Chapter 1 #2
His feet caught behind hers, legs tripping more than helping.
“You’re helping a stranger who held a knife to your neck.
Who else but a hero would do that?” His teeth closed around another wheeze.
“Unless you have some ulterior motive.” He coughed again, spraying blood over her shoulder.
“I suppose you could just haul me off and have your wicked way with me once I’m unconscious. ”
The ground trembled beneath them, and scales whispered against bark and dirt.
“Stars above, shut up.” Rynna shoved them both sideways into the cover of a low bush just as the thick coil of a serpent’s body split the clearing where they’d stood seconds before.
Holy shit.
It was as wide as a wagon, black as oil, and nearly…nearly forty feet long.
Pressed together, they hid, breaths tangled between them.
“If you wanted me on you,” he rasped, body sagging fully into hers, “you only had to ask.”
“For fuck’s sake.”
Did the man ever stop talking?
Her hand braced in the dirt as the nail on her index finger lengthened into a sharp talon.
She closed her eyes, drawing a line in the soil around them. Where is it?
“What…?” Barely any trace of magic flickered where there should have been deep threads of power waiting to catch at her senses. Every world had some kind of inherent magic pushing it to spin on its axis and spark life.
“I said—” he man started.
“Oh, my stars. Close your mouth before you get us both killed.”
She pulled harder, then, not from this world, but from within herself.
The air thickened as she wove her Will between them and the thing moving in the clearing. It wasn’t a wall. Not really. Just a veil—a hushed glimmer that displaced scent from skin, distorted sound, and blurred the edges of their presence until they all but ceased to exist.
Just in time.
A massive head rose above the branches, tongue flicking, tasting the air in long, slow flicks. The eyes—black, wet stones set deep beneath ridges of scaled bone—swept the clearing.
The man beside her didn’t move or speak. Even his breath remained silent as he tracked the creature’s movement.
Not a complete fool, then.
Only when the snake had finally passed did Rynna let the sigh out through her nose. And only after the vibration of its movement finally faded did she shove the man off her with a grunt.
“Hey!” His body hit the ground.
She gave him nothing, no answer, her eyes caught instead by the smear of red bright against her forearm. The longer she stared, the more it seemed to shine, demanding all her attention.
“You are annoying.” The words were a whisper as her finger wiped the droplet, lifting it to her mouth without thinking. “Just what—” she started, but the taste hit her before she could finish.
Empty Night.
Her eyes squeezed shut as her knees threatened to give beneath her.
It was sweet. Too sweet. Rich and dark and alive in a way that hooked deep into nerves and bone. Her jaw ached, and fangs, a part of her since the barely remembered ambush millennia ago, slipped lower against the inside of her lips before she forced them back.
Not today.
She opened her eyes, looking away, anywhere but where he sat, watching her. Curious. Measuring.
“What’s your name, anyway?” She swallowed, forcing herself back to center. “And why the shit was that giant snake after you?”
He licked his lips, considering, then dipped his head, strands of dark hair slipping forward across his eyes.
“I am Kaelith.” He looked up at her through a heavy fan of dark lashes. “And as for the snake…” He smiled, revealing small, pointed canines of his own. “She did not like…my proposition.”
“Wait…” She settled back on her heels.
But before she could even form the words to ask why he’d have a proposition for a snake larger than most trees, his body pitched forward, collapsing unconscious in the dirt near her feet.
“Seriously?” She tipped her face toward the sky, groaning. “Please don’t tell me I need this asshole for the Mission.”
Exhaling, she puffed a loose strand of dark brown hair from her eyes as she looked around.
Left. Right. Dense trees hemmed her in on either side. Where the serpent had passed, the foliage lay squashed beneath the bulk of its trail, but the path vanished into shadows thickening fast as the threat of sunset grew.
“Damn it.” She sighed. He might know where the nearest city was, or whatever passed for civilization on this world.
Squatting down, her fingers threaded through the damp strands of hair at the back of his neck, lifting them from where they clung to sweat-slick skin until she found his pulse.
It was steady, if weak.
“I guess that’s good,” she muttered, leaning in without thinking.
Then—
Clouds on a starless night. Fresh-cut wood tangled with the bite of air before a storm. And, beneath it, something colder, older, like stone after rain, heavy with silence.
Her head dipped as the scent caught in her throat, nearly toppling her right into him. Instead, she lurched back, shoving herself upright like she'd been burned.
“Fuck.” Her hands itched to touch him, and feel his skin beneath her fingers, her mouth…
“Fuck!” She stood, glaring down at him like it was somehow his fault.
Her knuckles ground into her temple until the feeling backed off, leaving her skull throbbing in its place. Her nose scrunched at the unconscious man sprawled at her feet.
“Get up.”
She lifted her foot and drove her heel into his gut—not hard enough to break anything, but enough to make a point.
He gave a soft groan, but nothing else.
She pressed her tongue against the back of her teeth. “You’re going to make me carry you, aren’t you?”
Bending low, she hooked his arms under her shoulders, grumbling, “Asshole.”
Then, she hoisted him up and onto her back.
She’d find a place to camp. Somewhere away from the path that snake had carved through the woods. Somewhere with solid ground beneath her and no watching eyes.
His body hung heavier than she expected, muscle and dead weight, slumping boneless with every step she took to adjust him.
In the morning, she’d ask her questions and decide if he was worth the trouble of keeping alive.