AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Famei… Would you be so kind?” He rumbled, his voice hoarse from disuse.
“Gladly,” Famei nodded in reply before returning outside the carriage.
“We’ll stay here tonight… I have to… Run an errand, but I’ll be back by morning… You’re in good hands. If you need anything, speak with Rayne.”
Rayne’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly and leapt to meet mine. For the first time in the century we’d known each other, I could factually say this was the first fucking time I’d ever seen Rayne Umbraborne blush.
My lips pressed together in a meager attempt to stifle a grin.
“Pomona, would youfoldand fetch Pumpkin for me? She’s just inside the forest on the other side of the road we were travelling…”
“Good luck with yourerrand,” she snickered before disappearing.
Lokus gave me a knowing smirk as my blood roared with excitement.
My conniving little nightmare was going to fuckingpay.
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
MAREINA
Iran for miles through The Sentient Forest, not daring to travel on the open road, even if it was far less dangerous. Only stopping when I reached a river that promised to be treacherous to cross if its tumultuous current and jutting, sharp boulders were anything to go by.
Fuck.
I had no idea how powerful Nakoa’s sense of smell was… Generally, a fae’s sense of smell was greatly heightened compared to a human’s, but…
Would he be able to smell my scent lingering in the forest?
How good was he at tracking?
Should I risk the river to mask my scent and avoid leaving footsteps?
Intuition told me the answer to all of these questions was yes.
Fuck me.
The sun was setting, and I knew I would need to find cover soon lest I attract one of the innumerable apex predators or the few rogue entities that roamed this forest at night.
My heart thumped a steady pounding beat as I worked up the courage to leap. I knew that, worst case scenario, I wouldn’tdiefrom it… But there was a whole lot that laid between the space of life and death, and pain was pain, no matter how immortal. And being repeatedly smashed against boulders by a torrential current until you were washed up on a shoreAkashknew where and waited for your broken bones to heal would be fucking excruciating. It would also make me incredibly vulnerable. And if someone came upon me… Well… There were a great many things they could do, most of which ended in death.
How was I supposed to defend myself if all my bones were shattered? It would likely take me hours to fully heal from something like that.
It was entirely too late to curse myself for not thinking this through. I’d faced insane odds serving in the war, on numerous battlefields, and even after as Zurie’s Irae…
But I’d been raised in a city. I only had the most basic of survival skills when it came to enduringthe wild.Nature had always been something that I’d stood in awe of from a healthy and escapable distance.
A low, inhuman growl sounded behind me, raising the hair on my arms and neck. I turned to find a pair of large glowing yellow eyes and a row of razor-sharp teeth belonging to a rather hungry-lookingcor na tironly a few meters away, which basicallylooked like a giant cat mated with a horse-sized dragon. Drool dripped from its jagged maw- each fang the length of my forearm.
River, it is.
I leapt forward at the same moment as thecor na tir.One of its giant paws lashed out. The tips of its claws only grazed me, but that still meant I now had three gaping wounds shredding the entire span of my back.
Rushing ice-cold water swallowed me in one giant gulp, lungs and limbs burning, and I could only pray that it would be kind enough to spit me out whole. Within moments, the riverrudelyrevealed that wouldn’t be the case by slamming me into a jagged, broken tree branch that punctured my side before it snapped off, still embedded in my flesh as the current took me away.
My lungs burned with the need for air, and I managed to break the surface for only a fleeting moment, gasping, before it pulled me back under and promptly smashed me into a boulder.
