ColdIron (Blood and Bond #1)

1. Max

MAX

I staggered forward on the scorched dirt, one foot dragging behind the other, my bare feet blistered raw. The polluted air grew thicker, choking my lungs with each ragged breath.

Blood stained my rug-like miner’s uniform. The green belonged to the monsters. The red was Rogue’s. A mutant tore him apart while two monsters lunged at me in sync, their bodies twisted parodies of what they’d been before the Rupture—the focal point of when the entire world went to shit.

One of them came at me from my blindside, jagged black fangs protruding from mouths that had forgotten how to be human. Their long claws, sharp as obsidian shards, gleamed with the blood of previous kills.

I dodged low, feeling the whistle of its claws as they sliced past my shoulder. I rolled away, shoving my homemade dagger forward, finding purchase beneath its ribs, once, twice, three times in rapid succession. Dark green ichor sprayed hot across my shoulder .

The second monster stalled—wary, hungry. Its shrieks called more of their kind, an unholy chorus rising from the swarm and the wasteland beyond, and the small hairs on my neck stood on end.

I darted my tearful gaze at Rogue. He was already gone.

Desta and Kaid were nowhere to be found.

We’d lost the two of them a day before, when a group of cannibals came at us in the black of night.

Rogue and I had circled back to look for them, searching through the skeletal remains of the old world, calling their names until our voices gave out.

Then the mutants tracked us here and tore Rogue open. I couldn’t save him, so I ran. Terror and survival instincts overrode everything else, made me pump my feet as hard as I could across the cracked earth.

The four of us had promised each other we’d stay together, no matter what. Yet when the first trial hit, I failed them.

When I made my way back to where I’d left Rogue, there wasn’t a trace of him. Grief and regret gnawed at my insides. I didn’t even get to hold him in my arms and close his eyes when he died.

There was nothing you could do, Max, said the sinister creature that had come to live in my head when I was a child—and never left since. You’d have died for nothing. Perished beside him.

Maybe I should have.

He’d followed me because he thought we could have a future together after we escaped the mine. I’d encouraged that dream by holding his rough miner’s hand. Now he’d been devoured by those things .

I should never have let all three of them come with me. I should’ve done this alone, carrying all of their hopes and burdens and misery on my shoulders. But I hadn’t wanted to do it alone. I’d been selfish, wanting them with me, and now look what I’d gotten my friends into.

The monsters’ bloodthirsty yowls vibrated across the badlands, closer now. I had to move. Run. But I was so weak. Even if I continued to search for Kaid and Desta, I’d be no help to them, exhausted as I was. I’d only get us all killed.

And no matter what, I had to survive for Missy.

Yes, your sister, the creature hissed in my head. Is Missy six, or six and a half now? You vowed to go back for her when you found safety and shelter.

I’d planned this escape for years. Made the final jump so my sister wouldn’t be forced down into the mine when she reached eight, like I had been.

So her life wouldn’t be spent living like a rat in the dark, suffocating tunnels of the deep mine, her lungs slowly filling with dust, her childhood buried under tons of rock.

I dragged myself forward, each step a negotiation with my failing body. My throat burned like I’d swallowed hot coals. Even breathing hurt, each inhale driving a knife of pain between my ribs.

You have a broken rib, the creature informed me with clinical detachment. Possibly two.

I ignored it, as usual.

Fearing me won’t make me go away, dear Max. Ignoring me doesn’t mean I’m not with you.

I still ignored it—the demon that had latched onto my soul. But as long as I didn’t acknowledge it, didn’t give it power with my recognition, it wouldn’t grow stronger. I’d do anything to prevent it from taking over completely.

I coughed violently and painfully. What I wouldn’t kill for a sip of water. Even a single drop would be salvation. But I had no such luck. My canteen had been empty for two days.

The monsters’ howls echoed across the wasteland. Death was coming, and I had no strength left to run. Soon, this would be the end of me.

I’m sorry, little viper.

And then, amid the rust-red earth and skeletal ruins, I spotted something in the shimmering distance: three dark shapes wavering against the heat haze.

Trees. Where there were trees, there might be water.

Hope spiked through me. I squinted, trying to force my double or triple vision to sharpen into one coherent image.

That’s when I realized they weren’t trees at all.

Trees wouldn’t move with purpose. Trees didn’t swagger with a predatory gait.

Trees didn’t curse in rough, masculine voices that carried across the dead land.

Fuck. Three menacing figures were heading straight toward me.

Blackness danced at the edges of my vision, creeping in like smoke.

No! I couldn’t afford to black out, but I’d hit my limit, pushed past it two days ago.

The blackness spread anyway, mocking my weakness .

My last hope was that those beings weren’t monsters. That they were human, or human enough.

My last prayer, whispered through cracked lips as my knees buckled and my world went black, was simple: If they’re cannibals, don’t let them eat me alive.