With a sigh, she takes his hand and I pass her off, getting to my feet next. Glancing at the path ahead of us, I breathe a little easier. It was more of a rough hike than anything until the last hundred feet, but from here on out, the ledges are wide enough we could stand three people wide without worry of someone falling off. There are even a handful of paths worn into the stone like ramps leading upward that managed to survive all of these years.
“What are you even hoping to find up here? More rocks?”
Hunter insists on leading the way to test the ground’s stability first, but it’s Sabrina directing us. “Anything, really. If nothing else, if we keep going, it’ll offer somewhere out of view from below that I can experiment a little without risk of anyone watching us.”
A small stone breaks away under Sabrina’s foot, but my firm grip on the back of her shirt keeps her from stumbling. “Of course someone did,” she continues, unfazed. “And it’s going to drive him crazy wondering what we’re doing. Even if we don’t find anything useful, it’s a win simply for getting under his skin.”
“Why would he care that we’re up here?”
Tossing a smirk over her shoulder, she announces with utter confidence, “Because if this area is still abandoned after all of these centuries, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that means he’s scared to step foot in our old village. Fears are fun things to exploit.”
Hunter, Damian, and I come to an abrupt stop.
“Hisold village, you mean. And Aurelia’s. Not yours.”
Waving off the slip, she corrects, “You know what I meant.”
Still, I share a look with Hunter as he whirls around to face her, both of us uneasy at the slip. Normally we can tell when Sabrina’s demon is running the show, so either that means she’s getting better at adopting Sabrina’s behavior and blending in, or our mate is really starting to blur the lines between the two of them.
Hunter blocks her path, spinning her around and pushing her back towards me. "You didn’t say anything about going tothatcursed place.What the fuck, Sabrina? Even if it's not the actual demon prison, we are not goinginsidethe mountain to play around with your abilities in an area that's known for landslides. Not just no, but hard fucking no."
Obviously expecting as much, she shrugs. "Okay, so I don't practice and we stick with trial by fire when push comes to shove. We can at least look around a little. He doesn't care about the people he uses here despite his claims of having the demons’ best interest at heart, and we need to figure out why. It’s not like they’re in some air pocket inside the mountain, or he'd have bought an excavator and some dynamite to blow the mountain up himself ages ago."
"Or maybe we'll find nothing, get trapped inside the mountain, and then eaten alive by the demons that hate you for imprisoning them?" Damian counters.
"Also a possibility." When none of us smile, her lips buzz with her heavy exhalation as she finally relents. "Logically I know you're right, she's just a bad influence and it's easy to get swept up in the excitement of anything that might potentially give us a leg up. Especially after the way he threatened Cinjin."
Picking her up, I pass her down to Damian so Hunter and I can scale down first. Climbing up is a hell of a lot different than going down, and if she’s not going to let me carry her, I want to be ready to catch her when she inevitably slips.
“Trust me, I get it. But we can’t let that son of a bitch goadusinto making mistakes.” Debating if it’s going too far or not, I decide to take the risk and point out, “And your inner demon has a bit of a reputation for being impulsive and quick to temper. Ash knows that and will want to exploit it.”
Damian helps her as she begins her descent, prepared to snatch her wrist as long as she’s in range. “Aurelia may have been in this alone, but you’re not, remember?”
She groans. “You’re right, you’re right. Old habits die hard sometimes. Sorry for getting caught up in the manic high and not mentioning it sooner. I really did just want to burn off some energy, but when we were about halfway here, she brought it up and nearly won me over.”
Hunter lands on the first ledge, eyeing her foot placement as nervously as I am. Sabrina is many things, but the extent of her athletic abilities are running and swimming. If the last few months are anything to go by, anything outside of those two activities are likely to result in disaster.
“Let’s chalk it up to relationship growing pains. With all of the stress we’re under, we’ve done remarkably well since our trip to Khalida, if I do say so myself. We were overdue for a glitch or two, and as much as I wish we were perfect, we’re likely to still mess up now and again. What really matters is how we handle things when they come up and actively try to do better, right?”
When she’s a few feet above me, I coax her into dropping. The breath rushes out of her lungs as I catch her, but the mini-thrill seems to be enough to pacify the demon we were insulting not five minutes ago, if her smile is anything to go by. “That’s exactly right.” With a brief kiss, she slides to her feet.
Falling into a rhythm, we make decent time getting away from that rocky death trap. The last leg is slower going because of the steep incline making things awkward on the return trip. If someone were to slip, they’d wind up rolling downhill instead of simply falling, and the trees are sparse enough that we couldn’t count on them to stop our momentum. The ground has dried out since the last storm, but there’s also healthier vegetation beginning to sprout that conceals the old paths, hiding possible roots.
After a long stretch of silence, Damian steals her hand, kissing the back. “Any theories on why he’s more concerned with the demons in the mountain than the shifters? Because something isn’t adding up between AshorAurelia’s stories, but I’m drawing a blank.”
Humming in contemplation, she loses herself in thought for a while alongside the rest of us. Eventually, she defaults to spit balling statements aloud, hoping that’ll make it easier to make sense of them. “While I really do think he’s hung up on her, I think that’s secondary to his real goal of freeing the demons.”
“What if his goalisn’tto wipe out humans?” As they give me their full attention, I clear my throat. “Aurelia said he slaughtered a handful of humans to instigate them into attacking the demons, right? But nothing about the man makes him seem straightforward in his intentions; everything is layers upon layers of deceit and manipulation. So maybe we should be trying to figure out why he killedthosehumans specifically? Then it was just a benefit that it spearheaded his war on humans. It set the course that demons were flocking to the mountain for safety, so maybethat’swhat he really needs; demons. And shifters don’t do the trick, even if he can siphon demonic energy from them. So, what could he need a batch of demons for?”
We all turn to Sabrina, because at this stage, her brain buddy is our best shot. Furrowing her brow, she gets lost in a silent discussion we’re not privy to, and Hunter, Damian, and I wisely keep our mouths shut so we don’t make her lose her train of thought. Carrying on in silence, I mull it over as well, but I keep coming back to the heart of things.
Ash wanted all of the demons at the mountain before his plan went off the rails and he’s gone through all of this effort to free them again. He doesn’t really care about the demons or humans at all, which leaves the main evil villain motives; love, revenge, money, and power. Bringing Aurelia back wasn’t his main goal, and he’s clearly got money out the ass, so we’re left with power.
Damian puts it together a split second before I did. “Aurelia beat him to the punch stealing power from the other demons and gained their abilities. A Nightmare’s abilities are the long con, not physical power. Stone may have shot him down, but there has to be another demon born in that place by now that could replicate what he did. Then he’d be nearly unstoppable, king of the demons and humans alike. It wouldn’t matter if the wolves couldn’t be manipulated outside of Sabrina; he could bring them to heel by threatening to chuck them in a pit of lava or whatever Elementals do.”
With a yelp, Sabrina’s foot gets caught on a root and she goes down, dragging Damian with her. The two of them tumble down the sharp incline of the hill, Hunter and I chasing after them with a curse. Skidding on the dirt, I manage to snag her ankle before I fall on my ass; hard. Though we continue to slide, I tug her back in time to save her head from bashing into a tree trunk, using my foot against it to finally bring us to a stop.
Heart hammering a mile a minute, I thump the back of my head against the dirt in relief, keeping an iron lock on her ankle so she can’t even attempt to get to her feet and put me through that again. “That’s it.” Chest heaving, I try to hear anything other than my thundering heartbeat in my ears. “You’ve lost walking privileges and I’m carrying you the rest of the way down before you get yourself killed.”
