Ravenous (Taint of the Gods #1)

43. RIEKA

43

RIEKA

I t was a maze. The garrison camp had no discernible pattern to the tent arrangement. Rhydian had insisted on leading us in our escape, but after the fifth wrong turn, the last one almost leading us into the path of a group of officers, he finally gave in and let me lead.

Rhydian had said to follow the scent of water. And I had done that. Until we found ourselves at the site of a well and Rhydian in his frustration, scolded me.

“You said water not river. They smell different.”

“How was I supposed to know that?”

“You be more specific with your instructions and it won’t matter!”

He followed me through the various alleyways and buildings as I tried to decipher our path through the hate-infested, camp. He’d even willingly donned the uniform I had stolen for him, in case we had to pass through one of the courtyards under the eyes of the soldiers that guarded it.

The few times we did pass through, we kept our heads low, pretending to be Thralls. Not a single soldier bothered to look our way. Even with Rhydian pretending to be shackled with me escorting him, no soldier bothered to check on us. He kept the shackles close to his stomach, hiding the shard blast damage I’d caused to it. Just in case.

The scent of the river led us to the back of the garrison. And in some twisted act of fate, a vehicle exchange. Dozens of trucks and tanks sat in neat rows in a warehouse. Beyond that, the sound of rushing water told me the river was just behind it. Within, I only detected three, but there must have been a Toxicant trap outside the building because I could not scent if they were human or Blessed. I wouldn’t know what they were until I crossed through the trap’s barrier. We would be going in blind.

“Not ideal. But we’ve limited options.” Rhydian huffed out a breath before he slid through the side door to the building.

The scents on those inside rushed towards me the moment I crossed over the threshold. Two humans and a Toxicant.

But what type?

From experience I knew Charmers could hide their blessing. Voids smelled of chemical burns when they wielded. But the third type, they were more difficult to identify. They gave off a false scent, natural but entirely deceptive. A pleasant odour over an unpleasant one. But I had no experience encountering one. I told Rhydian as much. His answer was to encourage me to help him find us the vehicle ignition keys. Which unfortunately required us to separate.

I headed to the north end, Rhydian the south and when one of us had found the keys the other was to call out. Vehicle after vehicle, I found nothing. I’d just about given up when a glint of metal drew my eyes. I found a set of keys still in the ignition.

“Rhydian, I found them. Where are you?”

Glass shattered somewhere in the warehouse. “Rhydian?”

“I’m a little busy at the moment. Maybe you can get the car started?”

Another crash. A heavy thud, followed by metal being warped, the sound bouncing off the warehouse’s tin-panelled walls.

I climbed atop the car. There in the middle of the warehouse was Rhydian. Fighting.

Praying that the snowmobile lessons Taren had given me prevented me from driving the truck right through a wall, I climbed into the leather seat and turned the key in the ignition. The engine roared to life. Following Rhydian’s scent, I drove in the direction of the fight.

Flashes of red drew my eye, so I jacked the wheel to my right. The figure attacking him turned out to be a giant of a woman. Wearing the mottled grey smock of a military Thrall, yet fighting like a soldier, the woman attacked Rhydian empty-handed. Every strike of her hands he defended back with what looked to be a steel pipe.

With every strike she attempted, Rhydian forced her hands to make contact with the pipe, avoiding skin-to-skin contact.

This kind of avoidance meant only one thing. The woman was a Viper. A Toxicant whose very body was poisonous, whether it was their skin, or bodily fluid, or even the air they released from their lungs, their target would not know until it was too late. Vipers were the reason their kind were named Toxicants.

What was he doing, why wasn’t he taking control of her?

She brutally threw him into the side of a truck, and for a moment he vanished out of view as the Viper converged on him.

I passed the bodies of the two soldiers on the floor, both alive but unconscious. When I looked back up, the Viper had cornered Rhydian.

“Rhydian take control of her!”

There was a grunt as someone was punched. “I can’t. The toxin is fluid-based. Her blood could be poisonous.”

FUCK!

I slammed my foot down on the gas, desperate to reach him before the Viper caught one of the pipes and ripped it from his grasp. But my hope was short-lived. One of the pipes made a horrible clapping noise when it connected with the palms of her hands. She yanked hard and flung the pipe over her shoulder, the metal clanging loudly when the pipe ricocheted off one of the steel pillars that supported the warehouse roof.

A scream ripped out of Rhydian as he tried to hold her off with just the one pipe, the woman’s hands gripping the steel as if her life depended on it. If she were any other woman, he would have thrown her off, but he was terrified of touching her, the sweet scent of fear repugnant in that moment.

When I couldn’t drive the car any further, I jumped from it heading straight for the pair. Terror clung to my name as Rhydian cried out for me, right before my body collided with the Vipers. The metal pipe rang a hollow tune as it hit the stone floor. I attempted to roll over, to regain my footing, but my leg was yanked back. I spun to kick her but she was faster, pouncing on me like a cat.

I’d seen Drake venom before, the green and yellow liquid thin like water, but this—the secretion was thick, the mucus clear as it threatened to drip from her lips.

She took one long look at me and then spat.

Searing pain shot through my eyes as a visceral growl ripped up my throat. I heard a grunt and the Viper ’ s weight upon my body vanished. The pain was so excruciating I couldn't think. I reached for my eyes only to be halted when Rhydian yelled out quite desperately, “Don’t touch your face!”

I attempted to use the cloth he gave me to remove the majority of the mucus. The agony of the venom was like a fire-poker through both eye sockets. I gritted my teeth telling myself, I’d had worse, but in the moment, I’d had nothing worse. Red filled my vision instead, and the world turned scarlet. Had he handed me a piece of his bloody shirt?

My stomach twisted. There was another worse option.

“Rhydian am I bleeding?” His blurred figure rushed towards me, the cloth in my hand ripped and thrown away.

“Fuck!” he said aloud. “Stay put. Don’t move.” Then in quick succession, he pulled Etrina from my boot and moved directly over the long shadow on the floor in front of me. Even through the hazy vision, I could make out his form over the Viper.

I heard flesh submitting to the sharp edge of a blade, the trickling of blood as it poured from a gaping wound, and then a more horrific noise. Of an organ being removed from a body.

The scent of blood perfumed the air again, and just as it settled in my nose, the scent of the organ he had removed from the Viper vanished.

Now unable to see clearly, my vision darkening, I asked him what he’d done.

“Hopefully preserved your eyesight.”

Somewhere on the northern side, the door we’d come through swung open violently, followed by at least a dozen soldiers running into the building.

“We need to get out of here.”

He took hold of my hand and pulled me to my feet. I could barely make out the shape of the vehicle, that Rhydian had to guide me into the passenger seat before climbing in himself. Another profanity left his lips. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Hold on.” With the engine still running, Rhydian pressed down hard on the gas and the car slammed into motion. I knew we drove north but without being able to see, he could have been driving us into a wall.

Bullets were fired. I had to clamp my hands over my ears to muffle the sound. Without my eyes working my ears were trying to compensate. Sound was amplified. If the Kensillans hadn’t been paranoid their quarry would get their hands on their weapons, Rhydian and I would probably be riddled with holes.

Air abruptly whistled through the car, attempting to break through the seals. A sign we’d made it outside. I expected Rhydian to keep driving, but he rammed his foot on the brakes.

“Come on. We have to jump.”

“Jump? Jump where?”

My door opened, the cold air stinging my eyes, the red now a dark crimson. Rhydian’s hand took mine, hastily pulling me from the car until he’d dragged me several meters across what felt like grass.

“Do you trust me?”

I doubted in its current, and likely mangled state, my face correctly conveyed my astonishment.

“No I don’t trust you, but I have no other choice do I?” I tried to convince myself he was doing it for me. That he cared about me. But that voice in the back of my head believed otherwise. The words private acquisition replayed in a vile echo off the walls of my mind.

Boots beat down behind us urging Rhydian to move me forward, towards the rushing chorus of a river below.

“Don’t let go,” I found myself pleading, the words spoken before I could stop myself.

His pulse seemed to steady as his grip tightened on my hand. “If you wish it.”

Rhydian ran, I followed, and the world became nothing but air.

I’d gone cliff diving once. We had travelled to Bell Harbor because my father was stationed there for a season and all the local teenagers would sneak off to the bluffs and dare one another to jump. The water had been freezing then too. But at least it wasn’t a rushing torrent.

Icy cold water threatened to engulf my lungs when I pierced the surface like an arrow, my shoulder nearly pulled from the socket as the current attempted to yank me from Rhydian’s grasp. But his grip was steadfast.

I could hear nothing but that rushing torrent as it beat at my ears, roaring like a monster from a folk story. Over and over again the water tried to consume me, to tear me from him, and yet he never let go.

“Hold on,” he said, “Just a little longer, we’re almost there.” But there smelled like the ocean. There was death.

My body was on the verge of giving up, my muscles aching, the fear of being unable to see my oncoming death oddly comforting, when the current began to slow.

I found myself lying face down, salt on my tongue. Off in the distance, waves crashed against rock. I stood and pebbles ground under my feet. We’d reached a shore.

Rhydian didn’t give me much time to acclimate to our new surroundings. Our next task was reaching the rail tracks, which he then informed me were several hundred feet above us.

Up the cliff face.

“And how do you propose I get there, are you going to carry me on your back?” I didn’t bother using my inner voice.

His hand shifted in mine and a moment later he was pressed up against me, the cliff at my back. I felt him lean in, his breath warm as it brushed my cheek. Slowly Rhydian moved my hand until it was flat against the cold stone. “I’ll climb for you.”

Climb. Was he insane?

The rock was rough beneath my hands, with jagged outcroppings and rounded ridges. It felt terrifying to touch, I couldn’t even imagine climbing it. Yet Rhydian was asking permission to climb for me—through me?

“I need you to trust me that I’ll get you to the top. Can you do that, can you trust me?”

Unless I wanted to die at the bottom of a cliff I didn’t really have a choice. “Fine. Do it.”

I heard the sound of a thousand threads being snapped as fabric was ripped, followed by Rhydian’s boots on the gravel. The air shifted around me as I felt him circle me, coming to a standstill at my back when he then placed something over my eyes. The fabric was smooth under my fingers. I tried not to think about what it reminded me of. “To protect your eyes,” he said as he fastened it.

What was left of them!

The venom had been harsh. It had sizzled and burned every moment since the Viper had spat at me. The pain only subsided when the river had washed it from my face. Even under the soft fabric of the makeshift eye-shield, my skin was raw.

I thought I was prepared to make the connection with him this time. The fact I knew he was doing it should have kept me calm. But when my legs moved forward against my will, my body reacted violently.

No no no no. Not now. Fuck. Get it together Rieka!

But no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t get my breathing under control.

My body felt wrong. My heart rate was calm, but my breathing was uncontrollable. Heavy, rapid breaths.

Was I hyperventilating?

My body suddenly stopped moving, and I felt Rhydian touch me, his hands gentle as they grasped my arms. “Rieka, You need to stop panicking.”

“I can’t. Please just…can’t you just block it all out?” I pleaded.

Rhydian’s voice remained calm. Soft. “No. I need to feel through you. So you need to calm down.”

I growled through gritted teeth. “I. Can’t.”

Of course I can’t. He’s about to send me up a fucking cliff and I can’t see. And I’m going to fall to my death because I trusted a Bloodhound to save my life.

The hands that held me firm, started to slide down my arms where my hands were fisted at my hips. Gently, Rhydian took them both in his and lifted them. Cupping one hand in his palm, he rested it over his chest.

“Do you feel that?” he asked, as he placed my other hand against my own chest. “Concentrate on the sensation. My heart. Your heart. They beat as one.”

Rhydian’s heart beat steadily against the palm of my hand. And in perfect synchronicity, my heart matched it. Beat for beat.

“Now I need you to breathe with me. There you go. In and out. Nice slow breaths. Good.” As he spoke, my breathing finally returned to normal, he took the hand on his chest and moved, his body no longer under my touch. I could feel him shifting and sensed his presence as he circled my body until his chest was flat against my back where I could once again feel his heartbeat.

He kept his hand on mine. “I need you to trust me,” he said as he guided me forward. Guided, not puppeted. He led, I followed.

I felt the cliff face beneath my hand a moment later, his hand still atop mine like a shield. “This is all it is. This is all I am doing.” Rhydian moved my other hand from my chest to the cliff, inviting me to feel the rough stone.

We were so close I could feel his lips brush my ear. “I will not let you fall.”

My hand moved up according to his will and the panic didn’t come. Now it felt different, a whispered suggestion my body craved to obey.

My body was still my own. Rhydian was just the guide. My eyes, getting me to where I could not see.

The climb was slow and arduous. I could feel every movement of my body. The movements were unfamiliar, yet my body knew exactly which rock to grip. My feet knew which perches to take. My body knew which angles to align myself in as though I had done it a thousand times. After the first few feet, my body seemed to relax into the sensation, and so I focused on Rhydian, on the sound our hearts made as they beat together.

Sometimes I could sense him beside me, other times beneath me. But I could always feel him.

I didn’t know how far up we were when the cold started to get to me. We’d come out of the river soaking wet and moved straight into the climb that I never had a chance to warm up. Rhydian was beside me when my teeth started chattering like a damn nutcracker.

When he offered to make me warmer, I didn’t object. His hand touched my cheek and like a stoked hearth, warmth spread through my body and remained long after the absence of his touch.

He continued our ascent without saying another word. An hour into the climb, I could taste my blood on the air, the skin of my fingers grazing the rock, blistering from the unfamiliar use. But not once did my grip falter.

The familiar pull of magnetics hummed above. I could feel Rhydian beside me as he made the final push to the top. I made it over the ledge, the sensation of cold steel wonderfully familiar under my hands.

“Where are we?” I asked when Rhydian finally joined me on the platform. I’d pressed myself against the wall to shield myself from the wind that howled through the gap.

“Under the tracks,” he said, tucking in beside me. “The rail will be here before sunrise.”

“So we just wait?”

“Unless you have something else to pass the time.”

I turned towards him. Even without seeing his face, I knew there was a cocky smile there because of the insinuation. I opened my mouth to make some scintillating retort, but instead, the words that came out were “Thank you.”

His scent flickered and altered for a split second, his perfectly maintained control faltering, but it was enough. I’d surprised him.

It hadn’t been intentional. I hadn’t done it to get a reaction out of him. I was genuinely thankful he hadn’t decided to leave me at the bottom of the cliff, or in the warehouse. Whatever his reasons were for choosing to help me here, I doubted they were as confusing as my own.

Nothing about my decision to run from the convoy made sense to me. I’d seen Rhydian run off in the woods and my first reaction had been to run after him. I’d hesitated until the convoy was moving again and hesitated again when I had asked the Bright in our truck if someone who wasn’t a Bright could use the shard she held. It was not until I had it in my hands that I decided to go after him.

I’d never felt like this before. Angry at someone for nothing. Rhydian’s life was his own, he could throw it away if he wished. But even that thought made me angry. How could he consider his life less valuable than anyone else’s?

I doubted he expected some asshole to cut him up when he intentionally caused a distraction. Death hadn’t been his goal. I knew his intention had been to let us reach the train, to get safely back on board. But the idea of doing that without him, of being on board without him…It vexed me.

He vexed me.

Your father vexed me to no end when we first met. Funny how that’s often how it starts.

My stomach somersaulted as my mother’s words returned to me, sending the last remnants of wilful denial down the cliff. My hands fisted in my lap.

No. I will not let your words contort my feelings, mother. You are not here. You do not know him.

Rhydian had made a deal to sell me as a slave. He had given me hope of survival, even if it was a slim one. He sold Kris as a slave!

I will not—I cannot fall in love with this man!

But in the dark, with his scent enveloping me, my body embraced in his arms as we huddled for warmth in the night, that anger was beginning to feel irrational.