Chapter 2 Lore #2
In the next breath, what could only be described as a glittering portal yawned open, engulfing my arm entirely.
Now I couldn’t throw the damn stone if I wanted to; half of my body was just gone. Darkness swirled like an angry storm growing, enveloping more of me.
It all happened so quickly; I had no time to scream.
Someone grabbed my other arm, and the heat from where he’d latched on indicated exactly who’d caught up to me.
I wasn’t sure if I was grateful for his presence or not.
From somewhere far away my brother shouted my name, and before I could yell back, the stranger and I were suddenly ripped away from Bellington on a warm midnight breeze.
We fell, through time, space, and the gods knew where else, finally landing in a painful heap, with me flat on my back, on hard-packed earth.
Next to me, my homicidal companion didn’t make a sound.
Maybe his neck snapped in the crash.
I lay there, eyes squeezed shut, waiting for the world to stop spinning. This absolutely couldn’t be happening.
Yet the physical pain hinted otherwise.
Maybe it was just a very vivid dream. I tried to think of the last thing that was normal before I’d met the fairy godmother from hell.
Fireworks had gone off. I exhaled slowly.
I could have gotten smacked in the head with an errant flare.
Rocks and pebbles dug into me as I shifted a little to see if I could move.
Nothing seemed to be broken, but it felt like I’d been torn into a million pieces, then crudely stitched together again.
I studiously ignored the fact that the village streets were hard-packed dirt in most places, or cobblestone, and they didn’t have any pebbles like the ones I was sprawled on. Reality was closing in hard and fast and I really needed a minute to come to terms with things.
I debated whether I should just stay there until I woke up.
There was no way any of this was really happening. Any minute now Fable would shake me out of this bad dream, and we’d laugh about it.
Two large hands settled around my waist, then unceremoniously hoisted me to my feet. My eyes snapped open.
He let me go so swiftly I almost thought I’d burned him.
He turned around, surveying our surroundings, and I caught the most unexpected smile on his face. Like this was all completely normal. And he was pleased.
Wonderful. I had a sociopath for a companion.
I drew in a sharp breath that had nothing to do with pain as I skimmed over the mercenary assassin who was now glaring at me and took in our new surroundings.
I couldn’t seem to wrap my mind around what I was looking at.
I stared, unblinking, and tried to come up with any excuse that didn’t hint at magic. There was no way we’d fallen through a portal to a new world. And yet… here we stood, very clearly in a different, unfamiliar place.
This was not Bellington. That much I was certain of.
There was no hint of the ocean, no Mount Lyra, no crowded street.
We’d fallen onto a mountaintop in the middle of a vast range of mountains, with no signs of civilization for as far as I could see.
I focused on maintaining even breaths, or else I might begin to hyperventilate, and I did not want the stranger to know how scared I was.
Something cautioned me to treat him the way I would any threat.
He hadn’t been terrified or even surprised by magic. He’d been after the stone I held, which meant he knew what it was and how it worked. Maybe he’d been after his own quest and now he’d kill me and be on his way.
Perfect. We were trapped together… wherever we were.
The sun had already sunk below the horizon, taking its last rays with it as night crept in. Shadows reached long fingers across the rocky terrain, shrouding the narrow pass where we’d landed in darkness.
I forced myself to compartmentalize.
Magic was real.
I glanced down at the rock in my palm, feeling a strange sense of bittersweetness.
I’d always daydreamed about going on an adventure, but this was a little too much to handle.
Maybe if Blake and Agatha were here, or my brother, it might feel more tempting.
But I was alone with a man I didn’t know, who hadn’t spoken a single word, and I was overwhelmed.
The old woman had said I needed to experience my worst fears before I could live out my dreams. And that had lost its appeal the second we landed here.
Maybe the old folktales my father told about Bellington were true—maybe this was some other dimension and all I had to do was use the stone to go back home.
Unfortunately, the stone no longer glowed or felt warm. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to summon the shadows… to no avail. A sound that raised the fine hair along my arms brought my attention back to the here and now.
A darker, much larger shadow peeled away from the others, and I had a sinking suspicion that things were about to get worse.
We needed to get off the mountain.
And that would be treacherous without any light.
That was the least of our troubles.
I swallowed thickly as I formulated a plan.
“Are you injured?” the devil from the village square demanded.
His low voice had me shivering for all the wrong reasons. He sounded like a dark fantasy come to life.
I shook my head, uncertain if that was true but not wanting to admit to anything he could potentially use against me if he was as dangerous as he appeared.
He seemed to read the slight hesitation on my face anyway.
His hood had fallen back during our descent to hell, granting me my first real look at him.
Pale hair, a shade of blond so light it was almost white, hung messily across his forehead. It was longer in the front, shorn close on the sides, and I had the strangest impression the dishevelment wasn’t something he normally condoned.
Eyes the color of blue winter skies and just as cold stared back at me.
My focus slid along his perfectly carved features—his cut cheekbones, that square jaw with a fine layer of ash-colored stubble, the full lips twisted into a frown.
There was something rigidly analytical about him, like he saw the world strictly in logical terms and cared little for emotion.
We couldn’t be more different if we tried, even in coloring.
I was dark and comforting like the night and he was the light of a harsh dawn rising with a vengeance.
He looked like an angel, the kind who’d fallen and preferred it that way, while my greatest sin was staying up too late reading.
I swallowed hard as he assessed me in that cool, quiet manner.
It felt like he was trying to determine if I was a friend or foe, and I wasn’t sure what he’d do when he settled on an answer.
And selfish reasons aside, I needed him to direct his homicidal tendencies elsewhere.
“If you’re done staring at me,” I said, impressed I sounded so calm and collected, despite one of my biggest fears making an appearance, “you might want to look behind you. We seem to have a welcome party.”