Chapter 37 - Glory
Glory
XXXVII
I walked until my legs protested, and then I kept going. I refused to stop for the night until I’d found somewhere to wash off the blood and stink. While it lingered, I was basically a walking beacon telling that dragon exactly where to find us.
A dragon.
A laugh bubbled in my chest, and the only reason I bothered holding it back was because I didn’t want Cammon to think I’d lost my mind.
A dragon!
Never in my life had I believed I would see one for myself.
In person. Trying to eat me. The flash of midnight scales in the sun as it had risen from the peaks was a sight I would never forget.
The way it had stretched out its wings, revealing the red veins within the black.
The way its massive form had filled the sky until nothing else existed.
I might live the rest of my life and never see the likes of it again. Yes, I had been certain I was about to experience my last moments, but I’d felt alive. Staring into the eyes of a fucking dragon.
That laugh rose again, and I swallowed it with a smile.
My mother would never believe the adventures I was having.
My father would have loved to hear about them, though he would have been afraid for me every step of the way.
I missed them both so much it hurt, but even that felt good.
Anything felt better than the numbness I’d wrapped myself in all these years out of a sense of security. No—out of fear.
Tapping into these emotions, allowing myself to feel. It was magic.
It was terrifying.
And painful.
It had left me vulnerable to Cammon’s reminder that the only reason he was with me was because Evaniel had bargained for his protection.
He was working towards his revenge, and he’d been paired with me out of necessity.
What we’d shared under the mountain had been him giving into his nature, as I’d suspected.
That wasn’t to say his opinion of me hadn’t changed and that we didn’t get along—didn’t have a connection—but his motives were personal, and nothing that had passed between us would change that.
Nor should it.
After all, my motives hadn’t changed. Had they?
The question sat uncomfortably in my head for a good long while, until it was drowned out by the blessed gurgle of water rushing around rock and earth. I picked up my pace, rounded a bend in the path, and let out a whoop at the sight of a narrow stream ahead.
I didn’t care how shallow it was. If I had to roll around on my stomach to bathe, I would do it and be grateful.
I hit the bank, threw down my pack and stripped off the borrowed leathers, tossing them in a heap to leave them or burn them, whichever was easiest. There was no way I’d be wearing them again.
Then, finally, I jumped into the freezing water.
It came halfway up my calves, so I dropped to my knees and cupped the water into my hands to pour it over my head.
The drake blood ran in rivulets down my body, and once again I cursed my inability to drink it.
I’d been hungry before we’d walked out of the tunnel, but after our rush to escape the dragons, my body was craving more than a sip to recharge.
My gums ached, and my stomach threatened to become a self-consuming void.
Soon, it would pass into uncomfortable. At least we’d be making camp once I was clean.
“Feel better?” Cammon called from dry ground.
“Like a million gold pieces,” I replied. “Frosty, biting gold pieces.”
My hands trembled as I poured more water over my hair. Then I grabbed a handful of mud and set to work scrubbing my skin, working it in rough circles over my neck, my chest, my stomach. The blood came away, and with it all the days of rock dust from our journey under the mountain.
“Mind if I join you?”
I looked back at Cammon, who had removed his vest and was in the process of unlacing his breeches, and quirked an eyebrow. “Not at all. But if you think I’m having sex with you in this almost-ice, you’re mistaken.”
He frowned at the stream. “I don’t think that’ll be an issue.”
I laughed, and laughed harder when he stepped in and swore.
“How the fuck are you sitting there like this is normal? Is this a thing for you? Sitting in freezing fucking water?” He shivered and dropped to his knees beside me.
On him, the water barely passed his muscular thighs, but that didn’t stop him from copying my approach and scrubbing himself down with mud. “I hate everything about this.”
“Has Mr. I’ve Explored All of Golthwaine and Can Survive with a Stick and a Piece of Twine reached his limit?”
“Careful, mage, or you’re going to wind up submerged in this limit,” he growled.
I cackled and finished rinsing myself off, as eager to get out of the water as I’d been to get into it.
I was braced for Cammon to grab me and pull me back into the stream, but he stayed focused on washing himself, and I had time to dry off and get dressed before he joined me.
Thankfully, the vampires didn’t only have access to impractical leathers—which revealed just how much of a game Kalla had been playing by giving them to us in the first place—and I found a set of brown leather breeches with a long-sleeved dark green shirt that clung a little too tightly to my curves but at least covered my breasts from all angles.
Cammon returned, and while he got dressed, his outfit not too different from mine, I pulled out the map to take yet another look at Tersey’s route, praying that fresh eyes would let me see another way to access the next signpost.
Unfortunately, every path crossed right through dragon territory. The only way around it would be to skip this clue, and since I didn’t know where the next one was located, that wasn’t an option.
“Do you think Tersey hated all people, or did he just have a grudge against anyone who thought to go after his amulet?” I wondered aloud.
Cammon slicked his wet hair back as he peered over my shoulder, tugging on the hem of a black shirt that was too tight in the shoulders and snug around the chest. “I’m starting to think there is no amulet and this was his twisted form of entertainment from the afterlife.”
“Please don’t say that,” I said with a groan. “I’ll never live down the humiliation. Or the rage at someone I can’t take it out on.”
Cammon grinned. “Definitely the former. You’ll be hearing about it from me for the rest of your long life.”
I raised an eyebrow. “After you find another way to reclaim your crown, you’ll write me letters from Karhasan as an anniversary reminder?”
He winked. “To the date. Probably with some kind of horrible trap bundled in the parchment for old times’ sake. In rhyme.”
His words came in jest, but there was a dryness to them, an emptiness that caught me off guard.
When I looked into his eyes to gauge the source of it, I couldn’t pinpoint anything different, and for the first time, I regretted that the temporary bond between us had lapsed.
I wouldn’t have minded some insight into what he was feeling right now.
But his business was his business, so I stuffed the map into my bag, stood, and started walking.
We planned to set up camp and get a few hours’ sleep before we went after the signpost, so we followed the trail looking for a good place to throw down our bedrolls.
As we travelled, my steps grew slower, more laboured.
My lungs tightened, and every dry swallow scratched my throat.
I focused on the trees, watching for any lurking drakes, appreciating the distraction, but the moment we stopped for the night, I dug through my pack for my red flask, relieved when I found it tucked in with the rest of my few recovered items. While Cammon collected wood for the fire, I drained the rest of the contents, alarmed when it took me no time to empty it.
I peered inside to make sure I hadn’t missed any, then dug through my pack for my backup supply.
It wasn’t there.
I emptied everything out of my bag and pawed through each item, but there was no trace of the extra vials I’d so carefully packed.
Was this another prank of Kalla’s? Trying to get me to drink from Cammon again?
A surge of rage swept over me before rational thinking took root.
She wouldn’t have done that. There was a lot I didn’t know about true vampire culture, but the permanent bond was sacrosanct.
Either it was voluntary, chosen by both parties, or you were an asshole.
They wouldn’t have stolen my blood, especially if they knew the only food source when we left the mountain would be inedible drakes.
Had my backup vials been lost in the mutt attack? When we’d gone over the waterfall?
Worry wrapped its tendrils around me, and I fought them off. I usually didn’t drink more than a few sips of blood a week. I’d gotten into my head about needing it more often, convincing myself I was verging on bloodlust.
But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t need some soon. To be thorough, I snuck over to Cammon’s bag and rifled through it as well in case my supply had slipped among his belongings somehow, and when Cammon returned, he caught me wrist-deep in his clothes.
“If you want something that smells like me, you just have to ask,” he said as he dropped the wood into the pit he’d dug earlier.
I rolled my eyes. “If I want something that smells like sulphur and dust, I’ll go back to the tunnel.”
He gave himself a sniff. “Much less sulphur now. More silt and fish than anything. Bit of mud. Toad.”
I smiled and pulled the dishes from his pack. “Essence of Princeling. You could market it. Give up treasure hunting and earn even more. With less clutter around the estate.”
“If I gave up treasure hunting, it wouldn’t be because I had too much money.”
“No, it’d be because you were home, seeing to your princeling duties.
” I crouched by the crackling fire. Something buzzed by my ear and bit my neck, and I slapped it away.
“I’ll tell you, you might be eager to return to your crown, but I can’t wait to get back to my library.
This whole wilderness thing is getting a little too messy for me. ”
Cammon’s gaze dropped to the fire, and the lines of his smile grew tight. “I can imagine. It’s certainly not as clean and quiet as stacks of books. Just as dusty, though.”
“Are you saying I don’t take care of my books?”
His eyes widened. “I would never besmirch your reputation in such a way. Each tome is immaculate, I have no doubt. But I wasn’t talking about the books.”
He meant it as a joke, I knew he did, but my heart flinched under the barbed attack.
“You’re not wrong,” I said as I stood up, brushing leaves off my backside. “I’m going to see what other food I can rummage up. Might as well make use of my dry, boring, bookish knowledge while I’m out here.”
I told myself I was overreacting, but I didn’t want to acknowledge the cause of my sensitivity. I didn’t want to think about how thirsty I was or how many days we still had to go before I could get home to my regular, consistent, hidden blood supply.
I didn’t want to think about that luscious artery pulsing so close.
I buried the memory of my fangs sinking into Cammon’s warm flesh, the burst of his blood over my tongue, the way my lips formed a perfect seal around the bite so I didn’t lose a drop.
Cammon wasn’t an option. The first bite had been dangerous enough, but the second would bind him to me for the rest of our lives, and neither of us wanted that. He had a title to reclaim, and I… well, I had my research position waiting for me.
I just had to make it through another week.
Without ripping anyone’s head off.