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I turn a glare on him, but he stares at me like this really is all my fault. Why am I surprised?
I kneel down, pushing my hands against the ground.
“What’re you doing?” he hisses. “You could set of a trap! I just told you that!”
“I’d be ten times more likely to set off a trap and get us stuck in here if I dematerialized us. It’s not as easy to do from inside this forest,” I say absently, concentrating on the spell as I dig in deeper, trying to pull from the earth’s energy so I don’t have to use any actual power of my own. Easier to do with small spells than with offensive skills.
“If we get caught in a trap, we’ll never hear the end of it. They’ll think we’re the stooges. Or they’ll think we’re two bloody idiots,” he goes on. “They’ll never believe it was all your fault, with your incessant rambling, and you’ll take me down with you.”
Eyes still closed as I try to concentrate, I tell him, “When everyone thinks you’re an idiot, you shouldn’t open your mouth and prove them right.”
I hear his mouth open and close a couple of times, straining my concentration to block him out. Unsuccessfully, I might add.
“Now that was just offensive,” he quips. “And rude.”
My grin spreads, even as my eyes stay shut, but a loud, rapid series of pops crackle in sequence, sounding like someone just tossed a bag of popcorn into a campfire.
My eyes fly open just as my small light globe bounces up, leading us toward the path, but…
“Run!” Dice shouts, taking off in a blaze as he chases the globe and runs from the trees that are starting to stir wildly, the wind blowing now when it wasn’t before.
Thunder rattles overhead.
“I said run!” Dice shouts from ahead of me. “Nothing good ever follows thunder! I doubt it’s Drackus this time!”
A loud buzzing hits my ears as the leaves on the trees start to morph, slowly changing into large, green, beetle-like bugs. One launches onto me, and I try to flick it off, but the bastard bites really freaking hard.
Through my immortal skin.
And draws blood.
“That’s not good,” I say under my breath.
“Told you!” Dice yells, still chasing the globe.
My eyes widen as a veil of the beetles fly up together, almost as though they’re trying to make a grand entrance or scare the hell out of someone. When another stray bites me, causing me to wince and cry out from the surprisingly strong stab of pain this time, I turn and start running.
“Do not use your power! I don’t want to die today!” Dice yelps just as a streak of energy soars out of me and slashes—ineffectively—through the mass of beetles.
They part like a wave before moving back together, and I run a helluva lot harder, actually catching up with Dice and start to pass him.
“I changed my mind! Use your power! The one in back always dies!”
“You left me in the back!” I shout to him, looking over my shoulder as the beetles gain on us. I don’t even know where my guiding globe just went.
“I’m an incubus! You’re the deadliest immortal alive—aside from possibly the scarred menace! Who has the best survival odds right now?! Unless those beetles are randy little devils who I can leave hot and horny for each other, I’m pretty fucking doomed!”
I hesitate, but start running faster, as I ask, “Can you make them—”
“No!” he shouts like he’s annoyed I’d even be stupid enough to ask.
Never can tell with Dice.
A scream pierces the sky—Dice’s scream, not mine—and he dives just as another swarm of beetles attack us head on. I drop and slide as well, until I’m the one screaming as we careen down the side of a muddy, never-ending slant.
We were sure as hell in the forest and not on a mountainside, so obviously this is a damn spell.
The mountain turns into a cliff, and we’re launched off the side, both of us screaming like embarrassing fools—I’m so glad my father can’t see this.
