Page 97 of Sinful Curses
“This whole place is Hell,” Orin said. “It’s time to see what else it can throw at us.”
When Sahira stepped forward, Orin grasped her wrist. She tried to snatch her arm away, but he held firm, and her body betrayed her by reacting to his touch.
If she was a cat, she might have purred as small sparks arced from his body and into hers while her pulse accelerated. He deserved to be kicked so hard that his nuts went up inside him, but her traitorous body still yearned for him.
Life was a cruel, treacherous bitch.
“I’ll go first,” he said.
“You will?” Pip squeaked from his shoulder.
“Yes.”
Sahira started to argue but stopped; she wassotired of fighting with him. Besides, maybe he wouldn’t make her so miserable if he died.
A sharp stab to her heart and an influx of panic at the thought of it happening told her she was wrong about that, and she hated being wrong.
She waved her hand at the door. “Go ahead.”
He quirked an eyebrow as he released her wrist. “I’ll go first, you can follow, and Elsa and the demon will bring up the rear.”
Sahira didn’t respond or tell him not to go, though the words were on the tip of her tongue. Theyhadto do this.
Her heart thundered, and while a part of her contemplated shoving him down the stairs, she almost stopped him when he stepped onto the first stair. She fisted her hands to keep from doing so when the darkness enveloped him.
Silently, and half certain they were walking to their deaths, she fell in behind him with Fath on her shoulder. She didn’t even descend one step before Orin vanished into the dark.
She glanced back as she sought some light, but it was already gone, and while they had their packs and weapons, their candles were lost during their battle with the spiders.
When she turned forward again, she still couldn’t see Orin or Pip. Adrenaline pulsed through her as her fingers grazed the banister; she hated touching the atrocious thing, but she used it to keep herself oriented in the dark. It wasn’t working that well.
She had no idea where they were or what lay ahead of them. Every part of her longed to return to the light, but she forced one foot in front of the other.
As she descended, the air grew chillier and the minerally tang of the rocks increased. At least it didn’t smell like death.
Their steps were nearly noiseless on the stone stairs, but occasionally one of their boots scraped along them. When a small thud came from ahead, her heart leapt into her throat as she worried something had happened to Orin.
“The stairs twist to the right down here,” Orin said.
His voice was a relief, and she realized his hand must have collided with a wall or something. She wanted to ask if he was okay but didn’t dare speak as her fingers skimmed the banister while she followed it through the twist in the steps.
The stones encasing them like a tomb made hearing anything beyond a few feet difficult. Fath shifted on her shoulder but didn’t speak; none of them did. What was there to say?
They all knew they were thinking the same thing. One way or another, this could be an end to them… or this realm. Despite the possibility of freedom, only trepidation thrummed through her.
After another fifty stairs, they took a turn, descended some more, turned, and climbed down some more before a dim light became visible at the bottom of the steps. At first, she wasn’t sure the glow was there, but then Orin’s head and shoulders started coming into view.
Not far ahead of him, the stairs ended in smooth, compressed dirt. Orin stepped off the last stair and moved forward enough so they could move out of the stairwell to fan out around him.
When she saw what lay ahead, Sahira’s jaw dropped.
A town full of dozens of two and three-story buildings lay before them. All those buildings were turned so their windows faced the stairs, even the houses on the side streets spreading out to their left and right.
Sahira had no idea where the dim glow came from, but it hung behind the town. It wasn’t the sun, as they remained underground, but that unknown glow cast a silhouette behind the buildings.
Each of the houses had lights on within them. Those lights also weren’t bright, but they revealed enough for her to see into all the open windows as no drapes or blinds obscured the view.
Nothing moved within the town or inside those homes as an aura of emptiness enshrouded everything. An air of expectation hung over them while they waited for something to happen.
