Page 29 of Lunar Diamonds (Celestial Magic #1)
RILEY
I scurried back, slipping in the snow, unable to get vertical.
The shade hissed, its eyes deadly fires. My insides curdled, this arsehole stealing every breath. Back to finish the job. The one who got away, right here for the taking. It had a taste of my flesh and wanted the full meal.
I wrestled with my spiking blood pressure, refusing to crumble while holding back my own screams.
It’s back. It’s back. It’s back.
It melded with the darkness, its eyes floating crimson balls.
“Get away from me,” I rasped, sweat beading across my skin.
It lunged forward, taking a swipe at me. My body reacted, running on pure survival instinct. I felt the air change rather than see the move, managing to duck and roll out of its trajectory.
An Aurora perk?
I rolled down the sloping shore, hitting the frozen lake. I slid across the ice, going too far out.
By Hecate!
Those red eyes tracked me from the shore. The shade stayed there, watching.
Waiting? Plotting some terrible suffering in my immediate future?
All of the above, for sure.
I got to my knees. The ice groaned beneath me. I stilled, desperate for a plan. My powers were offline and my witch bangle’s lights were dead.
“Stay where you are!” I yelled.
Fabulous. What a way to tell the shade off.
Not.
It moved down the shore, those eyes bobbing.
There had to be a way out of here. The other side of the lake? Yes! Maybe this was a test before I could claim the diamonds. Some sort of trial.
Too afraid to stand, I pushed myself across the ice, gathering speed, willing for me bump into another snowy beach. What I needed was light. A hell of a lot of light.
The shade appeared before me, taking a swipe. I yelped, reeling at the last second with incredible reflexes.
It hissed, going for another strike. Despite the cold and the dark, my instincts continued to fire, allowing me to anticipate each attack.
Definitely a perk of my Aurora blood.
Hiss, hiss. Swipe, swipe. The dance went on with no sign of an ending.
“Leave me alone!” I cried, ducking another attack.
Light. It broke the darkness. A distant thing, but there. The shade paused, hissing, turning its attention toward it.
The light expanded into a greater curve of gold. Like the tip of a circle. A rising sun, chasing the night away.
Isaac?
The shade hissed furiously, backing away from me as the sunlight spilled across the lake, more of it cresting the horizon.
“Isaac?” I called.
“I’m here!” he responded.
Relief hit me like a wave. I got to my feet, a little unsteady.
The ice beneath me began to melt. Groaning, cracking under the heat I only felt for a second. I scanned the area for Drake. He was nowhere to be seen, and I couldn’t hear him anymore.
“Drake!”
The ice buckled, the shade screeching behind me. This place filled with magnificent sunlight, every inch of darkness dissipating. The cleared fog revealed an empty, clinical whiteness.
Nothing.
There was nothing.
“Here they come!” Isaac yelled.
My body jolted and I tumbled forward, landing at my brother’s feet. Back in the cave. Back in reality.
Drake followed, staggering into the power box. He held onto it as he lowered to the ground.
“Shit…” he wheezed, covering his eyes against the brilliant sunlight flooding the cave.
Alice turned away from Isaac, her hands over her face.
My brother held his hand at the doorway, his sunlight smothering it in blazing gold.
“You’re both back?” he asked.
“Yeah.” I pushed myself up.
He dropped his hand, the dimness of the cave snapping back. “Whoa.”
I stood on wobbly legs. “I?—”
Isaac crushed me in a hug before I could do anything. “Fuck me, I thought I’d lost you.”
My arms were pinned to my sides. “I?—”
“I couldn’t break your illusion. But when Drake vanished, it collapsed. Why did you go in there?”
“I can’t breathe.”
He released me, taking me by the shoulders. “A fucking trap.”
The door was gone, only rock in its place.
I nodded. “I’m sorry. I lost myself. Something compelled me… That figure.”
I’d dragged poor Drake in there with me.
He stayed in his position beside the power box, his head bowed.
“What happened in there?” Isaac asked.
“Can we go?” Drake answered. “Now?”
“But—”
“Now. Please. I can’t be in here.” He fumbled getting his ginkgo sniffer out. Hands shaking, his complexion far too peaky.
I wanted to throw up, my head buzzing with nausea.
“Take it easy,” Alice tried.
He sniffed his ginkgo four times then hurried out of the cave.
I hunched and puked my guts up, a ringing in my ears. I’d screwed up badly, allowed myself to be manipulated by my uncle.
It had to be him.
“It’s okay,” Isaac said gently.
Nothing about this was okay.
After retching a few more times, I found the strength to leave the cave. Held myself together until I asked for a minute back at the mansion.
I threw myself onto my bed and screamed into the duvet until my lungs burned.
Dammit.
Damn everything.