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“I don’t want anything,” I said, refusing the cooked food Luca offered me. My stomach was swirling with anxiety, and I was starting to feel like it was a warning.
“Not even a little blood?” Kas asked, a note of hope in his voice. I smiled at my thief, kneeling next to him in the narrow space and offering up my wrist. He pressed his own wrist against my mouth, and we had a brief moment of staring into each other’s eyes while the blood flowed between us.
Then Blaise snickered, and the romance was broken. “Sorry,” she muttered, but she didn’t sound it.
Kas glared at her, but that effect was wasted too, as his face stretched into a huge yawn. We’d kept moving through the previous night, unable to find a suitable shelter without backtracking.
“I’ll take first watch,” I said, knowing they were all tired. My time in the Ringmaster’s circus, followed by Grand-mère’s insane training, had nearly killed me, but the result was that I could function well on much less sleep and blood than any vampire out here.
Besides, with all four of us in the tiny cave thanks to the rain, I wasn’t getting any sexy time. Might as well be useful.
After getting a few sweet kisses from my men, I parked myself next to the fire, toying with my knives as the others curled up and tried to sleep. The rain intensified as the night went on, the clouds blacking out all of the stars and the triple moons, even though they were barely slivers now.
This miserable Trial was nearly half over, and I was growing impatient again.
I used my ice magic to call to Nic a few times, but the mist never materialized. To pass the time, I practiced calling up my ice armor, and each time it was a little easier. It still drained me, though, and eventually I stopped so that I’d be able to save my magic.
I didn’t want to start depending on Kas’s blood to keep me going. He needed to save his strength, too.
The lightning and thunder started about an hour later, but my men slept through it all.
They’d been on such high alert for so long, and I didn’t bother waking them for a turn at the night watch. Even though it was growing colder with the rain and wind, I let the fire die out, preferring not to be a beacon for anything seeking shelter from the storm.
It was after a particularly long, loud rumble of thunder that I started to feel the skin on my stomach burn.Fuck.
Gritting my teeth against the inevitable, I clenched the club in my hand and glanced back into the cave. It was better to be on the offensive. I needed to move.
Blaise was sitting up, watching the storm through the mouth of the cave.
I stood silently, twisting the club in my wrist, and she nodded. We’d been expecting an attack, and it was time.
Keep them safe... I pushed the words to her mind in the darkness. And then I stepped out into the sheets of rain, my boots sinking into deep puddles and sucking mud as I stalked down the corridor, away from our dead-end cave.
My clothing and hair were soaked instantly, but none of that mattered to me.
Pushing the pain of my stomach to the back of my mind, I wiped the rain from my eyes and concentrated on using the sensation as a homing device, telling myself I was lucky to have this odd reaction as a warning bell.
When I’d gone maybe a dozen long strides away from the cave, lightning shot through the storm clouds, and I saw them silhouetted against the night sky.
Two fucking ugly male gobbelins, climbing straight down the rocky walls into the labyrinth, clubs strapped across their broad backs.
So that was how they were getting in.
It made sense that with their thick skin, they wouldn’t be worried about spider bites. One of them looked down, his eyes landing right on me. I broke into a run, clutching the club in one hand and a knife in the other. I was going to meet them in the air.
If my goddamn gut was right as usual, they were looking for me, not Blaise or my men.
I had to lead these two far away from the cave before I killed them, because they might not be alone.
