Chapter 1 #2
Malach rocks back on his heels, crunching pellets of ice under his boots. His impatience is tangible. I don’t exactly want to stick around either, but Luca shifted into his biggest fear. We can spare a second to make sure he’s okay.
“It’s fuzzy.” He furrows his brow. “Everything was yellow.”
Ciprian steps in close, raking his fingers through his white-blond hair until it stands on end. “I’m sorry for hiding Celine from you,” he says. “I panicked because—fuck, dude—your snake is huge.”
He waggles his eyebrows, and Luca cracks a crooked smile. It’s gone as quickly as it appeared, but I’m relieved to see him return to normal, even for a second.
“We’ve got to hide,” Luca says. “And find shelter. I’m not sure what time it is, but the orbit is stupid fast here. If we don’t find cover, you’ll all freeze to death.”
I frown. “Not you?”
“Cold blooded, baby.”
“Are the days shorter?” Malach studies the sky, planting his big hands on his hips.
Luca shrugs. “I can’t explain the science. Mom and Dad don’t love talking about their past, but they drilled into me what to do in case someone found me and brought me back here as a kid.”
“That’s the shifter realm.” Luca points up, and I squint through the clouds of rubble, not willing to present another clear shot for a wad of sleet to pelt me in the eye.
There in the sky—suspended far behind the floating junk—is a much larger planet. It looms, and even without the perspective of distance, I can tell we’re standing on something smaller. Something leashed to the other planet’s larger mass.
The horizon curves dramatically no matter which way I turn, and I rub my hands together, unnerved by the strangeness. Even the mountains in the distance are molded around a sphere, slanted and squatty on the sides as they cling to the ground while reaching for the sky.
I feel . . . Damn, I feel like we’re in an enclosure—mice in a pet store, boxed in by panes of smudged glass, waiting on some divine being to reach in, pull us out, and feed us to something bigger.
“The monster realm is more like a moon, really,” Luca says. “It orbits the shifter realm, which orbits that sun, causing eclipses every few hours. Whenever the shifter realm blots out the sun, the temperature drops fast. Put on the warmest stuff you brought.”
Shit. We didn’t pack for a frozen wasteland. We packed for the celestial realm: a temperature-controlled environment that’s maintained year-round by magically powered technology.
I grab a crewneck sweatshirt from my backpack. It’s the only long-sleeved piece of clothing I brought, and the gaping hole in the left elbow isn’t the only one. I tossed it in my backpack because I love to sleep in it. I’m glad I did.
Alistair zips a black jacket up to his chin and gives Luca a long look. “We’d better get moving.”
“Any idea where we are?” I lace my fingers with Luca’s as guilt threatens to drag me under. This is my fault. I led us into a trap or a trial or some bullshit game of my father’s making—like the veydra he sent to fight me at the Mouth of Hell.
He’s toying with me. That’s obvious, but I can’t figure out how he’s staying one step ahead. Not now. There will be time to beat myself up later. We have bigger problems pending, case in point, the massive planet inching closer to the distant sun by the second.
Charcoal-colored slate trembles under my feet, scattering bits of ice all around. Great. The ground is unstable. I add it to our growing list of pressing concerns.
“Are there earthquakes here, too?” I ask.
Luca’s lips flatten into a thin line. “No.”
That’s exactly what I was afraid he was going to say. Because if the ground isn’t shaking itself, then something is shaking it. And anything big enough to shake a planet—no matter how fucking small the planet happens to be—is not something I want to tangle with.
I point to the forest of white-tipped trees between us and the mountains. “That way?” I’m not sure if it’s east, west, or a straight shot to our doom, but as long as we’re not here when the ground-shaker arrives, I don’t care.
Luca nods, and we take off running.
It’s not long until gasping is all I hear. Air carves a burning path through my lungs, as if I’m inhaling open flames instead of oxygen. I’m not sure about Ciprian or Alistair, but Luca, Malach, and I jog often. We shouldn’t be winded this quickly.
“The air,” I sputter.
“W-what fucking air?” Ciprian wheezes.
“Conserve your breath,” Malach says evenly. I shoot him a jealous glance. His cheeks are flushed. The pink adds a boyish look to his chiseled face, but he sounds perfectly fine.
The forest looms like a legion of angry Christmas trees. They’re spiky and antagonistic—as if they recently quit smoking and are spoiling for a fight. Now that we’re getting closer, there’s no visible curve around the edges anymore.
Luca checks the position of the sun and increases his pace. “There’s an emergency bunker in the forest,” he says. “I’ll find it, Celine. I promise.”
I squeeze his fingers to reassure him without losing any oxygen. I wouldn’t blame Luca if he weren’t able to find an underground bunker he’s never been to before, but I hope he can. If I ever meet his parents, I’ll thank them profusely for their paranoia.
We reach the first few trees, and my skin crawls.
There are more ice pebbles here. They crunch beneath our shoes as the pissed-off trees stare menacingly, like they wish they could do the same to us. It’s colder in the forest, and the cold takes away what little air I’ve been able to steal.
The deeper we go, the sturdier the trees become.
When Luca finally grinds to a halt and starts counting trees with the fingers of his free hand, I’m too tired to be relieved. My brain is foggy from oxygen deprivation, and a slight headache throbs in the center of my skull, altitude sickness on steroids.
“It should be around here somewhere,” Luca mutters, dropping my hand as he focuses. He kicks at the base of the thickest tree, grunting as the toe of his sneaker hits a fat, gnarled root.
I stay quiet. He’s not talking to me, and the itch between my shoulder blades tells me the consequences of a distracted Luca could mean the rest of us don’t survive the hour.
Ice pellets fall around us, whistling faintly as they penetrate the tree canopy.
My hands and cheeks sting whenever they make contact.
I pull my hands into my sleeves and tilt my head down.
I don’t have much experience with snow, but this stuff is a far cry from the soft, fluffy flakes that occasionally fall in Vegas, melting before becoming anything more than a novelty.
“I could do without the ice bullets,” Ciprian grumbles, protecting his head with his arm.
“They’re covering our tracks,” Malach says. His voice is tight with tension.
“From what, though?” I glance over my shoulder.
A frenzied bellow echoes in the direction we came from, as if I summoned it from the deepest recesses of my brain where my worst fears live. It sounds excited.
“I don’t want to find out,” Alistair mutters, stepping closer to me.
“I found it,” Luca says, his voice cracking like a whip.
I lurch to his side, chafing my upper arms with my hands to keep the blood moving. “How can we help?”
“Dig,” he orders, pointing at the sliver of hollowed-out tree trunk that he’s uncovered. “Clear the base of this spot so we can drop in. Hurry.”
No one argues.
We’re running out of time, and we all know it.
I dig like my life depends on it, losing sensation in my fingers almost immediately. I’m vaguely worried that they won’t ever bend right again, but the strange numbness is a welcome relief from the burning pain.
The horseshoe-shaped hollow in the trunk grows until I think I could fit through it with my wings tucked. It’s not a second too soon. My teeth are chattering. Darkness is falling, and I can barely see my hands anymore.
“Get in,” Luca whispers.
Nodding shakily, I throw my backpack in first, then shove my legs into the hole. They dangle, but there’s no time to figure out if I can climb down or not.
The next bellow is practically on top of us.
I squeeze my shoulders through the hole and drop. I hit the spongy ground before I can even order my muscles to unclench and absorb the impact properly. Stumbling to my knees, a strangled oof slips past my lips.
“Celine!” Alistair’s frantic hiss reaches me, and I clear my throat.
“I’m fine, come on.” I crawl backward, feeling for the edges of the hollowed-out tree and raising my eyebrows when I find nothing but stale air.
The rest of the backpacks come through next. I grab them one at a time and pile them to the side. Ciprian drops in, followed quickly by Alistair and Malach. I can only make out the vaguest outlines of their faces.
I hold my breath as I wait for Luca to join us. Anxiety rakes its claws down my chest from the inside, searching for a way out. What’s taking him so long?
“Brace me,” Luca grunts.
Malach catches the bottom of his shoes and guides them to his shoulders.
The dying light trickling in from the opening in the tree slowly disappears as Luca packs ice around the hole. I want to beg him to stop. It’s too dark, and he’s making noise. But this is smart. We need to be hidden.
Ciprian’s hands land on my waist. He wraps his arms around me, his cold lips drifting to my ear. “Between us, we could kill whoever’s out there in a hundred different ways.”
Smiling in the dark, I cuddle against him. It’s warmer down here than it is out there, but it’s no sauna. “I hear you’re good at snapping necks.”
“Yeah,” he whispers. “It’s all about the pressure, hot wings.” His thumbs dig into the dips of my hips playfully. It reminds me of how it felt when he explored every inch of my body after I surprised him at the compound.
“I’m sorry I got you into this,” I say quietly. “All of you.”
Alistair bumps us without warning and knocks us both off balance. Locked together, we stumble in a controlled fall until Ciprian hits the edge of the homemade bunker with a pained wheeze.