Page 219 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
I stepped to his side and took in a big, disgusting whiff. “It’s like that incense priests use in church services on Earth, only nastier.”
The Kobold stared at me, licking his snaggletooth in what I presumed was apprehension. “From where does it drift?”
Breathing in another lungful, I pointed ahead and to my right. “That way.”
Morus wrung clawed, leathery hands. “Then that’s where we’ll go.” He glanced up at me. “Certain you don’t want to turn back? We’ll lose that option if we continue much further.”
Foreboding much, Morus?
I held fast to my book bag straps and my determination. I couldn’t let Pete die. I couldn’t allow the further fracturing of his soul either.
Iwould notfail him the way I’d failed Daddy.
This time, I knew how to fight back.
“We keep going.” I peered into the distance, knowing Pete was out there, needing me.
Uttering some foreign expletive, Morus rubbed his wizened brow. “Then stay silent; stay alert. We’ll meet the hounds first, no doubt. I can take them, spare you time to—”
A war cry silenced the jungle’s chirping, birdlike creatures flapping from their nests. The hairs on my nape rose. Without even a glimpse Morus’s way, I darted headlong toward the offensive smell—and the howl.
“This isn’t silent!” Morus growled as I raced on, my zippers jangling, my breath sawing. “My word, you’re faster than I took you for.”
“Right back at you!” I called over my shoulder.
“Shh!”
Let them hear me coming.They still won’t be ready.I hunkered into myself, reaching for my wind as Pete had taught me.
“Slow down! We haven’t located the hounds!”
I might’ve listened—if yet another bellow of mingling anger and pain hadn’t rebutted his caution. A shouted cacophony followed.
Time for a little recklessness.“Keep going straight and meet me there!” I called to Morus over my shoulder and watched his jaw slacken as I leapt into the sky. And stayed there.
See!I cheered myself, soaring off.You could fly the whole damn time. You got this, girl!
I closed my eyes and pictured myself floating on a breeze as I had toward the end of my slide down to Eden. I steadied my breathing, maintained an even heartbeat, and trusted my nose to chase the strengthening incense stench. When I opened them, I could taste the smell—and the tang of blood.
I hovered in the canopy above a group of frantic harbingers skirmishing to restrain a massive hellion struggling on the ground, so they could stuff what resembled a half-plucked flower into his clamped mouth.
The man was a battered, torn, sweaty mess, but I could tell by the set of his shoulders and the haphazard fluffiness of his brown hair that he was, indeed, Pete.MyPete.
“You’re only making this harder on yourself!” The harbingers’ clear leader squeezed Pete’s whiskered cheeks to force his mouth open. “If you’d only see reason, you eejit!”
The only beyn in the bunch sheathed daggers caked in blood.MyPete’s blood. “I’ll get him to open his fecking gob,” she hissed and clamped Pete’s swollen nose.
Pete’s gaze blazed open, so wide that I could see the whites of his eyes from my altitude. He writhed for freedom, but his body, so abused—he’d never break free of the four burly cutthroats pinning him.
The beyn grinned at her leader like the evil queen in any fairytale. “As soon as he makes to breathe, shove the rest of that poppy in his mouth.”
Therestof it?Oh, Danu, please don’t let it have poisoned him already!
Sweating streams, the leader snickered. “Only moments now, McKenna, before you’re confessing where you hid the blasted princess.”
Glaring, I dropped from the magenta sky, my boots landing on either side of Pete’s head. “She’s right here, douchebags.” I kicked the raging shrew hurtingmyPete right in the goddamn nose. She reeled back with a crunch, blood spurting everywhere.
Pete’s feyr enemies goggled up at me, blinked several times, then pounced to grab me.
