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Cronus growled and snapped his massive fangs at Yesterday.
On a yelp, Yesterday disappeared into the bushes. “I’m just saying.”
“You are Nephilim; your scent is not recognizable here, and your human half needs to eat,” Cronus said. “Your hounds are not content for you to be hungry.”
Her hounds. She did like the sound of that.
“And we have nothing for you to eat,” Cronus said.
“I’m not that hung—” Her belly growled and made a liar out of her before she could finish that sentence. “It won’t be the first time I’ve missed a meal.” She looked around her at the verdant growth. “There must be something here I can eat. Find us somewhere safe for the night, and I’ll forage as we go.”
“The master will not be happy about you going hungry either,” Xerxes grumbled.
“Shade will have to suck it up.” Eddie put on her big girl stage manager voice. “It’s getting darker as we stand here and debate. Let’s find a place to rest for the night.”
“I can show you what to eat.” Yesterday swaggered forward.
Cronus snorted and rolled his eyes. “That one is incompetent. You should allow me to ingest him.”
“Nope.” Eddie was reasonably sure on this point. “No ingesting.”
“Who’s ingesting what?” Yesterday popped out of the undergrowth with a handful of berries. “These are perfectly safe for you to eat.”
Cronus gently pushed her aside and sniffed the berries. “He speaks the truth.”
“There we go then.” Eddie accepted the berries and made a great show of eating them. “See, I’m not even hungry anymore.”
Pretty true, considering her stomach felt like her throat had been cut.
The hounds led her to a small grotto beneath a waterfall as the last of the day’s light was waning. Eddie sank to the soft sand with a sigh of relief. Thank goodness she’d worn comfortable shoes because she must have walked about a thousand kilometers. Maybe not that many, but a lot in any case.
“We should be safe here for the night.” Cronus settled down beside her.
A gentle spray from the falls covering the grotto entrance had dampened the sand behind it, but didn’t extend far enough to reach her. She was dry, she had the hounds, and she had a safe place to sleep. It wasn’t really all that bad. With night falling, though, Eddie’s nerves started to tweak and jitter at her. Cronus had said hunting demons were more active at night. She’d never slept out in the open, never even been camping, and she felt exposed and vulnerable.
Cronus curled his big head around her hip. “We will not allow anything to happen to you.”
She didn’t want to think about all the things that might happen to her, so she pointed to the falls. “Is the water safe to drink?”
“Oh, yes.” Yesterday swaggered over to the falls and stuck his hands into the middle of it. He made a big business of slurping water out of his hands. “See, perfectly safe.”
Eddie wasn’t about to trust her life to him, so she kept her attention on Cronus.
“The water is safe,” Cronus rumbled. “And the imp can go out and forage for more fruit for you.”
Yesterday trotted to the back of the grotto, dropped to the ground and curled into a small ball.
“He’s tired.” Eddie didn’t have the heart to send him out into hell’s night. “And I can wait until morning.”
“You are too soft,” Xerxes settled himself at the grotto’s entrance. “He would be treated more roughly in Wrath’s court.”
Eddie settled herself as comfortably as she could and rested her head on her hands. “Blame it on my human side.”
Between her hunger and sleeping rough, Eddie didn’t expect to sleep well, but the next moment Cronus was snuffling in her ear. “Wake, mistress. We should resume our journey.”
Eddie freshened up as best she could with the falling water and followed the hounds out of the grotto into a soft, balmy morning.
Soft pink light bathed the jungle and glinted off the heavy dew that had fallen on the plants. It was kind of magical and brightened her outlook on the day.
