A sidewinder lies in the cool of a rock, tail rattling. Daisy shrieks, rising again. Eliza tumbles from the saddle less than three feet from the snake.
I don’t think. I don’t breathe…
Sharp teeth dig into the flesh of my forearm, body shielding Eliza from the viper.
I let out an awful grunt. A new kind of burn travels up the glyphs on my flesh as it strikes again, then a third time, caught between me and the rocks.
Tempest comes down hard next to me, hooves kicking and smashing, screaming into the still of the desert afternoon, until the snake lies trampled beneath her.
I grip my arm, fingers digging into flesh that burns and swells—violent, caustic. My fingers don’t close right. Like they don’t belong to me anymore.
“Kael!” Eliza covers her mouth with her hand, crawling toward me. Her eyes round, washing over three sets of puncture wounds dripping blood and venom.
“God,” I groan, teeth grinding. My pulse pounds too fast, as if it’s trying to break out of my chest.
Then it stutters.
Misses.
Kicks again.
“I have to call nine-one-one,” she says.
Anguish sears my brain. But those words cut through.
“No,” I gasp, body tensing around the next wave of pain. Sharp, tearing, violent. Like my veins scorch from the inside out. “You can’t.”
She eyes Daisy, spooked and running. “B-but I have to.”
“No.” Another rush of heat burns through me like ignition. My veins feel like they’re collapsing in on themselves, straining and breaking. “No, they’ll kill me if they find out.”
“Find out what?” she pants, forehead creasing.
The edges of her blur as if she’s slipping out of the world before I am.
“That…” I groan through another wave of pain. “I’mnothuman.”
I’ve taken worse.
Bullets. Blades. Venom before.
Never felt like this. Not with something worth staying for.
Eliza’s voice is in my ear. Too far away. “Kael, stay with me…”
I try.
But I already know this feeling.
Not like this.
Not with her watching me die.
Chapter
Twelve
ELIZA
