Chapter 10
Jasmine
I was so close to fainting. The pain was terrible, but I knew I couldn’t let up, not now.
Did I have something to prove? Sure, but this was more about survival than anything.
Those Thunder Rock warriors were so close, letting me know they were there even as they stayed out of range of my bow.
If I’d had the bow I’d made myself, I could have done serious damage.
With this one? I could only scare them enough to make them fall back a little.
They were waiting for me to run out of arrows or pass out, whichever came first. I glanced at the quiver hanging awkwardly from my belt over Ekkire’s shoulder.
Only three left. Biting my lip, I held back a groan as Ekkire flung us over a large tree trunk and abruptly swerved to the left.
Stars danced in front of my eyes. Three left—that wasn’t much—but I feared passing out might win anyway.
The landscape changed very suddenly; at least, it appeared that way to me.
We’d been going uphill, with the gully I’d been trapped in yesterday running on our right.
Trees stood or lay everywhere, and the ground had mostly been that sturdy gray-purple Serant grass.
Now we were traveling over rock, and several large boulders lay scattered and partially buried in great mounds around us.
I risked a glance ahead, but only for a second, as we were more in the open and I worried Thunder Rock might try to strike.
A dark opening, a pile of rocks that looked unnaturally shaped.
The segment of a stone tail and a fang the size of my arm, rising from a dirt mound.
I knew, even with only those fragmented images, that Ekkire was about to take us into a cave—one that had been used by his ancestors, perhaps entirely man-made.
Moments later, the darkness swallowed us.
Dove huddled more tightly into my neck, her wings curling against her small body.
She let out a whimper, as if scared, and a similar sound bubbled from my throat.
Briefly, all pain was forgotten as the cold, damp air of the cave enveloped me.
My hands trembled around my bow, arms aching from holding it up this long.
Did they follow? I couldn’t see anything but the bright entrance we’d entered through and the dark of the tunnel.
Squinting, I was certain I saw a shadow flash across the opening, and then another.
Ekkire’s glowing sigils were the only light to see by inside the cave itself, and it wasn’t enough.
Not yet, when my eyes were struggling to adjust. “They won’t follow, I hope,” Ekkire said.
“We’ll be safe in here as soon as we’re out of arrow range…
” As he said it, an arrow flew past my head, so close I could feel strands of hair flutter across my face.
I hunched lower, but that was awkward when I tried to stay partially turned to watch the entrance.
Another arrow struck the rock next to us, and shards from the arrowhead flung through the air and struck my back.
“I don’t think it’s working!” I hissed, the adrenaline of those near misses surging.
I lifted my bow, tried to aim for one of the shadows at the entrance, and fired.
Certain I’d missed, I hoped it was enough to keep them from following, though I didn’t see why.
Nothing was stopping them from coming in here with us, was there?
Ekkire seemed certain, right until they proved him wrong.
“It’s not working,” I warned. “They followed us in; I can see their eyes.” A dozen pairs, dancing through the darkness behind us.
All in various shades of blue, like diamonds floating in midair.
It was very eerie, and accompanied by the sound of furious snarling, growling, and a curse here or there.
They didn’t like this, but they were determined to follow us.
One of them had to be the same guy Ekkire had chased away, the one with all the nasty promises of what he’d do to me.
“By the sacred streams, what is Msera thinking?” Ekkire muttered, and his pace picked up.
I knew how dangerous that was, racing into the darkness in an unknown cave.
I had to put all my trust in him, because I saw far less than he did.
One wrong step, one wrong move, and we could find ourselves falling into a hole, running headfirst into a dead end, or maybe even finding a predator in its den.
This was so risky, but the Thunder Rock hunters showed no sign of giving up the chase. What choice did we have?
The ceiling was getting lower too, so after I fired my last arrow, I was forced to slide off Ekkire’s shoulders and into his arms. That felt safer, much safer, but I still made sure to look over his shoulder at the hunters chasing us.
His arms were around me, his chest a protective barrier between me and the arrows still occasionally flying toward us.
It was easy to believe he’d keep me safe, at all costs, just like any of the other mated males at Haven would do for their mate.
I actually believed, just for a moment, that he wanted me after all.
The world abruptly turned upside down, not even the light from the entrance visible.
My stomach lurched up into my chest, the only way I could tell that we were falling.
Dove screeched, a sharp chirp kee kee that echoed in the cave, her claws digging into my shoulder as she alighted, and then a very sharp tug on my hair.
It happened so fast I didn’t have time to register anything else.
We crashed to the ground far below with a thud, and pain burst bright and sharp through me.
I knew I’d passed out, and I had no clue for how long.
I just knew that when I came to again, I was in pain—lots of it—but I was alive.
Somehow, I’d survived the fall, and I didn’t think my leg had gotten any worse either.
Dove was nuzzling the side of my face, her anxious chirps sounding mournful.
At least, I thought that was Dove, but it was so dark in here I couldn’t see a thing.
“I’m okay,” I groaned, trying to lift my hand so I could pet her.
Okay was a stretch, a very big stretch, and when I discovered my hand was pinned, I panicked.
Very briefly. It was Ekkire; he’d curled much of his long tail around me, and I was lying across his chest.
Ekkire. Now the panic turned sharp. He wasn’t moving either, and when I shifted against him, he didn’t respond.
“Hey! Wake up, are you okay?” I lowered my head against his chest and heard the thumping of his heart.
Alive, for now. It didn’t take a genius to know what had happened.
We’d fallen down a shaft in this tunnel, and this stubborn Water Weaver naga had used his own body to break the fall for me.
I managed to free my hands from his coils, and very gently patted his chest and neck.
Then I slid them into the silky strands of his long hair and searched the back of his skull with gently prodding fingers.
I held my breath as I did it, terrified I’d find strange bumps or a bleeding wound.
There was nothing there, not that I could feel, but I knew that meant nothing. Not until he opened his eyes.
“Damn it, didn’t you see this hole?” I muttered, but without any venom.
He’d never have fallen into it if he’d seen it, and we wouldn’t be in this hole if not for me.
They had no beef with him; it was me they wanted dead.
Though, after he’d killed one of them to protect me and nearly killed another, I was pretty sure they wouldn’t be nice to him either.
I’d pretty much ruined his neutral status with Thunder Rock.
Great job, Jasmine. No wonder he didn’t want me.
Dove chirped again from just above my head, and this time when I reached up, I could actually reach her flank.
She purred, chirped, and rubbed her head and body against my fingers.
“Sorry, baby, you might have chosen the wrong human to make friends with. I promise I’ll try to keep you safe.
” As soon as I figured out how to make light, I’d assess the rest of Ekkire’s injuries.
With a lot of swearing, near fainting, and what felt like monumental effort, I heaved the last of Ekkire’s heavy coils off my body.
Freed from his grip, I carefully rolled off him, and then I set out searching for the belt around his waist. Surely he carried a ‘light source,’ as the hunters called it.
If it wasn’t broken, that would be the fastest solution.
Once I could see, I could actually do something.
My hand brushed over abs that flowed in ridges across his belly, the curve of a hip bone, and then touched leather.
I winced as I began stroking along that belt to find the various pouches tied to it.
If I slipped, I’d touch his groin, and I didn’t want to do that.
Well, I did, damn it, but not like this.
The first pouch held various bits of string, fluff, and a pair of stones.
Fire-making tools. The second was more fitted, like a knife sheath, and it held the light source I was after.
It fit into my palm, a tiny crystal-like device that, with a flick of my thumb, flared to life.
A warm, yellow glow filled the area around me.
We were in another tunnel, much like the one leading from the entrance into the hillside.
It was a narrow, cold place, with one wall dripping with condensation.
There were cracks in many places, too, which led me to think the place was highly unstable.
If there was another aftershock from the quake, would the whole place collapse on top of us?
A shaft opened above our heads, one that likely hadn’t been there before the earthquake. I expected to see faces above us, but I saw only darkness. There wasn’t even a hint of sunlight from the cave entrance. Had we gone that far inside, or had night fallen?