“We?” She threw him a look, already stepping closer despite herself. “Why on earth would I help you?”
She hooked his elbow, slinging his arm over her shoulder.
“Because you’re clearly a hero.” He grunted again as she hauled him up, pain folding his features.
Rynna sputtered a laugh. “A hero?”
She dragged him with her as the noise behind them grew louder—branches popping, earth shuddering beneath the slide of something massive getting closer.
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.
