Page 4 of Sinful Curses
To immortals, marriage was a sacred bond only death could sever. Zeth had become her friend, and as this new threat stalked them, she was glad.
Twenty feet away, the ground rolled as their hunter moved through the earth. Sahira ignored her sweaty palms as she shifted her hold on her spear and questioned what was beneath the ground.
Not being able to see their enemy had her heart thumping out a riotous beat as her imagination ran wild. She tried reminding herself that she’d come up against far worse than this before and would continue to do so, but the idea of something beneath the ground, coming at them, had her adrenaline spiking out of control.
The thing dove beneath the earth and vanished. Her heart beat out the seconds as she waited for it to reemerge or swallow them whole.
Sweat beaded her brow as the seconds ticked endlessly onward. She glanced at her feet, but no hole opened there, and she didn’t dare look too long as she lifted her gaze to search the desert.
Another three beats passed before sand sprayed into the air like it was launched from a whale’s blowhole. The grainy beads peppered her skin, creating more welts and bruises, but her spell kept her eyes protected.
She had no idea how he didn’t flinch away from the sand pelting his face, but Orin didn’t turn his head away. The ground quaked as something thudded against it, and dozens of snake-like appendages rose to wave through the air.
Like worms rising from the earth, they wiggled and swayed, but no birds would come to pluck these things from the ground. Instead, whatever this was would have devoured those birds as it sought to eradicate life from these lands.
The monstrous creature, with its awful appendages, flopped forward. When it did, Sahira saw that the things slithering from it weren’t appendages but snakelike tongues sliding toward them.
At least a dozen of those tongues blurred with speed as they raced across the shifting red sand before some buried themselves beneath the earth again. Some of the others continued straight toward them, providing a distraction to their comrades who hunted beneath the ground.
Sahira studied the earth for any sign of the ones who’d gone beneath it, but she saw no indication of them in the shifting sand. Suddenly certain they were beneath her feet, racing up to eat her, she took a small step back.
The second she did, sand spouted from the ground as one lunged out of the earth at her. Razor-sharp teeth snapped inches from her face, and its rotten stench nearly gagged her.
Twisting the spear up, she batted the creature away before it could bite her. Beside her, black blood sprayed the air when Orin sliced the head off a different one before driving his blade through the head of another, pinning it to the ground.
The main creature, a massive, wormlike thing the color of bile, released an eerie screeching sound as parts of it died. Sahira stabbed another one zigzagging across the ground toward her before yanking her spear free.
Zeth seized a different appendage and jerked its head to the side before tearing it free. Elsa shrieked when one of them shot forward and sank its hundreds of needlelike teeth into her arm.
Orin hacked through the thing attached to Elsa before spinning. He plunged his sword through one that had launched into the air and headed straight toward Sahira. She gasped as she stared at the creature only inches from her face.
Its teeth clacked as it wiggled against Orin’s blade until he yanked it up, slicing it in two. Sahira didn’t get a chance to thank him before another one burst out of the sand at her feet, rapidly encircled her leg, and yanked.
Unprepared for the violent motion, it pulled her off her feet. Her back smashing onto the ground knocked the air from her. She didn’t have a chance to draw another breath before the thing dragged her forward.
Its momentum hauled her across the ground so fast her cloak and shirt pulled up to allow sand to abrade her back and embed itself in her skin. She fought against the panic trying to consume her as she was hauled toward the main beast’s gaping mouth.
CHAPTERFIVE
“Sahira!”Elsa screamed.
The monster’s head swung toward her as it reeled in its tongues. Closer to the thing, she could see it was more like a millipede with thousands of foot-long legs sprouting from its doughy, tubular body.
Those legs kicked in the air as if eagerly anticipating their upcoming meal…her. While the tongues retreated toward the beast, more encompassed her arms and legs but didn’t rip free her grip on the spear.
Jerking her arms forward, she wrestled against the things encircling her as she twisted her spear to aim it straight at the beast’s wide-open mouth. When one of them sank their teeth into her thigh, she bit back a scream as the others tightened their hold on her.
She was about to plunge her spear into the roof of this monster’s mouth to stop herself from being dragged into the cavernous space when hands gripped her shoulders. Judging by the size of those hands, Zeth held her.
That was confirmed when Orin leapt forward and swung his sword down to slice through two of the appendages, freeing her legs. The one drinking her blood released its hold as it fell.
One of the other tongues whipped out at his head and sliced across Orin’s temple to spill blood, but he didn’t acknowledge it as he cut through two more. While he worked to destroy more of them, Elsa gripped her arms to help hold Sahira away from the monster that had shifted its attention to Orin.
One of the tongues that had retreated into its mouth surged out to snap at Orin. He ducked the thing and lifted his sword to spear the appendage.
With Elsa holding her, Zeth released his grip and seized one of the things cleaving to her arm. A crack echoed through the land as he broke it in half, and black blood spurted.
The thing loosened its grip on her before Zeth tore away what remained. When Orin severed the remaining one clinging to her arm, Elsa pulled her back as Sahira tried to get to her feet and scamper away from the monster.
