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“Where are they?” she shrieked. “Where are my mates?!”
The sorceress hit her with a blast of light, piercing her chest like a blade. Her scream was swallowed by the darkness, and then she sank into oblivion.
* * *
PHOENIX SHOT UP WITHa gasp, clutching her chest while trying to catch her breath. The sorceress! Where was she? She swallowed back her fear, the bitter taste of salt a reminder of where she was. She looked down at her nude body, feeling suddenly self-conscious. Where had her clothes gone? She snatched a gray linen sheet lying at her feet, wrapping it around her breasts and tucking it in tightly like a towel. She sighed in relief when she saw someone had placed the claw and crystal side by side beneath the linen. How could she have forgotten about them when they were so vital to their survival and escape? She touched her hair, which was wet and stuck to the side of her face, and vaguely remembered falling into a pool of inky water and strange demons with snapping maws calling to her.
A naked demon slept on a striped fur beside her. He had silvery skin, two spiked horns sticking out of his messy mop of dark hair, and full, kissable lips. She admired his broad shoulders, long, thick legs and arms, and wide chest.
Gamma,she thought to herself.Damon. Mate,her subconscious told her. But where were her other mates?
Her heart raced as she scanned the crystal cavern, with walls so thick, the pale pink rocks appeared a dark crimson. The air smelled like a mixture of brine, mold, and smoke. Someone had started a campfire beside them, the heat warming her skin as smoke from the flames billowed into the air. That’s when she noticed her tattered clothes draped across rocks beside the fire. Opposite the fire was the vast lake with cobalt waters. She recognized Cadmus’s lean shoulders and muscular back as he faced the water with a long, white spear. Several flopping fish were already on the rocky shore beside his feet. Cadmus had taken care of them while they slept? She didn’t know why that had surprised her. Perhaps it was because she thought he was all hard edges and didn’t have a nurturing bone in his body, though he had carried her across the desert.
At the far end of the lake, she could hear the rush of water. She remembered after falling down a waterfall and into the lake, she’d almost been drowned by strange creatures. To the left side of the shoreline, she saw a bright pinprick of light, like a lone star against the backdrop of a crimson sky. She caught the scent of fresh air coming from that direction. The light must’ve been an opening to the cavern.
Her nostrils flared as she scented her surroundings. She only smelled her two mates and a faint odor of cat piss. Cat piss? She remembered a demon named Tigress who’d helped her escape the hostile desert, but how did any of them get here? She hung her head in her hands, groaning, as memories slowly started piecing back together. She shuddered when she remembered her dream, no, a nightmare about being obliterated by the Vindictus. Or was it more than a nightmare? Had she a vision of her past life?
“What is it, Bennu?”
She gave a start when someone grabbed her arm. She blinked at Damon for several moments, looking into his mesmerizing golden eyes as he sat beside her. “Damon?” All she could get out was his name. Her throat burned as if it had been lit on fire. Her tongue felt stuck, weighted to the bottom of her mouth, just like her hands that failed to reach for him.
“Yes.” He flashed a fanged grin.
“I-I’m alive?” she rasped. She was very aware that ‘alive’ meant something different than what it meant in the mortal world, but that didn’t matter at the moment.
He brushed a strand of wet hair off her face. “You are.”
Releasing a shaky breath, she fell against his chest, too weak to do more than that. She didn’t protest when he pulled her into his very naked lap, his male parts pressing against her bare thigh. He was her mate, after all. Funny, how she had no memories of him other than that one nightmare, yet she felt as if she’d known him for an eternity and resting in his arms was the most natural thing in the universe. She draped her arms over his shoulders as he held her for a long time, rubbing warmth into her back while her memories slowly filtered into her mind like old movie reels.
She watched over his shoulder while Cadmus unsheathed a long claw and filleted the fish, throwing the guts back into the water. Her stomach rumbled. Was she finally going to eat a meal in this wasteland? How would she wash it down when the water was so salty?
After her mind became more alert, and that heaviness lifted from her body, she was finally able to voice her thoughts. “Please tell me it was just a bad dream.” She melted into Damon when he kissed the top of her head, his soft lips lingering.
“It was just a dream,” he murmured.
A shiver snaked up her spine when she remembered the milky eyes of the sorceress. That was no dream. It was a memory of her obliteration.
“Who’s hungry?” Cadmus asked as he walked past them, carrying fish fillets to the fire.
“I’m famished.” Damon squeezed her side, making no move to let her go. “Where are we? And where’s Helius and Drakkon?”
She froze at that, because she remembered Helius and Drakkon were still Gorgo’s zombies.
Cadmus’s back stiffened as he placed the fish fillets on a metal rack hanging over the fire. Where had he gotten the rack?
“They’re not here at the moment,” he answered, his voice sounding strained. “We have much to tell you. Let’s eat first.”
Her mouth watered as Cadmus roasted the fish on the fire, turning them on a rotating spit.
He stopped spinning and picked up a jug off the ground. “Thirsty?”
Damon took it from him, holding it above her lap. “What is it?”
“It’s good,” Cadmus said. “I already tried it.”
Damon took a big gulp and let out a satisfied groan. He held the jug up to her. “It tastes like palma water.”
She was hesitant to drink it, but she was so damned thirsty. Besides, Cadmus would’ve smelled if it had been poisoned. She let Damon lift the jug to her lips and took a hesitant sip, then another and another. It tasted like a cross between vanilla and coconut water, soothing her parched throat. She took a few more sips, wishing she could drink the entire jug, before leaning back.
