He makes a series of hand signals to the others and I have a brief stab of being left out, but it’s not the time for that. Something tells me that it won’t take long for me to catch on at this rate.
Soren pulls ahead and spins as he comes to a stop, bending his knees and locking his fingers together in a familiar pose. I don’t hesitate, taking a running leap and putting my foot in his hands. He gives me an extra boost and I grab the first branch I can reach, pulling my legs up. There’s a massive flash of light and a bang before I can even pivot.
When I look down to try and get a sign for what he wants me to do next, Soren and Cai are pressed flat on the ground face down. Vyrian is a blur of motion, his bow drawn and firing off five shots in rapid succession without a single moment of hesitation.
By the time Cai and Soren are getting to their feet, Vyrian is already swinging it back over his shoulder, headed over towards me. “How’s the view up there, angel?”
I drop, landing in a crouch. “And you guys call me a savage. Your aim is something else.”
He preens. “And I haven’t even shown you all it can do yet,” he winks.
He finally got the custom commissioned bow he ordered, but we hadn’t had a chance yet with everything going on to test it out. His skill is certainly there, but I’m not sure what makes this bow any different from another, and he refuses to tell me.
“So Yri’s some type of forest demon; good to know.”
We start walking at a brisk pace, weaving through the forest that seems to go on forever. I’ve never left Hadeon, and the guys aren’t from around here, so I only have the map Kinsley tucked in my bag to guide us. Surprise, surprise, the forest is marked with some trees. The only landmark around us? More trees. I’m not even sure if we’re going in the right direction.
“They couldn’t even draw an ‘x’ to mark the spot,” I snort, looking at the scribble that points out the sanctuary, a hastily scrawled dick with wings and a face I’m assuming is supposed to be a dragon. Kinsley is many things, but serious sure isn’t one of them.
“All we can do is keep going until we get out and then search for landmarks,” Cai shrugs.
We press on, eventually finding ourselves about ten miles away from where we thought we were. Choosing to stay just inside the tree line to conceal us a bit, we walk until we’re back on track. Between here and the next city is a massive expanse of farmland, the crops in the fields growing tall enough to hide even Soren.
“How far until the sanctuary?” I ask again, hoping that it’s changed since the last three times I asked.
Yri rolls his shoulders as we look down the small hill to the first field. “A little over a hundred miles from here if no detours so if we hustle, we still have two or three days of walking ahead of us.”
“No time to waste then,” I sigh.
I don’t mind exercise, obviously. But there’s a difference between trekking day and night and sprinting an obstacle course or training with adrenaline flooding your system.
Despite the fact that we could take a bus for part of it, everyone agreed better trying to stay as off the grid as possible. The people out here don’t owe me any loyalty and will likely try to challenge the guys’ claim since we haven’t actually completed the ritual. Add in my impending heat like a ticking time bomb, and it just sounds like a recipe for disaster.
For now, we stay at the edge of the fields on the opposite side of the road, as far away from the houses as possible. It’s not foolproof, but if we were to try and fight our way through the crops the entire way, we’d never get anywhere. We only see a few stray men and are able to avoid them without incident, ducking into the fields for a bit until they move on.
“So, you know nearly everything about me, but I only know bits and pieces about you guys. Might as well use this as an excuse to share all our dark, dirty secrets since we don’t have anything better to do for a while,” I offer, trying to fill the silence.
“What do you want to know, angel?” Yri asks, eyes constantly assessing the surrounding area despite his easy demeanor.
I contemplate, figuring we may as well start out with something lighthearted. “Favorite color?”
“Red,” he responds instantly, making me snort.
“You’re such a suck up.”
He shrugs, unapologetic. “Sounds like you already know me then,” he teases.
I smile. It’s always so easy with Vyrian, and I adore that, but I know it won’t be that way forever. So I decide to press a little more and that’s when he caves and tells me about his family, the circumstances surrounding his arrival to this country. My heart absolutely breaks for the man, but especially for his little sister who felt death was a better fate than whatever lied waiting for her. I have a new appreciation for the triplets overbearing nature and doomsday prepping now, but I stuff those feelings into the ‘tomorrow Ezra’s problem’ box before they can choke me up.
Soren mostly spent his time on his own seeing as he had no siblings and his fathers took the death of his mother so hard. He ended up friends with Vyrian and Caius in school and just never left their side since. When shit hit the fan, he didn’t have any regrets leaving his home behind to stay with them.
Cai stayed quiet the entire time, and when Soren tapers off, the silence is more noticeable. I don’t ask, knowing he’ll talk if he wants, and that if he doesn’t, there’s a good reason. We walk on another ten minutes before he cracks.
“You tell anyone, I’ll deny it,” he snaps, sounding agitated. I just raise an eyebrow, waiting for him to collect himself. “The others didn’t mention it, but mine and Vyrian’s fathers made us fight in the original counter attack after the human uprising when we were teenagers. It’s where we learned to fight and then we taught Soren when we came back. It was...it was a bloodbath.”
He takes a breath to steady himself, keeping his eyes straight ahead, looking at something only he can see. “When it was all over, only two of my fathers and I were left from our family. They were hurt, pissed, and took it out on me. They weren’t good men before it happened, but they were monsters afterward.”
He finally turns to look at me and I see a pain in his bright blue eyes that I wish I could take away. “They spent most of my life beating the shit out of me, so when we were cutting our way out of Omisha, it was the perfect excuse to kill them too.”
