Page 58 of Demon's Bane

It takes a while for my ears to stop ringing and for me to realize the cave-in is over and that we’re not, in fact, dead.

Not that it does much to stop my shaking or ease my panic.

“Joan,” Rhett rasps, stroking a hand over my hair. “Joan. It’s alright, little mate. You’re safe.”

He loosens his grip on me and tilts my face up toward his. His crimson eyes are shining with concern, face drawn with worry, but some of it eases when he sees I’m unharmed.

Only to snap right back into place when he spots the tears on my cheeks.

He makes a soft, distressed noise in the back of his throat and swipes a thumb through the tear tracks, wiping them away.

“It’s alright,” he murmurs again. “You’re safe.”

A heartbeat later, his lips brush against mine. There’s no heat in the kiss, nothing but an achingly sweet tenderness, a gentle caress like he’s trying to convince himself that I’m still here, that we’re both still alive.

Warm and steady and reassuring, I let it convince me, too. I lean into the kiss and let it chase away some of the panic, let myself believe the worst is over.

When he pulls back, Rhett’s eyes stray from me to the cave behind us, still clouded over with worry.

“How bad?” I whisper, and watch a grimace cross his handsome face.

“We’re going to have to find another route.”

When I glance over my shoulder to see what he’s looking at, my stomach drops to the cavern floor.

There, where we were standing just minutes ago, is a solid wall of rock and crystal, piled up all the way to the roof of the cave. The realization of how close we were to being crushed under all that debris washes over me, and a pained whimper slips out before I can stop it.

Rhett’s arms are back around me a moment later, and his lips brush the top of my head as I nestle myself into his chest.

“There’s another way,” he assures me. “A route deeper through the caverns that will take us to a secondary entrance on the other side of the village.”

Deeper through the cavernsmight just be the most awful back-up plan I’ve ever heard, but as a deadly, waiting sort of silence settles over the cave, I realize it’s probably as good of an option as we could hope for right now. Who knows what caused the first cave-in, or if we’re still in danger. And even if we’re not,it could take days, maybe weeks, to dig through all that rubble and get us out of here.

“Okay,” I say, doing my damnedest to sound braver than I feel right now.

Rhett hugs me tighter. “It’s going to be alright, Joan.”

I don’t ask him how he knows it’s going to be alright. I don’t point out that it’s very muchnotalright at the moment and has the potential to get a lot worse. I don’t do anything but nod my head where it’s pressed against his chest, then take the hand he offers as he leads the way further into the mountain.

It’s slow going, and though there’s ostensibly a path down the middle of the narrowing passageway, it’s winding and littered with rocks that we pick our way carefully around.

I try not to think about the mountain above us or the horrible cracking noise the rock made when the cave-in started. I try not to flinch with each shifting pebble beneath our feet, body tense and expecting disaster to strike at any moment. As much as I can, I just try to keep breathing. In and out, one foot in front of the other, hand securely clasped in Rhett’s.

In his attempt to keep me sheltered beneath his wings and body, Rhett’s lantern went crashing to the ground and shattered back near the cave-in. The further we walk without that light to guide us, the darker the tunnel gets. There are more crystals here, but they’re deeper beneath the surface, and the glow they emit through the stone walls gets dimmer and dimmer until it’s hardly anything at all.

I stumble over loose rock every few steps, my eyesight apparently nowhere as good as Rhett’s for navigating through the near-darkness of the cave.

After the fourth or fifth time, I let out a frustrated curse, then gasp a moment later as I’m swept up into Rhett’s embrace.

“What are you doing?” I ask, squirming in the bridal-carry he has me in.

“Be still,” he says, leaning down to murmur the words into my ear.

It sends a shiver of awareness down my spine. Of him, of his heat and his strength, a pulse of desire in my blood I absolutely should not be feeling given that we almost just died.

“I can walk.”

“Can you?” he asks, still so low and close. “Could have fooled me.”

---