Page 62 of Cursed Shadows 4

I twist onto my side.

My hands grab at everything until I loop my arm around Ridge’s calf, then tense. One arm hooked, I reach down for my belt and feel around my waist for a weapon.

The firm brush of leather caresses my palm.

I suck in a sharp breath.

My hand fists around the knife’s hilt.

Then Ridge is stolen from me.

A roar rips through the crimson litalf before he yanks me by the ankles, hard enough to tear me away from Ridge.

My anchor is gone.

All I have now this this knife.

I use it.

Spine twisting with a bite of sharp pain, I strike it down my body. The blade slices the cheek of the litalf. Rubies spill, fast.

The strike is enough to falter him. His hands loosen on my ankles, tempted by the instinct to clutch his bleeding face.

I hit out again.

The tip of the blade tears at the tip of his nose—and now his face is streaming with liquid rubies.

If I had a moment to afford on a weak stomach, I think I might retch at the sight of his sliced face, and that sickly puss-like liquid that oozes out of his split eyeball.

I don’t have the time to waste on disgust.

I wrangle a leg free.

With a grunt, I hike my knee—then boot out at his face once, twice, then Ifeelthe bone crunch. Nose, chin, brow, I don’t knowwhat broke, I just know it’s enough to have him staggering back with a shout.

Doubt he expected the fight.

He underestimated me.

And I don’t doubt for a moment that’s how I managed to get free. Even if I’m still stuck in the cavern.

I snatch my bag and wrestle the straps over my shoulders. “Ridge,” I heave his name in a flurry, then reach for him. “Ridge, can you move?”

He’s sitting upright now, weight leveraged onto his elbows that cut into the ground, and the heavy haze of his stare aimed at me. “Luna—”

“We need to go. Get up.” I tighten my grip on the knife’s hilt, then look over my shoulder at the litalf. He’s just beyond the foliage, kneeling in his own blood, and holding his peeling face together. “You have to get up—arghh!”

I’m thrown back by the force of it.

Shock slackens my face, and I do nothing more than gape up at Ridge.

I didn’t even feel the slam of my back on the stone ground, not with the backpack to soften the blow, and especially not over the hot rush of blood that spills from my shoulder.

Straddling me, Ridge frowns through his haze, first at me, the shock on my face, then at the knife he’s plunged right into my shoulder.

Something flickers through his dazed, lilac eyes. It’s not regret, not sorrow. It is determination—I see that in the way his mouth twists before he yanks the blade out.

A guttural cry rattles me.

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