The wraiths were gone, and the sun was beginning to turn everything into a blindingly bright, death-filled landscape again. When I turned back to Wrath, he stared at me for a minute before walking out of the room. I followed him back to the main entrance and outside.
We spent the day exploring the golden caves with their myriad of frozen demons, but neither of us spoke. There were many times I started to talk and stopped myself. What could I say?
I’d said it all last night, and though a part of melikedhim, I couldn’t change the truth. We were enemies.
We were almost to the end of a cave when he stopped suddenly. I took a couple more steps before he seized my wrist and pulled me to a stop. I almost jerked my arm away, but the subtle increase of pressure from his fingers and the look on his face stopped me.
“Do you feel that?” he asked.
The only thing I felt was the electric thrill that came from having his skin against mine. Again, I considered jerking my arm away, but he wasn’t looking at me. His gaze was riveted on the end of the cave, only fifty feet away.
And then I felt a subtle vibration in the ground beneath my feet. I looked down as if that would provide the answer before a jolt of hope shot through me. Was it Shax? He could move the earth; had they found us?
Or was it something else?
Dread rose in my stomach, but it couldn’t quite replace my hope. I refused to believe none of my friends had made it out of the forest, and if they survived the calamuts and nuckals, they were looking for me.
It could be Shax out there, or it could be something far bigger and much more monstrous.
Tugging my wrist free of Wrath, I rested my hand against the wall as I cautiously approached the end of the cave. Beneath my fingers, the continued vibrations of the earth grew stronger.
Wrath followed beside me, and when I stopped at the end of the cave, my hope evaporated when I spotted the demon below. It had been centuries since I last saw Mytaz, but I would never forget him.
He stood over ten feet tall, and his red eyes shone in the daylight. That was where the similarities between him and an ogre ended. He didn’t have tusks, and his skin was pale instead of the orange hue of an ogre’s. His broad shoulders were at least five feet wide as he stalked toward his palace with a look of determination.
“He discovered War’s body and the hole,” I whispered. “He knows we’re here.”
Wrath didn’t speak as he watched Mytaz with a curiosity that unnerved me. Was he considering how to get Mytaz to join their side?
The possibility was a stark reminder of how little I could trust him. I wished things could be different between us; I wanted to like him, Ididlike him, but I wanted so much more than that from him.
I shoved aside my unexpected longing for a relationship built on trust and love like my friends and parents found with their Chosen. Fate was a cruel bitch, and yearning for things that could never be was a foolish endeavor. I had many faults; I was stubborn, quick to anger, and unforgiving, but being foolish wasn’t one of them.
When Mytaz entered his palace, Wrath turned to me.
“We can stay hidden in these caves where we can detect his approach by the vibrations he creates. We’ll know when he leaves the palace. Or we can make a run for the tunnel while he’s in the palace and see what’s at the other end. There must be something there if he’s just now returning,” he said.
I almost asked him if he was considering trying to turn Mytaz to their side, but if the possibility hadn’t already occurred to him, I wouldn’t put it in his head. If he approached Mytaz, he’d probably end up a statue. Mytaz had never been one for reason.
“If we go for the tunnel, he might see us from inside the palace,” I said. “I agree there’s something at the other end, but we know it’s not an exit, or he wouldn’t be here.”
“So, we’ll remain in the caves.”
“Do you have a better plan?”
When his gaze leisurely raked me from head to toe and then back up again, the aching need Ifinallymanaged to douse last night, surged back to fiery life. My nipples hardened, and I had to lock my legs into place when my knees wobbled.
When Wrath’s eyes met mine again, I somehow found the strength to lift my chin. A smile curved the corners of his mouth, but it wasn’t the endearing smile that revealed his dimple. No, this one was callous.
The man who smiled andlaughedwas gone. The demon I first battled in the minotaur cave had replaced him. There was no warmth or amusement from him anymore.
What did I do?
What had to be done. It’s better this way.
But I couldn’t help questioning if that was true.
* * *
