Page 21 of Forging Bonds: Part Two

There are no other caves that I can see, and I know from past experience that the Scoriouses won’t follow us up there. They are known to climb, but not that high.

“Go now! It’s the only way out,” I yell.

I stop running. There is no way at all that they are going to get up the cliffside and to the safety of the cave if I don’t stay down here and fight the fuckers off, fortunately for me, Scoriouses run in relatively small packs. There are only five currently barreling in toward me, unfortunately for me, they run in small packs because they are deadly as fuck and don’t need there to be any more of them to hunt effectively.

Luckily, I am always up for a challenge, and the anger at the situation I find myself in, and have found myself in for years, added to the fact that all I want to do is be with Neith and the guys even more so now that they are together as a team, and are so fucking close, all of the anger that has built over that makes me a deadly opponent, and I will be the first one to admit, that it makes me a broken one too.

That’s probably made obvious to anyone watching when instead of looking scared, I spin my two curved swords in my hands and grin, bouncing on my toes as my whole being fills with excitement. Instead of waiting for the creatures to come to me, I race toward them, meeting them head on, my blades spinning and twirling as I do, and slicing through the creatures with an ease that shows my experience and most likely gives away just how long I have been fighting for my life. As I take down one with the sword in my left hand, I press a button on the sword in my right hand that activates the mechanism within it and as another pinchy fucker jumps at me, I flick my hand, and the blade leaves the hilt on a chain. It wraps around the body of the Scoriouses tightly, and I yank down on it hard, causing the creature to fall to the floor with a hard thump.

Keeping a tight hold on the chain, I quickly dispatch another one before I launch myself at the one that I’ve caught and carefully avoiding the pincers at the front and the deadly tails at the back, I jump onto its back a plunge my sword straight through the top of its head, killing it instantly. There is no time to celebrate my victory though because I still have two more to kill and now that I have killed three of their herd members, they are even more determined to kill me and rightly so.

I would feel the same way.

It doesn’t take me too long to get rid of them, but I don’t want to risk their deaths attracting anymore of them so I turn on my heel, and race for the edge of the cliff where I can see that the others still haven’t managed to reach the cave entrance. I roll my eyes, if I hadn’t been down here to fight off these fuckers then they most likely would have been caught. Now that I have decided that I can’t pass the trials unless we all pass the trials, I have an even bigger desire to keep them alive, for more than just a command made by Kylen.

I refuse to fail because of their fucking incompetence.

Placing my swords back in their rightful places on my back, I begin to scale the side of the deep trench. This would be so much easier if I had my wings, but I haven’t felt the wind beneath them for years now, not since Kylen got his talons into me. I know why I’m not using my magic, I can’t, but what I don’t understand is why the others aren’t. All of them are capable of either climbing or flying up here and yet they’re climbing up at a snail’s pace instead.

In fact, they are moving so slowly that I am already catching up with them. I know better than to pass any of them though, Kylen will take it as a sign of disrespect and then punish me for it later. It’s when I catch up to them that I realize that it’s Kylen himself that’s slowing them all down, as none of them are stupid enough to pass him. I still don’t know why he isn’t flying, but I don’t really care enough to ask him, or any of them.

The problem is, that the slower we climb the more taxing it is on our bodies as we have to hang around and wait for Kylen to progress further before the rest of us can. This is not an easy cliff face to climb, not that they tend to be, and if he doesn’t hurry his ass up one of us is going to fall.

Maybe that’s what he wants. With Kylen I never know his true motives.

The cave is still a few meters above us and I can tell that the others are tiring, just as the thought crosses my mind, Fetrick slips. His hands scramble on the wall trying to find his grip again, but everywhere that he grabs seems to crumble to pieces as soon as he touches it. I frown, that doesn’t seem right, inhaling sharply I scent the familiar scent of Kylen’s magic and my gaze snaps to him. He has no idea that I can smell and identify when someone uses magic, it’s not a trait that is common for dragons, or many supernaturals actually.

As soon as my gaze lands on him, I know that my suspicions are correct and that he’s the one that is causing Fetrick to slip and the wall to crumble. I would love to say that I’m surprised, but I’m really not. He’s mumbling underhis breath, his eyes glued to Fetrick and a smirk playing around his lips as he really enjoys watching Fetrick panic.

Fetrick isn’t a small supernatural, and as a panther shifter he should have absolutely no problem scaling this wall. Cats may always land on their feet and the same can be said for cat shifters, but not from this high up. I glance below me, and my eyebrows rise, even if he did survive the fall, he wouldn’t survive the new herd of Scoriouses that have gathered where the ones I killed were.

That’s the trouble with Scoriouses as a species, if one of their own dies, any others that are in the area seem to know and they all swarm to the area. There will be more coming and there will be too many to fight off. We definitely can’t go back down.

A cry of panic from Fetrick has my attention looking back up the wall just in time to see him lose his fight of trying to hang on, he falls past the other team members and none of them even attempt to stop his fall. Heartless bastards. I can’t let him die, or rather I can’t let Kylen kill him. He’s the only one that hasn’t joined in with the others unless he has been ordered to and although I have no feelings of loyalty or friendship or anything really toward him, I can’t let him die the horrible death that awaits him if he falls from this height.

I position my feet on the wall and then use the cliff face like a springboard as I launch myself backward in an arc. I time it just right so that I catch Fetrick by his wrist. As we hit the wall, I partially shift the hand that’s not holding onto him and grunt as my talons dig deep into the cliff face leaving a streak of deep claw marks as we slide a couple of feet before we finally stop. Waiting until he has a good grip on the wall before I let go, I’m surprised when he gives me a small nod of thanks.

It's the most acknowledgement I have ever received for saving one of their lives.

“What the fuck are you playing at Kylen?” Rupert surprises me by asking, he’s not usually one to question his leader. “You do realize that if one of us dies then we all fail, and we have no idea what that means, other than the teams are never seen again, which most likely means that they’re dead. Are you trying to doom us all?”

“Do not question me!” Kylen yells. Before he starts climbing again, though, his piercing gaze finds me and promises retribution.

Yeah, yeah. I knew when I saved Fetrick that Kylen would most likely make me pay for it, I can’t find it in myself to care.

“I don’t, you know I don’t, but it’s like you want us to die,” Rupert replies, his voice tight.

“We need to get up to the cavern and hopefully pass this level,” Jamie interrupts their bickering and he’s right.

We can’t hang around on the edge of a fucking cliff face for much longer, we have no idea if this trial is timed, but either way we are still wasting it by doing this. Kylen doesn’t answer, but he does carry on climbing at a faster speed this time. He is definitely up to something that affects the whole team. The thing is I can’t see how it would benefit him to kill off members of his team. I have already come to the conclusion that he never wanted Neith on his team, and it really was just about one upping the guys. He is obsessed in the worst way.

Chapter Eight

Coen

It's not something that needs to be thought about now, we have more pressing concerns to focus on.

Because I’m the last one over the ledge that leads into the cave, I get a kind of pre-warning that there’s something up there that is trying to kill us. Purely from the sounds of surprise that the guys make and then the following sounds of fighting that reach me moments after Kylen has gone over the edge. I speed up and propel myself over the ledge and into the cave, reaching for my swords before I’ve even landed.

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