Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Callum looked toward the campfire. It was a flicker in the distance. The sun had set hours ago, and that wavering flame was barely holding on.
Any minute now.
He didn’t mean to come across like he didn’t care. He knew this was important. He had never seen his captain so ensnared before. He supposed he had a right to be.
Callum found it funny that he and Manos were asked to come bring home one lone girl.
Usually when they were asked to tag along, it meant Callum had some dirty work to do—the things many didn’t have the stomach for.
He wasn’t as familiar with the prophecy as the others, but for Theo to have asked both of them to come, the stories must be accurate.
Theo hadn’t moved from his spot, never taking his mismatched eyes off that travel party. One iris held a bronze hue, the other a glacier blue. Callum watched as every single one of Theo’s muscles tensed, those broad shoulders tightening.
He was restless, and Theo didn’t get restless.
Although he questioned this whole expedition, Callum trusted his captain with his life. After all, Theo had saved him the night he came—him and his brother.
It was maddening sometimes. The countless years of life, the repetitious nature of their existence.
Like none of their actions mattered because ten, twenty, or fifty years down the road there would be another opponent, another problem.
An endless cycle that Callum grew bored with, and when Callum was bored, he grew rash and careless.
He knew Theo felt it too. The monotony they had settled into was the price of living far too many lifetimes. It’s why he was such an insufferable ass half the time.
At least the beasts beyond the border wreaking havoc added some intrigue lately, a challenge.
Callum loved hunting them down, reveling in the carnage.
Fierce creatures nearly five times his size.
They could be anything, really. There was no telling what new species would spawn from the east. The monsters had bred with each other over time, making whole new abominations.
Gods, mortals, and monsters—Callum believed he and his friends were a combination of all three.
I want her unharmed.
He rolled his dark eyes again at his captain’s words. Callum wasn’t even the most dangerous of the Troika, far from it. Theo was as brutal and mean as they came. It’s what made him a good leader—a damned good one.
Callum used his dagger to cut a small apple he had found into slices. He glanced upward, smirking as he put the sweet fruit between his lips.
That tiny bit of firelight at the center of camp had extinguished.
Finally, the boring part of this little excursion was over.
It was time for them to meet her.