Page 72 of Of Blackened Blood (The Blackened Blade #3)
Ezra twists back around, clapping a hand over Creed’s mouth as his eyes widen. “That was the past, brother. Leave it where it belongs.”
The blush in his cheeks reaches the tips of his ears as he glances my way. “I was also a lot younger then and didn’t have the upper body strength I have now.” He pulls his hand back slowly, a small warning in his glare toward Creed as he heads back toward the tree’s large trunk.
Creed sighs. “You could swim to the depths of the ocean, but this ...” He points to the huge tree. “It’s just not your forte.”
Ezra whips back around again and they begin quarrelling over who should scale the tree.
But we don’t have time for any of this. Not with so many other students prowling the forest and searching for stracts too.
I head toward the tree and begin scaling it myself, all my training and new strength making it an easy feat for me. I’m almost ten feet up before they even realise I’m climbing the tree myself.
“Micai!” calls Ezra, his voice full of worry. “It’s too high. Come back down and let me go instead.”
I stop climbing and twist slightly around toward them. “From what I gather ...” A playful smirk tugs at my lips. “I’ll already have the stract before you can even reach this height.”
Creed muffles a chuckle, our gazes meeting before he nods to Ezra. “Leave her to it. She’s already up that high anyway.”
Before Ezra can argue, movement in the trees a few metres away catches my attention.
“Someone’s coming,” I call down to them, gesturing toward the direction of the movement.
Creed and Ezra turn around just as three groups of students emerge from the trees.
They seem to share a look, glancing my way before quickly splitting up.
One group makes a move toward Ezra, the other to Creed and the third and last one looks like they’re trying to target me.
They must have forgotten who they’re going up against.
Even with multiple teams, Ezra and Creed are known as the Infernal Four for a reason.
“Only an hour in here and it seems like they’ve all gone crazy. Did they forget who they’re trying to fuck with?” Creed’s power flows from him, surrounding the area around him and encompassing the tree’s trunk in his black mist.
“Doesn’t matter who you are or how many there are, you have to get past us to get to Micai.
” Ezra grins, rolling his shoulders and watching the teams moving closer, especially the one trying to come for me.
He takes a step toward them, his smile fading.
“And I’m not letting you get a step closer to her. ”
“You get the stract,” shouts Creed over his shoulder, his black coils twisting around him as the teams begin attacking. “We’ll crush this lot.”
I nod, making my way further up the tree, ignoring the noises and shouting below me as I quickly scale my way toward the top. Even as the shouts grow louder and the tree slightly shakes from time to time, I continue on, moving as quick as I can.
I’m finally passing what seems to be its midpoint and notice the tree’s branches stem off in all different directions, becoming thinner, jagged, and more unruly the further up I go.
Its leaves are becoming more clustered together, clouding my visibility and making the journey a little harder the closer to the top I get.
I push past another bunch of leaves that are blocking my view and quickly freeze at the sight before me.
A huge nest sits in front of me, mere metres from the tree’s top with a magical beast sitting at its centre. Its bright golden eyes narrow my way, its large brown and white wings shuffling slightly behind it as its head and beak turn to one side, watching me.
The Griffin—a young one by the looks of it—sits in its nest at about five feet tall. It watches me with rapt interest, probably never having seen a supe or human before. But it is still dangerous.
Its beak alone could skewer me, and its shorter talons could still rip the flesh from my bones with one swift swipe. They aren’t creatures to mess with.
And considering they are an endangered magical species protected by the dean, I would have to tread carefully.
A small sigh seeps from my lips. Why the hell did I have to be the one to find the Griffin?
And that’s when I see it: the stract. It’s a metal hexagon half the size of my palm, with small glowing sigils on each of its faces. I instantly know it’s what I’m looking for.
It lies below the Griffin and sits gently nestled between one of its talons and the nest. And it seems like the young creature favours it.
I wrack my mind, my body rigid as I play the no-blinking game with the young and deadly magical beast. Then I remember that it’s more bird-like than beast and was probably attracted to the shiny metal more than anything else. Or at least I hope so.
I slowly reach into my pocket and pull out the platinum metal knuckles Annex gave me this morning for the challenge, telling me to “maim anyone” that looked my way with them.
A smile tilts my lips as the Griffin’s attention is piqued, its eyes fixated on the shiny metal knuckles in my grasp.
I move it back and forth, catching a stream of sunlight, making it shimmer more.
The Griffin becomes enthralled, its wings widening and closing as its head tilts back and forth, watching my hand with more rapt intention than before.
And if it wasn’t for the fact that it could kill me with just one slash of its talons, I would find it kind of cute.
A small cooing sound leaves its beak as it moves slowly toward me, its gaze glued to the metal knuckles.
I move with it, nearing my own prize in the process.
Leaning down, I raise the knuckles above my head and toward the Griffin as my hand slides toward the stract.
The Griffin’s beak slowly takes the knuckles from my hand as I gently take the stract nestled underneath it.
A happy purr-like sound vibrates from its chest as it claims its prize while I quickly slide the stract into my trouser’s pocket, securing our first one.
The Griffin’s feathers ruffle, its younger age showing as it continues to purr and shuffle its feathers back and forth, taking delight in the shiny metal object it claimed.
I pat the stract in my pocket, about to slowly move away and start my trek back down the tree, when something suddenly whips past me, cutting my cheek and startling the Griffin.
The young creature lets out a piercing shriek, its wings fully unfurling in its fear. They knock me from the nest, and I’m sent tumbling from the tree, hitting one jagged branch after another in my descent to the forest floor.
And what seems to be a deadly drop.
I reach out, trying to grab any branch to halt or slow my descent, hoping to stop the fall before it becomes too late.
I won’t survive a fall like this, no matter how fast my healing ability is.
Branch after branch escapes my grasp, but each jagged piece I hit into rips further into my jacket and top, causing cuts and scratches to form down my arms.
I grit my teeth and continue to stretch my arms out, reaching out to catch a branch. Finally, about halfway down, my fingers manage to grasp on to one.
I grab it with all my might, twirling around on it until I’m able to leverage myself and kick off it, aiming for another sturdy branch to perch on below it.
I repeat the action over and over, until I’m only a few feet from the ground and am able to flip off the branch and stick my landing without any strain.
A clap rings out behind me, Ezra grinning from ear to ear.
“Very nice. I give it a twenty out of ten.”
I grin, brushing myself off. “Only twenty?”
Ezra’s smile suddenly falls, his brows pulling downward as he quickly rushes over, noticing the rips on my sleeves and the few little scratches on my arms. But they should be healed pretty soon.
His eyes check me over, narrowing further as he reaches my face, his fingers brushing across my cheek as a droplet of blood falls onto his finger.
“How did this happen?” he asks as my own brows pinch together. “It looks like you had a cut here ... and all down your arms too.” Creases form at the sides of his beautiful turquoise eyes as they trail down my body. “I knew I should have gone instead.”
“It’s already healing, Ezra.” I reach up, brushing my hand across his cheek. “I can survive a few small scratches?—”
“Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should have to. I never want to see you hurt, Micai.” He leans down, placing a soft kiss along my cheek where the small droplet of blood was. “Not even a scratch.”
A small smile lifts my lifts before a groaning sound rings out nearby, pulling me back to the forest around us.
I take a look around and notice that the groups that attacked us while I was climbing the large tree are scattered out over the forest floor, injured, bloody, and all unconscious.
I do a quick body count and notice that at least three are missing.
Creed stands in the centre of them all, his black mist receding from their bodies and the area around him before his eyes turn to meet mine. A question forms in his gaze before I pull the stract from my pocket, a wide smirk tracing my lips. “Got it.”
“Good,” he replies, pulling a small sphere from his own pocket with similar glowing sigils to mine. “That’s two down. Only one left to go.”
“I’d already have mine by now if they didn’t run.” Ezra sighs, peering out into the forest and narrowing his gaze toward the darkening trees.
“How did you get that?” I point to Creed’s stract, wondering how the hell he found one while I was up climbing that huge tree.
“They had two already and thought they could work together to get a third. But quality won out over quantity.” Creed smirks smugly. “They should have known better than to fuck with us.”
Wasn’t that against the rules? Them joining together?
I glare down at the red tag on my wrist. Where the hell was the faculty during all of this?
“I don’t think they’ll be able to continue on .
..” adds Ezra, glancing toward the unconscious bodies scattered around the area.
“But I guess they have no stracts, so there’s really no point.
Even if they fought, they’d lose in the condition they’re in now.
” He turns toward Creed. “What should we do about them?”
“They can be collected by the faculty later. They have tags for that reason,” calls Creed, walking past the unconscious students. “We’re no cleanup crew. Let’s go.”
“Go where?” I ask, placing my own stract back into my pocket as Creed heads toward an area more dense with trees.
“To get our third stract.” Creed narrows his eyes, focusing on something moving in the distance.
I follow his stare, searching the same direction as him, and find three injured students about fifty metres away, slowly moving deeper into the denser forest area.
Ezra reaches his hand out for me to take it, a playful grin coating his lips. “Shall we go hunting, little sea star?” His grin widens as a confident look takes over his expression. “I’m much better at that than climbing trees. Let me show you.”
I take his outstretched hand, his fingers intertwining with mine as his grin turns wicked. A dark look takes over his features as we head after our prey.
It’s their own fault for knocking on the door of the Infernal Five and expecting to leave unscathed.