Page 91 of Hunter

“I see but…”

“Can you get me up there?” she asked Viktor.

“Now she wants me to flash her,” he commented to Hunter.

“I’ll go,” Hunter volunteered. “You stay down here. What if something happens?”

“The ledge isn’t big enough for all three of us. It has to be me. It’s from my family.”

“Vik, if you drop her or let her fall, it’s going to be your head,” Hunter threatened.

“Just get over here, vampire.” Willa nervously pumped her fingers. You can do this, you can do this. “Do that flashy thing you do. Get me up to the ledge but don’t let go.”

“Bossy…like a queen,” Viktor noted, sidling up next to her.

“Don’t hurt her,” Hunter warned again.

“Let’s do this shit.” She nodded.

“As you wish, Your Majesty…careful with that knife now.”

“Don’t call me that.” Willa’s stomach flipped as she disappeared.

“Easy now.” Viktor held an arm around her waist as they precariously materialized onto the one-foot-wide ledge of slippery limestone.

Willa clutched her fingers around a jutting rock, her pulse racing. “I’m not sure this was such a good idea.”

“I think you should get down. We’ll find another way,” Hunter insisted.

“No. No. It’s okay, really.” Willa inhaled deeply, focusing on a smooth anomaly in the stone.

“Wolves don’t fly, Wills. This is a bad idea.”

Viktor rapped his knuckles along the rock. “This.” He knocked over the smooth section. “None of this is hollow.”

Willa pressed the hilt of the knife to the stone. She shuddered as the foreign energy sizzled through her. Viktor tightened his grip around her waist.

“Something. It’s here. I feel it.”

“There’s nothing. It’s solid,” Viktor said.

“I don’t care. Just because we can’t see it…”

“I’m sorry, but this rock is solid.”

“No…”

“She’s right,” Hunter shouted up toward them. He pointed toward the left. “The sunlight. It’s hitting the crevice just over there. It’s a sliver. I don’t know. The knife…”

Willa shuffled her feet toward it, her heart pounding as she glanced down to Hunter. Wolves don’t fly. “Right.”

“What?” Hunter asked.

“Nothing,” she murmured under her breath. “I’ve got this.” The pads of her fingers grazed over the rough edges of the crystalized rock. The energy intensified as she probed the crevice. “This has got to be it.”

“How the hell would a human get up there?” Hunter asked.

“Ladder? Airplane?” Viktor smiled down at him.