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A falling feeling hollows out my stomach, and then I’m tumbling down the waterfall to my death.
15
I always assumed in the seconds before my death, some weird type of calm would come over me, like the clarity main characters in movies find right before they pass away. Instead, I’m pissed. Rage-kicking the air as I freefall. Screaming every curse word I can muster.
One second I’m hurtling toward the lake below.
The next, the world around me goes still as my body jerks to a halt. The force knocks the breath from my lungs in a whoosh. The dark silhouette of wings blot out the stars as they beat the air, which has suddenly gone ice cold.
And I know. I just know.
“Valerian?” I breathe, afraid this is some death dream. A final firing of my synapses.
That the sharp ache throbbing inside my chest, the one I only feel when I’m around him, is fear-induced.
The arms around my waist tighten almost . . . possessively. “Don’t move. Please.”
The low, rasping voice is Valerian’s—yet different. Primordial. Almost . . . bestial.
Something about it scrapes down my spine.
I shiver, drowning the urge to face my protector as my instincts warn me into absolute stillness. My belly lurches as we dive beneath the falls.
The curtain of water gives way to darkness. We’re inside a cave of sorts. The air damp and cold.
Despite Valerian’s warning, as soon as my bare feet feel slippery ground beneath them, I pivot, jerking away from him and—
“Valerian?” I whisper, startled by his face.
“Don’t look at me,” he growls.
My body tenses, but I refuse his plea. He hasn’t provided any magic to chase away the shadows, but the moonlight filtering through the watery curtain illuminates just enough of his features to make me gasp.
Somehow he’s even more beautiful than I recall, but in a dark, unnerving way that sends my adrenaline through the roof. His normally cliffed cheekbones are inhumanly jagged, his peaked eyebrows sharper, and his eyes . . . oh, God.
His eyes are wild. Feral. Brimming with ancient, unfathomable power. h blooms from my chest. A green light radiates from my sternum and pulses across the night. The hound sits back on its hindquarters for a moment, shaking its head and seemingly stunned.
What the frick?
Did that come from my pendant? I pull at the chain but . . . no, in the chaos, my pendant got turned around and rests against my back.
That came from inside me.
“Giant hairy orc balls,” Ruby hisses. “How did you do that?”
“Do what?” I whisper, slowly walking backward away from the hellhound, who’s gotten over his stupor and is approaching, curved incisors bared. Saliva drips from each fang.
My panic grows as I take in its protruding ribs and sharp backbone. Oh, hell. This thing looks starved.
“You sent off a distress signal or something.” Ruby dives from my head and flits in front of me, hands on her temples, shaking her head back and forth.
“Like the bat signal?” I murmur just as my feet reach the edge of the cliff at my back. Rocks clatter down the cliffside into the raging river.
“I don’t know! It was a giant call for help. You know, like a wounded rabbit caught in a trap that screams . . .”
“Only to attract bigger predators,” I finish as silhouettes emerge from the shadowy woods.
I scan the Evermore, but I know deep down none of them are Valerian. I would feel his presence if he were close.
