He tucks me behind a tree, pressing his forehead against mine. “I’ll be right back.” Whipping around, he sprints over the morbid terrain of gray pelts before I have a chance to register what he just said.
The Irilak sweep aside like splitting water as he bounds from firm, fluffy mound to firm, fluffy mound, toward his one fuckingweakness.
“Rhordyn!”
“Stay there!”
My heart does a nosedive.
If a talon strikes him through the heart this time, he’ll—
Visions flash of him standing on the edge of that cliff, blood bubbling from his lips, a talon punched through his chest.
Of him tumbling, his eyes flat, lifeless.
A lethal combination of fear and rage saws up my throat, making it hard to fill my lungs.
I look down at my hands, certain they’re covered in blood. That it’s drying, cracking. Those same cracks weaving through my chest.
Don’t cry.
That creature scurries out of my dusky chasm, plowing through my internal forest, not even flinching as it swipes its tail like a scythe, slashing my thorny vines and ripping them free with its rose-thorn claws.
Making space.
It uncurls twiggy wings, stretches them, then flaps, flaps,flaps—toiling up crystal debris and bits of wild emotion. It tips its head, cranks its maw, andshrieks.
The sound splits me down the middle.
Every vine of fear withers, turning crispy and black, freeing more room for my creature’s flapping wingspan. I rip my dagger free from my sheath and charge, barely feeling the lumpy terrain beneath my bare and nimble feet, pouncing from one macabre mound to the next.
I plow down the path Rhordyn already paved through the pack of Irilak who seem to turn in unison, their oily perusals scribbling across my skin.
I’m careful to avoid the tapered talons poking up from shriveled carcasses as the cavern belts out another rumbling belch, the smell of sulfur thick on the air. The Vruk is no longer at the mouth of it, swiping for release. It’s lumped on the ground with its throat slashed, the grizzly wound leaking a plume of black blood.
Rhordyn is nowhere to be seen.
My gums ache so much I grind my teeth together, reaching the rubbled slit, stepping around the beast and charging inside.
My creature calls to the haunting serenade—flap, flap,flapping.Whisking my insides into a churning mess.
The thick, rancid air vibrates against my skin with each roaring rumble that spews from the bowels of the cavern as I stalk over sharp shards of stone, barely feeling them bite into my feet, fist tightened around my tiny, charred dagger.
Don’t cry.
Rhordyn powers around a jagged corner, his arms and chest and face splashed in icky black stuff, eyes like ebony moons, widening. Narrowing on me—the darkness bleeding into the surrounding skin.
He snarls past long, pearly fangs. I return the fucking favor as he closes the space between us in a few powerful strides.
“How dare you stuff me behind a tree, then charge headfirst into possible death!”
“What the fuck are you doing? I told you to stay—”
“Like a dog!”
He slams into me, snipping both our rants as he tosses me over his shoulder, punching all the breath from my lungs. Still, I manage to lift my head.
A stampede of frail Vruk charge down the cavern’s luminous throat, galloping in jerky strides. Barging into the walls.
