Wren

“Help!” I screamed and leapt at the wall.

Dirt embedded beneath my fingernails and abraded my palms as I scrambled for purchase. Stepping back, I panted for air while I gazed at the distant circle of light overhead. At least five hundred feet above me, that daylight seemed about as achievable as Heaven right now.

“He—aggghh,” my scream for help cut off when a hand slid over my mouth.

Pulled back against Corson’s solid chest, his breath sounded in my ear when he pinned me firmly to him. Too stunned to move for a second, I leaned against him as his lips brushed my ear. “Quiet!” he hissed.

Lifting my hands, I tugged at his wrist as I twisted to break free of his hold. Releasing me, he strolled away, his boots crunching the debris we’d toppled into the pit. His casual demeanor seemed entirely out of place considering where we now stood. I didn’t have to see the creature to know we’d fallen into the trap of something awful. Seeing it would probably only make it worse.

I strained to follow Corson as he disappeared and reemerged from the shifting shadows while circling the pit. He stopped before another tunnel and rested a hand against the dirt wall. Leaning forward, his head turned back and forth as he inspected the opening.

I strained to hear anything coming from that tunnel as I reached over my back. My heart sank when I realized a familiar weight was missing even as my hand connected with my shirt instead of my quiver and bow. Glancing around, I spotted my bow half hidden in the dark.

Striding over, I bent and drew it toward me. When I lifted it into the air, the bottom half of the bow clattered onto the ground while the snapped string floated in the air before me. “It took me a week to find the perfect branch, whittle it, and smooth it to get this where I wanted it,” I muttered. “I’ve had it for five years, and one stupid misstep snatched it away from me.”

“We will find you another,” Corson murmured.

I sighed and set the bow aside. “Better the bow than us.” It still stung though, especially since it had been my misstep that landed us here.

You’re still alive.

But for how long? I wondered as I glanced at the distant light overhead before focusing on the cavern once more.

I spotted the edge of my quiver peeking out from under the deer. Walking over, I lifted the back of the deer as much as I could with one hand. After some maneuvering, jerking, sweating, and unspoken swears, I managed to tug the quiver out from under the animal. I lifted the crumpled remains and turned it over to empty it out. The broken pieces bounced across the ground and scattered around my feet.

Bending over, I placed my hands on my knees and took a second to steady myself before looking to Corson again. “Can you climb out of here?”

He didn’t look back at me as he replied, “By the time we made it to the top, it would be too late.”

I liked the sound of that about as much as I liked the idea of having my fingernails pulled out. “What does that mean?”

“It means our fall and your yelling will have woken the beast. It will be looking for its dinner.”

“And we’re its dinner?”

“Yes.”

I wiped my sweaty palms on my pants and straightened. He wouldn’t know the apprehension his words roused in me. “And what is the beast we woke?”

“The ouroboros.”

“What is that?”

“A giant serpent. It devours its own tails when it’s starving. When it has a food supply…”

“It eats the supply,” I whispered when his voice trailed off, and he gave me a pointed look.

“Yes.”

“A giant snake, fantastic.”

I turned back to the wall and tried to ignore the galloping beat of my heart as my mind spun. There was always a plan, always an action to take; I just had to calm down enough to think of one. Deep breaths. There are options.

“What about Malorick?” I blurted as I recalled the telepathic demon. “Can’t you reach out and tell him where we are?”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Corson replied. “He can reach out to communicate with me, when and if the others realize we’re missing, but I can’t talk with him until he opens the pathway into my mind.”

I gazed at the distant, unattainable circle of light as I ran through more options. “If we call for help, maybe the angels will hear us and come.”

I wasn’t overly fond of either of the angels. Not Raphael with all his golden beauty, or Caim with the black wings the fallen angels possessed. Both of them had proven to be loyal to the king and queen, but Raphael was often an asshole, and Caim…

Well, I actually kind of liked Caim’s blunt, sort of crazy ways, but he’d been on Lucifer’s side until a few months ago, so I didn’t trust him. Fighting for us now or not, Caim had proven he was willing to change sides.

“Never trust a traitor,” Randy’s words from years ago whispered across my mind.

They were words I’d followed ever since, just as I’d followed most of Randy’s advice. The only reason I was still alive was him. Many had perished, but Randy had made sure I survived, and over the years, I’d come to love him as much as he loved me. I didn’t know what I would do if he were dead, couldn’t imagine the world without him in it, smiling at me and guiding me, but somehow I would survive that too.

However, traitor or not, I preferred riding Caim’s shoulders out of here over being the stomach contents of a self-eating, behemoth snake any day.

“Yes, by all means, keep shouting. I’m sure the angels will hear you all the way down here and arrive before the ouroboros does. At least the appetizer you present will keep the ouro occupied while I’m hauling ass out of here,” Corson drawled.

I shot him a ferocious look as my hand fell to my gun. His gaze followed the movement. He widened his stance and seemed to dare me with his eyes to do it. My bullets wouldn’t kill him, but it would feel good to shoot one into his arrogant face.

I never would though. This demon irritated me more than any other, but I’d agreed to work with the demons, and I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize our agreement with them.

Never trust someone who doesn’t keep their word. Randy advised in my mind. I had no idea what he would think about my agreeing to work with the demons. He’d broken his group of followers in half, entrusting me to lead half of them while he took the other half with him. If he were dead, he’d probably rolled over in his grave half a dozen times by now over my course of action. If he was still alive, then he might consider me a traitor now.

The idea of Randy being dead tore at my heart until I found myself struggling to breathe. The possibility of Randy turning on me unnerved me more than the giant snake probably making its way toward us right now. I wouldn’t be able to handle it if he came to despise me, but I’d done what I believed was best to keep the Wilders alive, and if there was one thing Randy understood, it was keeping his people alive and being loyal to those who were loyal to him.

I never would have extended the offer to work with the demons if the other Wilders hadn’t agreed to it beforehand. After witnessing what escaped the gateway, and with what we’d come to learn of the demons, we decided that working with them was our best, and maybe only, chance for continued survival.

No, not survival, our best chance for hope. We’d spent the past fourteen years doing everything we could to live until the next minute. Working with the demons offered us the first promise of a future that we’d had in years—a promise none of us had dared to hope for before.

Even now, trapped in this hole with Corson, and with the possibility that I might end up being snake shit by the end of the day, I still wouldn’t have changed anything. The Wilders above had a chance at a better life because we were working with the demons. My death was worth one of them having an opportunity to age enough to wrinkle and go gray.

But I wasn’t dead yet, and I didn’t plan to go down easy if my end was coming soon.

“How do you intend to get out of here?” I asked Corson.

Lifting his hand, Corson pointed down the tunnel he’d been inspecting. My gaze followed his talons to the nothingness beyond him. I resisted gulping. The tunnel was twenty-plus feet in diameter. I did not want to be anywhere near the thing capable of creating that.

“Are you nuts?” I asked.

“I’ve been told it’s a possibility.”

“We’ll be walking straight into that thing’s home. It opened its door for us”—I waved a hand at the hole above us—“but I don’t think it’s going to offer us coffee and cake.”

Corson grinned at me. Yep, he’s nuts, I decided.

“Probably not coffee, but maybe it has some snake cake,” he replied with a wink, and I glared at him. “There are going to be more side tunnels in there. The ouro wouldn’t have only one way in and out. We have to make it into one of those side tunnels and soon. This is a trap, and the ouro most likely sensed when it sprang.”

“What if it’s in one of those side tunnels?”

“Then we have to face it,” Corson replied.

“Wouldn’t it make more sense to wait here, in this bigger room to kill it?”

“It has more space to maneuver in here, which will make it a lot harder to kill.”

My hands fisted as I realized he was right. Why was I so stupid right now, while he was calmly pointing out all the facts I should have seen on my own? Was it just that I was standing in the pit of a gigantic snake, or because I was stuck here with him? When I thought about it, the idea of being alone with Corson scared me more than the ouro did.

I resolved not to think about it.

Taking a deep breath, I gazed longingly at the faint source of light over my head. Once we moved away from it, there would be nothing to guide us, no proof the world existed beyond this underground cavern.

“We have to go,” Corson urged. “Now.”

I tore my eyes away from the distant hole and back to the most infuriating demon in existence. Long ago, I’d resolved not to let others know how I was really feeling. There were those who would use any fear or hesitance they saw in me against me. I didn’t think Corson would, but years of ingrained habit rushed to the forefront now.

With a confidence I didn’t feel, I thrust my shoulders back and grinned at him. “Well, all right then. Let’s go do some snake hunting. I’ve always wanted a pair of snakeskin boots.”

The look Corson gave me said he wasn’t buying it, but he refrained from commenting before he started into the hole. I stepped away from the wall and followed him into the ouro’s den. I only made it three feet into the ouro’s tunnel before it became so dark I couldn’t see Corson’s back in front of me.

There was nothing like blindly winding deeper into the home of a giant, self-eating snake.