Damian scoffs. “You’re right, then we might have been caught in a house fire instead. Seriously, beautiful, don’t beat yourself up over things that are out of your control. You’re getting stronger; that’s a good thing. And you were attempting to burn off some energybecauseyou’re trying to make sure you don’t spontaneously combust. I think I speak for all of us when I say that we’d far prefer this sort of excitement over you exploding.”
Dragging Hunter into his attempt to make her feel better, he adds, “Landslides, sure; we all know that’s something that tends to happen on the Slaughters’ land. Lightning storms setting the trees on fire? Sadly, also a normal concern around here. But in the entire course of your life have you ever worried about sinkholes?”
At the shake of his head, Damian gives Sabrina a reassuring smile. “Between the storms and this, you’ve been practicing with your abilities without even consciously doing so. Our lovely mate felt like we needed to check out the caves, now here we are. There’s probably a good reason for it, because you’ve got some damn good instincts.” With one hand, he palms the side of her face and tugs her in to kiss the crown of her head. “How could we be upset about that, angel?”
“We’re here because we want to be, not because we have to, remember?”
Hunter finally gets with the program, starting to relax a bit, if only for her sake. “You keep things interesting, I’ll give you that. Chaotic, but interesting. And that’s a good thing in my book, so nothing to apologize for; especially when none of this is your fault.”
When her foot slips on the wet stone, I steal her hand, threading our filthy fingers together to make sure she doesn’t wipe out and give herself the concussion she miraculously survived in the landslide. “But if we could avoid volcanoes and playing on train tracks for the foreseeable future just to be safe, I’d appreciate it.”
As we follow the winding tunnel, all that can be heard is the slapping of our shoes against the wet stone and the sound of our breathing, far too amplified and close.
All it would take is the ground above our heads to collapse and we’d be buried alive. Trapped. Unable to move, suffocating on dirt until-The tight pressure in my chest eases up a fraction.Is the only oxygen in here from before the landslide, or is there another opening somewhere? We might be running on a limited supply of air. It won’t matter if we can shift, if Sabrina can blow shit up, or start a fire. Fuck, the fire. That’ll burn it up faster-
When the pressure finally relents in full and I can draw in a deep breath, I turn to find Sabrina already looking at me, giving my hand a squeeze. Without a single comment, she faces forward again as if nothing ever happened, not tipping the others off on the panic attack that she shot down before it could gain traction.
Tightening my grasp on her hand, I try to convey everything that I can’t put into words. The moment I met her, I knew she was going to bring me to my knees, yet never once has the position made me weak. If anything, it’s made me stronger, because the only force I’ll surrender to is her.
“Holy fuck.” I nearly crash into Hunter’s back as he comes to an abrupt halt around the curve of the next bend.
“What?”
The word has barely rolled off of my tongue before I’m rendered speechless, staring past his shoulder and debating if what I’m seeing is actually real. Crossing into the massive cavern, we sidestep where the trickling water empties into a large pool in the center, the stone arcing around it in a semicircle. It’s the walls and high ceiling that really strike me dumb, though; thousands of gems glittering in the firelight in a myriad of colors.
The dwindling flame in Hunter’s hand is snuffed out, and without hesitation, he strips off his own shirt and passes it to Sabrina to ignite. “This is,” he trails off, no words really able to encapsulate what we’re seeing, and none of us do it the disservice of trying.
There are some things in this world that you describe, and others that you feel in your soul.
“You did say you wanted a change of scenery.”
An incredulous breath escapes Sabrina as she looks around in awe. “Careful what you wish for, all good things come at a price; those old storybook warnings are starting to hit a little too close to home these days.”
“Agreed, you should go back to reading the kind of smut where a chick gets railed by demons. Manifest us all some orgasms instead of earth-shattering events, okay?”
Slipping away from me, she follows Hunter as he makes a pass around the cavern. “Sounds good to me.”
As I carefully skim my fingertips across various gemstones embedded in the wall, Hunter calls, “Dead end,” his voice echoing around the chamber.
Damian crouches near the pool. “It must let out somewhere even further underground.”
“Do you think it’s safe to drink? I know there’s some risk with that chemical possibly contaminating things out here, but so far at least we’ve been okay.”
Damian pokes a finger in the water as if assuring himself it’s not acidic. “Pretty sure dehydration is a bigger problem, so I say we go for it if we’re stuck down here indefinitely.”
Hunter crouches down beside Damian. “Agreed. See if it’s poisoned?” Without warning, he shoves his friend into the pool.
Coming up sputtering, Damian flips him off, but winds up cupping his hand to take a drink. “Tastes okay to me. I’m biased since I grew up with this water, so if itiscontaminated, I’m a poor test subject. But so far I haven’t gone rabid, so that’s got to count for something.”
Taking a breather, we all wind up sitting on the edge of the pool and drinking our fill as we attempt to figure out our next move since this turned out to be a dead end. “Might not pinpoint exactly, but the tracker will have moved around somewhat I imagine, so at least they’ll know we’re not dead.
Sabrina scrubs a wet hand over her face. “Or for all they know, rats are dragging around my corpse.”
Shooting her an exasperated look, I sigh. “Didn't we talk about this already? Maybe you could put all of that pessimistic energy into thinking Ash will get struck by lightning instead and save us all some effort.”
Amusement sparkling in her eyes, she mimes zipping her lips. Hunter sets what remains of the burning embers aside as we get lost in our respective thoughts for several minutes, trying to make sense of every surreal thing that’s happening in our lives and the reality of our current situation. A mate with abilities we barely understand, the wolves we’ve spent a lifetime with actually being demons, and an immortal madman playing puppet master with all of our lives. When push comes to shove, being trapped down here in this place that radiates something ancient and magical doesn’t seem so bad... if you ignore the lack of food and my brothers that must be going out of their minds with worry. Plus the fact that we only have so many clothes we can burn before we’re left naked in the dark, sitting around hoping someone will save us.
Aaaaaand we’re back to this being a shitty situation.
