The rain falls so close to me now, inches from my boots, and I eye the remaining distance to the trees. There’s no way I’ll make it.
“On your feet, mate,”Thane’s commanding voice thunders in my ears, and somehow, I find myself standing, even though my mate isn’t there to carry me this time.
“Yes, daddy,”I wheeze out as I stagger forward, moving again towards the trees even though I know I won’t make it.
There’s no laughter from Thane.“Die now, mate, and I will punish you in the afterlife for all eternity,”he growls.
Desire rushes through me at his words, and a small smile twists my lips as I move faster.
“Die now and this entire realm will be punished,”Knox promises, his voice laced with something dark.
Swallowing, I focus on sucking in heaving breaths. Just before the rain is about to touch me, I send out my shadows, reaching for the trees. In response, Kenzie shoots her shadows out toward me. Neither of us have enough power to make our shadows cover the distance, but our shadows meet in the middle. Together, our power is enough.Weare enough.
Seconds before the rain can reach me, our shadows entwine, the ends twisting around one another like locking hands, and Kenzie yanks on her power. I half run and am half pulled across the remainder of the distance, my boots dragging on the sand until I crash into Kenzie, falling to safety as the pair of us sprawl onto a patch of ferns. The rain chases me up until the tree line,and then it stops, like an invisible barrier is preventing it from entering the forest.
“Girl, do that again and next time I’ll kill you myself,” Kenzie tells me through tears, whacking me lightly with her hand.
Lifting our heads, we peer back at the sands and watch in horror as the last students who are exposed in the arena scream. They fall, writhing in pain as Thane’s rain pours down on them without mercy.
I fight back the sob that wants to break free. “Thanks,” I tell Kenzie, still trying to process how close I came to dying.
“Shade!”My mates shout my name over and over in my ears.
Falling back onto the grass, I focus on sucking air into my burning lungs.“I’m alive. It’s okay. I made it,”I rasp to my mates, because I just know if I don’t tell them that I’m okay, they’re going to do something stupid like defy the queen. Or you know…try to kill her.
My mates’ relieved whispers brush against my ears, and Thane mutters a stream of curses and apologies.
When the screams in the arena end, I force myself up again. Kenzie and I stand, facing the darkness of the jungle, and I wonder what horrors lie within.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
~ Shade ~
“Itake it all back. I should have hidden in the academy and committed to being there for the rest of my life,”I grumble to myself as Kenzie and I move further into the jungle. My entire body is trembling, and I’m not sure if it’s from exertion or fear. Both, probably.
Kenzie and I draw our swords, the pair of us constantly scanning our surroundings. The bright side is that in here we don’t have to worry about Thane’s acid rain melting our faces off. The downside is, now we have to worry about whatever creature is in here that wants to eat us.Hysterical laughter threatens to bubble out of me, but I shove it away, because if I let it out, something tells me I won’t be able to stop laughing and now is not the time for us to be drawing attention to ourselves.
We walk undisturbed for a short while, before I stop and tilt my head. “Do you hear that?” I whisper to Kenzie.
She frowns, staring around at the trees. “I don’t hear anything.”
“Exactly,” I reply. “We saw students enter this jungle, so where are they?”
We share a tense look before we start moving again, slowly weaving between the trees. As I go to climb over a thick tree root that crosses our path, my boot slips on the thick moss covering the root, and I cry out as I fall backward, landing on my ass.
“Shade!”Thane barks in my ear.
“Tell us what’s happenin’, sunshine,”Raith urges, his voice sounding strained like he’s only just managing to keep himself from risking it all to rescue me.
Kenzie’s panicked expression disappears quickly when she realizes what has happened, and she shakes her head at me. “Seriously, it’s like I can’t take you anywhere.”
I grin, giving her a sheepish look. “What can I say? Finding ways to hurt myself is my specialty.” Then I figure I’d better respond to my mates.“Don’t worry, I’m fine. I just slipped.”
This is followed by relieved mutterings, and more than one of my mates cursing my name.
“I’m goin’ to have a fuckin’ heart attack,”Raith murmurs. Seeing as they’re immortal, I know that’s impossible, but I can just imagine him dramatically clutching at his chest.
“When this is over, we are never letting her out of our sights again,”Galen agrees.
