Page 20 of The Delver (The Vrix #2)

His hearts thumped. The danger of this undertaking was not lost on him, nor were the likely consequences of failure. Callie’s safety, her life, was his responsibility. Nothing else was as precious, even if the universe was eightfold larger than the impossible vastness the humans had described.

Urkot glanced down. Not even his eyes, after years of working in near complete darkness, could penetrate the blackness below.

It was alarmingly easy to imagine spiritstriders lurking down there.

Visions of pale vrix swarming up from below, hissing and growling as they scaled the chasm walls, danced on the edges of his mind.

A shudder threatened to course through him, and he gritted his teeth to hold it back. Callie had been unsettled enough by his talk of spiritstriders; she did not need to see the truth of his unease.

He turned his back to the pit, ignoring the way it made his fine hairs rise, and released Callie.

She gasped and squeezed him tighter. Fortunately, even without the support of his arms, she remained snugly in place, aided by his claspers.

“I have you,” Urkot rumbled.

“I know,” she murmured against his neck.

After drawing another strand from his spinnerets, he reached up and attached it to the roof of the tunnel with sticky silk. He was overly thorough, using more than was likely necessary, but he refused to take chances when Callie’s life was in danger.

Keeping the strand unbroken, he shifted toward the side of the tunnel. The crystal tied to his headcrest cast its soft glow upon the bare stone, leaving erratic shadows on its craggy surface.

Urkot ran his hands over the stone, seeking adequate handholds. As soon as he found some, he drew in a deep breath and pulled himself up. His muscles strained. The punishment they’d endured in the rockfall was too recent, and the brief stop to wash in the stream hadn’t afforded him any rest.

He willed the discomfort away. There was only one way to go, and it certainly wasn’t down.

Urkot planted four of his legs into crevices on the wall and climbed higher. With his rear legs, he pulled out more silk and carefully passed it to his lower arm, attaching it to another point on the wall.

Callie trembled against him, her body tense. She kept readjusting her fingers, digging her nails a little deeper into his hide whenever she did so, as though fearing she’d lose her grip.

Her will to survive was strong, and he feared they would need as much of that strength as they could muster to make it home.

“Good,” he rumbled as he neared the ceiling. “Much good, Callie.”

“It’s fine,” she replied spiritedly. “I’m fine. Not scared at all.”

Urkot knew that wasn’t true, and it only made him admire her more.

Fastening the strand to the ceiling, he hooked his forelegs around it, braced his middle legs against the wall, and used his upper hands to grasp the stone overhead. Slowly, he pulled himself outward, tipping his body horizontally.

“Still fine,” Callie breathed, somehow tensing further as her weight settled atop his torso.

The urge to wrap an arm around her was almost overwhelming. Resisting it certainly didn’t help the strain in Urkot’s body.

He forced himself to breathe slow and steady, holding himself in place as he pulled more silk with his hind legs and passed the slack to his lower hand. Had he not been battered and bruised in the rockfall, he wouldn’t have felt the exertion quite so soon or as thoroughly.

Urkot attached the rope to the ceiling again, a little farther from the wall.

He hooked the previous section with his middle legs and carefully moved his forelegs to the next, drawing himself along the ceiling and away from the wall with his hands.

His body was now fully suspended, his weight held by the rope.

Callie shifted her head to glance over his shoulder. She immediately buried her face against his neck. He could barely make out her hasty, muffled words.

“Oh God, why did I do that?”

He didn’t have to look to know what she’d seen. Yawning darkness beneath them, like a huge, shadowy beast waiting with gaping jaws for its prey to make a mistake—or tire out—and fall right in.

“Nothing to see,” he said, voice tight as he drew more silk to attach to the next point and create a new section of rope.

“Not funny,” Callie replied.

Chittering, Urkot moved his forelegs forward on the rope, again pulling his torso along. His abdomen burned, the muscles working harder than ever to keep his body straight and level. It almost made the strain in his hands, arms, and legs seem mild.

He tilted his head back to look toward the opening, and his insides twisted. It seemed so far away.

Urkot proceeded, carefully lengthening the rope to support himself, crossing the ceiling one segment at a time. Soon enough, his breaths grew harsher, heavier, and his aches grew deeper and more insistent.

Scalding pulses radiated through his chest and shoulders, his belly and back, his arms and legs. Tremors coursed through his limbs.

“We’re okay,” Callie whispered. “You got this, big guy.”

He felt her heart fluttering against his chest, felt her rapid breathing, felt her trembling and her desperate grip. Felt Callie…and her fear.

Yet despite her fear, he did not doubt her belief and trust in him. And that made a difference. A true, significant difference.

He had given his word that he would protect her, and he would not break that vow. He’d cross a thousand such chasms the same exact way, never stopping, if that was what it took to keep her safe. He would always find the strength to push onward for her…

Because more and more, it was clear that Callie was the greatest source of his strength.

Just a few more segments. That was all he had to cross. A few more segments, and this ordeal would be through. Then they could slow down.

Ignoring the pain and discomfort, Urkot kept moving, repeating the same pattern until, finally, he reached the far wall.

He produced more rope, passing it up to his hands and attaching it to the cavern roof with an overabundance of sticky silk. Once it was secure and he’d given it a few good tugs to test its hold, he wound some of the rope around his hands.

“Hold tight, Callie.”

Her arms and legs squeezed him. “I am.”

Urkot slipped his middle legs free of the rope, and his body bowed.

The new diagonal slant made Callie slide down his torso. She sucked in a sharp breath and clung to him, but she hadn’t moved even a handspan before her thighs hit the upper segments of his forelegs, halting her.

Once again, her core was so close to his slit, and after that friction, that tantalizing slide of her body against his, he?—

By their eightfold eyes, even now? Even in this place, with all that had happened, and despite his pain and exhaustion, he could not deny the thrill of having her pressed against him so intimately. Without meaning to, without trying to, she could rouse such heat in his blood, could stir his stem.

“Sorry.” Callie’s face warmed against his hide.

No matter how tempted he was to discover how it would feel if she used those soft, full lips to trail kisses over his neck and chest, he did not allow his thoughts to stride that path.

And he could not allow himself and Callie to remain in this position indefinitely.

“Are we—” Her mouth snapped shut and her arms squeezed his neck as he tightened his claspers around her thighs and dropped his forelegs from the strand above.

“Still have you.” The increased strain on his arms was instant as they took all his weight.

He and Callie dangled there. No more than a single moment passed, as fleeting as a beat of his hearts, but it came with the sense that the two of them were floating in nothingness. No stone to grasp, nothing above or below or to any side except air thick with darkness.

That should’ve been unsettling, even frightening, but with Callie holding him, with her being the only solid thing he could feel…it was almost soothing.

Slowly, he lowered himself along the hanging strand, using all three hands to ensure he maintained a firm grip. He extended his hind legs into the opening. As soon as they touched the floor of the passage, he reached out to grasp the tunnel wall with his lower hand and pulled himself inside.

Stumbling away from the cliff’s edge, he braced his right arms on the wall and sagged against it. He felt like the weight of all the surrounding stone was collapsing upon him.

“Urkot.” Callie drew herself more upright, one hand clutching his hair as she embraced him and pressed her cheek to his. “Let’s fucking never do that again.”

Chittering, he wrapped his left arm around her and breathed in her scent gratefully.