instead.

We’re not even that sure that they picked up on Raiden’s spikes of power anyway, but I think that it would be very unlikely that they haven’t.

It wasn’t just at the house and within Ransom’s wards that he set it free, but also in Ireland, he had his wings free then as well.

My hand slips on a piece of loose rock, and it reminds me that I need to be focusing on the here and now instead of worrying about the future. There will be time for that at a later date.

“Are you okay?” Doc asks me with concern as he glances down at me. When he sees that I’m still calm and actually smiling, his concern turns to curiosity: “You really do actually like climbing, don’t you?”

I nod, “It’s more that I love being high, and climbing is the way to get high.”

“Huh, that makes sense,” Doc replies, as he hoists himself higher, and I get momentarily distracted by his ass.

“She’s always been the same ever since we were kids,” Van says with a fond smile.

“She used to disappear every now and then, and no one could find her because they were looking in the usual places that kids hide. I quickly learned to look up, she was always in trees or in the rafters. Pretty much anywhere that would make you think, how the hell did a seven-year-old human get up there?”

I shrug, which isn’t very easy while I’m climbing, and probably looks really odd, “It felt safer to me. Whenever I ran away it was always because someone had said something about me being human, or kids were being mean,” I explaining, stopping myself before I mention that it was usually because I wanted to know about my parents and why they abandoned me, that seems a little bit too vulnerable to tell all the supernaturals watching.

“I know Nene,” Van says with understanding. After all, I told him all about it, and he stood up for me many times.

Of course, as we got older there were the women that decided they hated me because him and I were friends, and women as a general rule can be pretty fucking vicious, siren women go a step beyond that.

Fortunately for me, I had grown a pretty strong backbone by that point, and I enjoyed winding them up more than they actually ever upset me.

We carry on climbing as I focus once again. Honestly, my mind is so unfocused today, and I think it’s probably tiredness. We’ve been, go, go, go, and even when we have rested and slept, it hasn’t really been resting because we’ve all been aware that at any moment we could get pulled from our beds.

I’m hoping that it’s tiredness and not a new thing that I’ve got to work around. My brain already throws me enough curveballs, like the lack of a brain-to-mouth filter and rambling.

“How much further?” Doc asks.

Griff is flying just above Doc and Raiden who are climbing just ahead of me, Reed is flying at the same level as I am, and I know that it’s because he’s worried that I may fall and if he’s close enough then he will be able to catch me before I knock anyone else off, or hurt myself.

“It’s not too much further,” Griff says, really quietly. “We need to remain silent from this moment onwards though. There are a couple of caves nearby with those creatures in them.”

No one says anything, instead, we all nod and move forward.

I absolutely do not want to risk waking creatures that are even more of a threat than the fire locals that we ran into.

Reed may have been able to vaporize one of them, but who knows if he can do it again?

It took a hell of a lot of power to do that, and it’s quite likely that he doesn’t have enough left to do it again.

Raiden referred to them as creatures and not supernaturals, which means that they will be more feral and wild. Meaning that they will be more likely to eat us first than they will want to talk about it, if they even can talk, which is unlikely.

Climbing quicker, thoughts of the kinds of creatures that could be lurking in the caves around us fill my mind.

My imagination has always been extremely vivid, and although my depiction of what I think they look like is probably a lot more gruesome than they really are, just in case it’s true, or the reality is worse, I decide not to ask Raiden what these creatures look like until we’re back at the castle or maybe even back home.

Not that I can ask him now anyway, because we’re supposed to be being quiet, I remind myself firmly.

Finally, Griff makes a gesture that we’re close to the highest cave entrance where we are supposed to put the gemstone, and he and Reed fly up together to check it out and see if there is anything that we need to be concerned about inside.

You know, like those creatures.