Wren

Corson pulled me from my reverie when he stepped so close his chest brushed against my arm. “Not all demons are like that. Some—”

“We should probably stop talking now.” I couldn’t stand to hear him making excuses for the monsters who had brutalized my mother. “That thing will hear us.”

“We’re not all like that,” he said again. His warmth against my side vanished when he turned away from me.

And what are you like? I almost asked him, but I clamped my mouth shut against the question. I didn’t want to know what he was like, or anything more about him than necessary. So why did I suddenly feel so alone? Why did his lack of warmth leave me feeling like that eight-year-old child watching her mother die all over again?

This time I heard his footfalls stop before I walked into him. I didn’t hear him turn, but his hands fell onto my arms and then slid up to my shoulders. I tried to shrug him off, but the gesture came out feeble, and even I recognized it as half-hearted.

“How old were you when your mother died?” he asked in a raspy voice.

“What difference does that make?” This time my attempt to shrug him off was stronger, but he still didn’t let go.

“I’m trying to get to know you better.”

“Why?” I asked distrustfully. I would give anything to see his eyes, to try to read what he was thinking, but the dark wouldn’t yield its secrets.

His thumb stroking my cheek caused a strange flutter in my belly. Was this what people meant when they said they had butterflies in their stomach? It had to be, and these weren’t small butterflies; no, these were behemoths flapping against my insides. My mind screamed at me to get away from him, but my head turned until his thumb brushed over my lips.

My heart beat so fast I believed it might explode out of my chest. Corson moved closer until I could feel him standing over me as he touched me with a reverence I wouldn’t have expected from him. With tender hands, he lifted my face, and his thumb stilled on my lips.

I felt the increase of his breathing against my chest, and I realized my breath had fallen into rhythm with his. He pulled my lip down a little, and before I could register the thought, my traitorous tongue slid out to lick his thumb.

I quickly regained control of my insanity and stopped, but the salty taste of his flesh lingered on my tongue, and I wanted more of it. Why does he have to taste so good? I wondered as my head spun and a sound of pleasure rumbled from him.

Step away! But I remained unmoving as his thumb caressed my lips again.

It’s only because of the dark, only because this could be the end that you’re allowing this!

My mind screamed this at me, but I knew it was more. Corson had intrigued me since we’d first met. The dark and possibly impending death made me more willing to let some of my curiosity be satisfied, but they were not the only reasons why I was allowing this to continue.

Would he kiss me?

If he tried to kiss me, I’d knee his nuts into his stomach.

Liar!

Damn inner voice! But it was right, and I found myself unable to breathe as I waited to see what he would do next.

He drew me closer until his breath tickled my mouth. I barely felt the feathery touch of his lips as they moved over mine, but they sent prickles of awareness throughout my body. He was barely kissing me, yet I felt it all the way to the tips of my toes, and I wanted more.

Then, he stopped. The fullness of his bottom lip and the stiffness of his upper one pressed against mine as he remained unmoving.

I almost mewled a protest over this unbearable teasing, but I managed to keep it back so I could at least maintain some semblance of dignity. Was he playing with me? Why was he not—

I never had a chance to finish that question before Corson spun away from me. His arm swung up against my chest, and a hiss sounded. The hair on my nape rose as I realized what the dark hid. Something splattered over the rocks, but whether it was ouro blood or Corson’s, I didn’t know. The weight of Corson’s body was ripped away from me. Something thudded, and Corson grunted as rocks clattered against each other.

Pulling my gun free of its holster, I aimed it before me. Corson wasn’t directly in front of me anymore, that was all I knew as I fired and prayed I didn’t hit him with any of the bullets. The deafening reverberations caused my ears to ring as I kept pulling the trigger.

We’d brought a lot of ammunition with us when we’d left the wall, but after years of skimping on bullets, it felt reckless to fire so many now when I had no idea if I would hit anything, but shoot them I did. Most Wilders knew how to make bullets, but wasting necessities wasn’t something we ever did.

I’d do whatever it took to help Corson though and put an end to this monstrosity stalking us. Flashes lit the tunnel every time I pulled the trigger, and I found myself preferring the dark as each shot briefly illuminated the ouro I’d seen by the jinn.

Dirt and rocks crunched under my boots as I shuffled rapidly from side to side. I kept firing so the creature wouldn’t know for sure where I was, though it wouldn’t be difficult to locate me in this tunnel.

Each flash from the gun revealed something new about the snake. All the numerous tails curving out of the ouro were bent over and pointing toward me when their rattles went off. Its forked tongue flicked in the air, missing my hands by only centimeters as a bullet embedded in its flesh. Black, beady eyes met mine in the next flash. There was no soul behind those eyes; there was nothing but insatiable hunger.

On the next flash, Corson leapt from the shadows.

Flash…. Corson clung to the monstrous creature.

Flash…. His talons were buried straight through the snake’s head.

Flash…. Pulling backward, Corson tore a line down the center of the ouro.

My stomach turned. My gun clicked as I continued to squeeze the trigger a few more times before registering that the weapon was empty. I shoved it back into my holster and pulled my knife free from where it hung on my hip. No matter what happened, I’d make the ouro regret swallowing me every inch of my way down its vast throat.

I gripped the knife, holding it steady in preparation for an attack. I no longer experienced nervousness or doubt when it came to fighting. There was no room for either, and I’d taken on so many demons over the years that fighting was as normal to me as eating. Once, years ago, I’d questioned what that said about me and who I was becoming, but those questions had long since ceased.

I barely remembered the girl I’d been before the gateway opened, and it often felt like she was an entirely different person. I knew she’d enjoyed apples and baking cakes, pies, and cookies. She’d loved dolls and dresses. Her favorite dress had been black with a fluffy skirt and red apples all over it. She’d twirled in it for her parents, who had laughed and clapped over her antics.

I wouldn’t be caught dead in a dress now, I had zero use for dolls, and the extent of my baking was sticking an animal on a spit to roast it. That girl wouldn’t have survived a week in the Wilds. I had survived fourteen years.

I strained to hear anything over the incessant ringing in my ears. Something screeched against the rocks, Corson grunted again, and the creature released a hissing scream that caused my ear ringing to ratchet up a notch. I tried to follow the sounds of the fight while I hunted the ouro with my knife at the ready.

Then something hit me with the weight of a door bashing against my whole body. Flung back, my breath exploded out of me when I smashed into a wall. Rocks and dirt fell around me; my teeth knocked together so violently I was certain they’d shattered, but I managed to keep my knife.

Revulsion swept me when one of the rattles on a smaller tail ran over my face. Another tail slithered up and down my arm while the tip of another ran over my outer thigh. I thrust my knife into the ouro. The blade caught in the thick snakeskin before giving way beneath the weight of my body.

The skin felt a foot thick, too thick for my blade to get too far into the ouro, but it had to have hurt the serpent as one of the tails started thumping the side of my face. A rattle beat on my head and another one hit my arm with enough force to bruise the bone.

“Son of a bitch!” I gasped and tore my knife free.

I swung the knife at one of the tails and embedded it in the bottom of it. As I sawed back and forth, more rattles went off and beat me. I didn’t stop, not until I succeeded in severing the tail.

Hot liquid gushed over my face. I recoiled from the blood pumping forth as another tail bashed into my arm and the ouro thrashed to the side. I didn’t know if I was the one causing the ouro to writhe in pain, if it was Corson, or if it was a combination of the two of us. Either way, I wasn’t about to stop slicing it apart.

My palms slipped on the handle of the knife as I gripped it in both hands, lifted it over my head, and drove it down. The snake hissed, and another tail pummeled my head.