My claws retract. The need to make sure she understands this vanishes. I reach blindly toward the supplies stacked against the rock wall and snatch an oversized, fur-lined pelt intended for the winter deep dust.
I step fully into her space, and drop the pelt squarely over her shaking shoulders. Reaching out with both hands, I pull the edges tight beneath her chin, burying her entirely in my scent and warmth.
She clutches the furred edges of the oversized hide, her dark eyes blazing with a focus that is terrifying.
With a jerk of her chin to her chest, Eh-ree-kah turns on her heel, the pelt sweeping the stone floor, and scrambles immediately up the steep incline toward the ridge.
“She thinks like a Dra-dam,” Zan projects into the open mindspace before he can stop himself. His thought carries a profound, uneasy awe.
Nobody corrects him.
I watch the dark shadows of the upper tunnel swallow her small frame.
She is right. The upper path drops straight into the safety of the deep chambers, and the only way to reach it from the main cavern is directly behind my back. She has an immediate escape route to the other women, and she is inaccessible to the enemy...unless my line breaks. So my line will not break. The brutal change in my blood that has driven me to the absolute edge of madness will not allow it. I will slaughter every single creature that steps into this cavern before they take a breath of her air.
I close my eyes. The slick taste of her is still coating my tongue. I swallow it down, locking her permanently into my bones.
And then, from deep within the dust outside the cavern, the air shifts.
There is not a single sound. No scrape of bone weapons. No scent on the wind.
My eyes snap open. The gold ring in my irises expands. My claws unsheathe instantly, gleaming against the dim light.
“They have arrived.”
Chapter 14
WE'RE UPGRADING FROM 'CAMP' TO 'HEAVILY FORTIFIED MURDER-CAVE'
ERIKA
Mikaela is crouched six inches to my right. I can’t see her face in the pitch black, but her breathing is too fast.
“I can’t see anything,” Mikaela whispers, her voice thin. “I should be out there with him.”
“You don’t need to see,” I tell her, keeping my voice perfectly flat. If I let a single tremor of fear slip into my tone, we are going to have a panic cascade on our hands, and I do not have time to manage everyone’s emotional breakdown while we are being hunted. “You just need to listen to Sarven. That is your only job.”
She lets out a shaky breath and bites her lip.
A suffocating silence settles over the sprawling cavern.
And then, it happens.
Click... Click-click.
“The fuck is that?” I whisper.
The sound echoes from the main cavern entrance, bouncing off the walls inside the cavern. They are already inside.
“Shadowmaws,” Mikaela whispers.
My blood runs cold. “What the fuck are shadowmaws doing here?”
They’re pack hunters. Low-slung, black-plated beasts with serrated teeth and jaws that unhinge like a snake’s to swallow prey whole. They are creatures of the open dust. They do not hunt in the deep rock.
Mikaela swallows hard. “Lucek’s clan lured them here.”
Every drop of blood evacuates my extremities. My heart slams against my ribs and I stop breathing.
