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Her warm body brushed against mine, snapping me out of my memories. My chest was still heavy, like I was back in that moment, stuck in the past, filled with regret, pain, and grief.
Flipping over, I found Kat facing me, sound asleep, her body coiled up like she was ready to shift into her cat form.
My eyes tracked over her face, my fingers gently tracing her features. Fuck, she was beautiful. The face that launched a thousand ships. Or in my case, sunk it.
Little did I know that hiring a man who had an infant, with no place to go, would haunt me for hundreds of years after. A single choice altered the course of my life forever, weaving her in it, even when she wasn’t there.
Little did I realize she would be my own downfall.
Pulling her to me, I wrapped my arms around her, my hand brushing her hair, my lips grazing her head.
“I swear, Rotty,” I whispered into her hair. “I will keep her safe.” I never made that vow to him then, but now I felt it bubble up, understanding the need to have her safe. To keep her protected.
A tingle of warning yanked my head over my shoulder, and I noticed the man was no longer in his spot, sleeping.
Dread shifted me away from Kat, bolting up, my eyes scanning the dark cavern.
Fuck. I berated myself. I took my eyes off him for a moment. Let my guard down.
Rising to my feet, gripping my gun, I crept quietly, my senses heightened. The flames from the fire dwindled the farther I snuck down the tunnel.
Did he decide to take off when I wasn’t looking? Was this a setup? Ambush? Did he even know where these nests were? Or was he planning to attack us while we slept, limiting the playing field?
A noise stilled me in place. The back of my neck prickled, a screech so distant coming deep from the earth that I questioned its validity. Probably bats. The caves were home to many species. The alarm nipping at the back of my neck wouldn’t ease: a feeling in my gut, a forbearing. Like something was waiting… something that dredged up fear I buried a long time ago.
“Hey.” A hand smacked down on my shoulder.
“Shit!” I hissed. Spinning around, I cocked my gun, ready to fire.
“Whoa!” The old man stood there, overweight and inept compared to us; still, I couldn’t shake something about him that unsettled me. None of us were stupid. This man was to be treated with caution. He was too friendly and welcoming, especially being partially our prisoner.
“Sorry to startle you.” He held his hands up.
“Where did you go?” I snipped, taking a deep breath, taking my finger off the trigger but not lowering it.
“To urinate. Too much coffee.” He chuckled, patting my arm, my paranoia rising in contradiction to his friendliness. “Better get some rest. We’ll take off in a few hours.” He went back to his place at the campfire.
I watched him, the gnawing feeling not going away, but I went back, lying next to Kat, keeping my eyes trained on him.
I sensed something was ahead.
I just didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
The darkness was oppressive, weighing down on you, pecking at your sanity. Days seemed like weeks down here, and every step we took magnified it.
Our footsteps marched in chorus; our torches danced across the rocky surfaces like a ballet while tension thrummed under the surface, keeping everyone silent. The old man led the charge, Kat and I keeping our weapons pointed at him. Annabeth stayed in the middle while Cooper tuned his senses to anything coming up behind us.
The first hour passed, taking us gradually down farther into the earth. Every once in a while, there would be markings on the walls—symbols, a forgotten language carved into the stone, demonstrating something had lived here before. Something ancient. Something powerful.
The magic was thicker than I was expecting, my ears nearly picking up the residual sounds of slumbering dragons. The farther we went, the more it threaded over me, sparking at my skin, tasting it on my tongue.
Maybe because, until now, no one had gone this far down. The intensity of it clung to the walls, a tomb of what was, a moment still trapped in time, not feeling thousands of years old, but just a few hundred. It made you want to leave, to turn the other way, to dismiss this place as a dreary cave. Nothing to see here; move along.
Druids had designed their hiding spells from dragon magic. The same type of enchantment, which had hidden King Lars’s property for decades, was how the dragons hid their treasure, but even better.
“You can really feel it, huh?” The old man turned around. He appeared oblivious to the guns pointing at him and the fact that he was a hostage, which unsettled me. “The nests are not too far now. Just around the corner there.”
Anxiety rolled around in my gut as I twisted my head back to AB. She was having a bad day, exhaustion stripping away her light, stripping away the essence of the girl I knew. She was putting on a brave face, trying to pretend she didn’t want to stop, curl into a ball, and let sleep take her. She was so stubborn in her need to protect others that it made me want to scream. The urge was nearly overwhelming to tell her I knew and to stop trying to be all right for everyone else. To just think of herself for a moment.
