I reached the opening and swept my gaze over a vast cavern. More glowing orbs hovered in the air, revealing a fully enclosed space with a craggy ceiling, and a chasm that disappeared down into darkness, was at least a hundred feet across, and stretched in either direction as far as I could see.
I was still trapped.
Hugging myself against my internal cold, I stepped out of the passage, passed between two enormous stone statues, and walked to the edge of the ledge.
There wasn’t a railing to stop me from falling, but if I did, there was more than enough space for me to release my wings and fly — not that there was anywhere to fly to. Although the other side was riddled with ledges and caves. Perhaps there was a way out over there.
To the right of the ledge sat a set of stairs. They’d been cut into the chasm’s wall and led down into the darkness, suggesting the only way out was to go deeper into the mountain.
A shudder swept through me and I turned to head down the stairs.
But as I moved, so did the statue closest to the steps. It broke away from the wall with a resounding crack that echoed through the cavern and blocked my path with its enormous body.
Another crack boomed from behind me and I jerked around to see the other statue step forward as well. Both of them were twice as big as the Winter Queen’s ice guards, but they still wore similar looking armor and clothes — even though all of their clothes and armor were stone — and each carried a large stone spear.
“She can animate stone too?”
I’m more than just ice and wind, the Winter Court said, its voice a barely audible whisper, as if it was trying to communicate from far away.
If you’re also the stone, can you make us a way out of here?
I could if you were my queen.
Which still wasn’t going to happen, and without a doubt these stone guards hadn’t woken up to show us the way out. We needed to get out of there, and while I could just release my wings and fly, Rin couldn’t. And even without our bond compelling me to help and protect him, I wasn’t going to abandon him.
More snaps, smaller and sharper, sounded from inside the passage and the closest weeping statues dropped their hands from their faces and turned to look at us.
“Run,” Rin said, reaching for me.
Except the best thing for me to do was get out of the way.
“You run. I’ll fly.”
I leaped off the ledge before he could grab me and pushed power into my back, releasing my wings through Rin’s tunic then glided up and away from the ledge.
A spark popped from his eye and he bolted for the statue guarding the stairs. With his faster-than-human speed, it was clear he was aiming to dart around or between the statue’s legs. But the statue moved faster than I thought possible given how slowly it had stepped away from the wall, and swiped its spear at Rin.
Rin jerked, and the spear sliced his side instead of impaling him and sent him tumbling toward the wall by the archway.
He hit with an umph, but didn’t utter any other sound, and managed to stay standing. Except before he could try again, one of the weeping statues lunged out of the passageway and grabbed his arm.
Rin punched the statue’s wrist with his free hand, shattering the stone, its hand falling away from his biceps, and he shoved the rest of it over the ledge. It plummeted into the darkness below, also not uttering a sound, which made me even more furious at Deaglan, since I was certain that Rin trying to control the sounds he made in the fight was because of Deaglan.
The second statue jabbed his spear at Rin. He twisted out of the way and leaped for the stairs again, but the first statue swept out his spear, blocking Rin’s path.
Rin dodged the swipe, jerked out of reach of another weeping statue’s hands, and leaped at the wall. His foot hit that wall above the weeping statue’s head and he pushed off, diving for the space between the wall and the first statue’s thigh.
But the second statue jabbed again and caught Rin midair. The point pierced through his back and exploded out of his chest with a spray of blood.
My healing magic stuttered, recognizing his injury but shying away from his undead nature, as he started to scream then clenched his jaw, swallowing it.
With a grunt, the statue jerked his spear and flicked Rin off the tip
He sailed over the edge of the ledge into the middle of the chasm, and everything within me froze.
Oh, God.
I had to save him. I couldn’t lose him. I might not want him, but I needed him. I wasn’t sure if I needed him like I needed my guys or if I just needed him because of our soul bond, but everything inside screamed he was mine and I was his. To protect. To love. The universe had spoken. He was my fate… because of the damned bond.
I dove for him. I wasn’t strong enough to fly with him, I wasn’t even sure I could slow our descent enough or glide far enough with him to avoid crashing to our deaths, but I had to try.
I grabbed Rin’s wrist. His weight yanked my wings back, and I strained to flap them, keep them spread, anything to slow our fall.
We hurtled down, the rough walls of the chasm flying past us, my full-body glow casting wild flickering shadows in the caves and crevasses, my efforts twisting and jerking us.
With a yell, I flexed my wings and caught air. Pain tore through my back, but I managed to keep them open, and we careened toward the far side of the chasm and slammed against the craggy wall.
The impact made me instinctually yank my wings back into my body to protect them, and more pain sliced through my chest as we crashed in a tangle of limbs with me mostly on top of Rin.
We’d landed on a narrow ledge at the mouth of a cave with the stone guards’ ledge across the chasm and above us.
Both statues released a deep, primal yell that roared through the cavern as they threw their spears at us. The massive stone weapons hurtled across the chasm and Rin seized me. He rolled us into the cave as one spear slammed into the side of the cave’s mouth and the other hit the mouth’s top.
With a boom, large chunks of stone broke free and dust thickened the air. A heavy stone hit my temple and the cave spun… or was that Rin still trying to roll us to safety.
For a second I was shrouded in darkness, my head pounding, and I couldn’t remember where I was or why my body hurt, just that I was trapped, unable to move, and forgotten.
Help!
Then my eyelids fluttered open, yanking me back to consciousness and the cave. Both my healing magic and my new life force magic snapped to Rin, connecting with him and flooding me with his pain, even as my healing magic writhed inside me, wanting, but not wanting to heal him.
I knew instantly that the laceration on his side was deep, but his vampiric healing could take care of it. His chest wound, however, was too big for his vampiric healing, and he was losing too much blood too quickly.
Even with his better-than-most-supers healing capabilities, the injury was too severe for him to heal it without feeding. And he needed to do that now before he passed out.
I dragged my wavering gaze to him. He lay a few feet away from me, his expression tight with pain and his hands pressed over the hole in his chest. His eyes were wide, unfocused, and his hellfire flared then jerked back to pinpricks then flared again as if he were trying to control it and couldn’t. His torso also heaved with breaths he didn’t need to take, the shock of his injury making his body think it was still alive and needed air. Blood oozed between his fingers and pooled on the ground beneath him.