Chapter 40 #2
Another ear-splitting scream from his lips had her flinching and throwing her hands over her ears.
In the dim glow of the moonlight, she saw bright crimson streaked all across Dominic’s back, atop those wretched scars.
His clothes had been slashed to ribbons, his skin along with it, blood streaming down his back, pooling on the sand.
A crack sounded, and he jolted and screamed as another wound tore open.
Her heart shattered at his screams, cracked and broken.
To see him curled up on the ground, so small, so fragile, so innocent.
Adara threw herself between him and whatever phantom whip had been torturing him.
She lay down next to him, curled herself around his bloodied backside.
Dominic groaned. She grimaced, whispering an apology for causing him pain.
What else could she do against a monster that couldn’t be seen?
Another crack of a whip, but it did not hurt Adara as she had intended.
Dominic cried out again. Her attempted protection did him no favors.
“It’s okay,” she whispered in his ear, where blood leaked down the side of his neck.
He only screamed again, his body tensing and jerking beneath some creature she couldn’t see.
She should leave him there. Nothing he said or did was ever real. Not even the words that stole the breath from her lungs, planting hope in her heart. There is nothing in all the realms that could possibly be more valuable than you.
Despite herself, Adara pulled him tighter, hoping the pressure of her body against his back would slow the bleeding.
Wrapping her arms around his middle, her hand found his.
She laced their fingers together, gently squeezing, pressing their scars together, reminding him that whatever he faced was all in his head.
This place drove people insane. Now, she knew why.
It searches your soul for your deepest connections, your darkest regrets, your biggest fears, and brings them to life.
“It’s not real,” she murmured to him, remembering the harsh cruelty in Cal’s eyes that not even the Ruins could mask with the tender soul she knew. “It’s not real,” she repeated to herself, building a barricade around her heart before Dominic tore it completely to shreds.
But that didn’t stop her from lying with him, holding on as if she could hold all his broken parts together.
“It’s okay,” she tried again, her voice breaking as Dominic’s body trembled violently against her own, strangled sobs escaping his lips.
“I’m here, Dom. You’re not alone. It’s all right,” she said again, tears now threatening to spill.
She couldn’t stand to see him like this.
What if even this was a ploy? To pull at her heartstrings with his pain. To prove that when it came down to life and death, she’d always choose to protect him, even if it meant putting herself in harm’s way.
He screamed through the pain, tears flowing down his pallid cheeks, leaving gleaming trails through the blood and grime caked on his face.
Adara didn’t have the energy to fight the maelstrom of emotions battling within her.
She cried with him. “It’s not real,” she repeated.
“You have to fight it.” She hated that she could do nothing to help him.
Hated that she could not protect him, that she could not alleviate his pain.
She repositioned herself to kneel on the sand, carefully maneuvering Dominic’s head to rest in her lap.
His arms found their way around her waist and pulled her closer.
His sobs were muffled as he buried his face against her.
His tears dampened her pants. He held her tight, as if she were an anchor to reality.
Another cry ripped from his throat. His arms tightened around her middle.
His skin shredded again, blood spurting from his back.
Adara pressed a palm to the wound, her magic flaring to life now that those creatures had disappeared.
With her rucksack gone and Dominic’s nowhere to be seen, they had no medical supplies.
All Adara could do was use her fire to cauterize his wounds before he lost more blood.
Eyelids heavy, she blinked rapidly, trying to keep herself awake as fatigue began weighing on her.
“Come back to me, Dom,” she murmured, tending to his wounds, rubbing soothing circles on his shoulder, fingers lacing through his hair, damp with sweat and gritty with sand.
A tear slid down her cheek. “You will not fight alone. It’s not real,” she said, praying he could hear her. “I’m real. Come back to me.”
As if some spell over him had broken, Dominic stiffened, his entire body taut against her.
He canted his head, shuddering as he glanced around.
But then his eyes, filled with despair, fell on her, and he relaxed.
He blinked up at her slowly, as if wondering if she was another illusion.
His lips moved, but no sound came out, like he was still deciding what to do, to say.
“Is it over?” he finally croaked, voice raw from screaming.
She nodded, running a hand through his damp hair. “You’re safe.”
At the sound of her voice, Dominic melted into her touch, lowering his head again to rest on her thighs.
He did not remove his arms from around her.
He didn’t lift his head. His weight remained on her.
His fingers curled against the back of her tunic, with his arms tightening around her, as if he was afraid she’d abandon him.
The corners of her lips tilted up. His hands had been stained with the blood of many, yet they held her with such tenderness.
Something inside her took pride in being the one he could not resist.
No, she couldn’t think things like that.
She would not open the floodgates to the tidal wave of emotions that threatened to wash her away, to douse the fire in her veins.
She pictured Dominic crouching before her, telling her it would be a mercy to let the Ruins break her before he could.
It was a comfort for the anger to pulse inside her once more.
A comfort that she could still remember how heartless he was, that she could dredge up old memories to fuel the hatred she needed to feel for him.
The ground shuddered beneath them, a long, haunting wail filling the silence. Adara’s head whirled to the vast desert, but she saw nothing.
Dominic groaned, trying to push himself to his feet. “We . . . have to . . . go,” he panted.
Adara helped pull him up as his knees buckled. The knife in his leg made it almost impossible to stand.
“Where?” she asked desperately, another uncanny call rattling the earth. Fear squeezed her lungs at the sight of Dominic’s blood pooling beneath them. Too much, it was all too much.
“This way.” He nodded his head to their right.
Unwilling to waste time with questions, she unfalteringly followed his directions, dragging him through the desert.
It felt like they were trekking across the entire expanse of the wasteland for hours, but Adara knew it couldn’t have been that long.
Her muscles strained to support herself and Dominic as they continued.
Her lungs ached as she breathed in particles of sand in the powerful winds that caused them to stumble sideways.
Dominic staggered against her, and she gripped him harder to keep him upright. “Don’t you dare die on me, Dom,” Adara muttered as they trudged through the dunes, away from the sounds of the monsters that hunted them.
She gripped his tunic tightly, unwilling to let him see how violently her hands trembled at the thought of him dying in her arms. He stumbled, head lolling to the side, resting on her shoulder.
His eyes drifted shut. Adara’s heart hammered faster, hands shaking uncontrollably beneath him as she tightened her grip and pulled him closer.
She breathed in his scent of pine, and it would have calmed her had it not been masked by blood.
He couldn’t die on her. She wouldn’t let it happen. She didn’t want to think about what would happen if she failed. How empty she would be without him filling the vast void within her after she’d lost pieces of herself to years of heartbreak and torment. How broken she would be without . . .
No, it was his key, his damned key, that she needed and the life and magic tied to it. Not him and his cunning, pretty lies.
“I didn’t save your ass for nothing,” she seethed.
His lips quirked into the faintest smile. His fingers weekly grasped onto her shirt, the barest hint that he was there, fighting back.
That’s it, she thought. Stay with me. “Are we almost there?” she asked, worry making her voice shake.
He nodded weakly, raising a hand to point in the distance, where the silhouette of a cottage stood. “There,” he whispered, voice hoarse and barely audible over the sound of another eerie howl that had chills creeping along her skin.
“You’re sure we’ll be safe there?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied. “It’s warded against the monsters. Nothing but lost souls can enter.”
She shot him a questioning look.
“I found it before those things took me,” he explained. “I left my pack there.”
She sighed with relief. His pack was there. Medical supplies and water were there. He groaned in pain as she began tugging him onward with renewed fervor. “Almost there,” she encouraged.
Moments later, they reached a house that stood on a crumbling foundation. The wooden walls were cracked, and the ceiling was caving in. Adara carefully led him across the porch, avoiding the rotted wooden fissures, and across the open threshold where the door hung on broken hinges.
They stumbled inside the broken confines of the house, and Dominic collapsed onto a cracked leather sofa, moaning in agony.
Adara found old candles, the wax almost gone, and lit them with the fire at her fingertips, illuminating the old, worn cottage.
“Your pack?” she asked urgently. “Where is your pack?”