Page 23 of Heart of Dawn
My heart raced like never before. Miko needed me. Okay, so he was more than capable, but that didn’t dilute my instincts to help my mate. To protect him as he always protected me.
“Miko?”
Still nothing.
I sent him a billion beams of positivity. Hearing his voice gave me a much-needed boost. We’d reunite soon, get him replicated. Wendy wasn’t a queen bee in my pocket for no reason.
Erna’s face appeared above me.
Stars!
“Time to break this ice.” She raised a fist, driving it into the stuff around me three times. On the third punch, the ice cracked open, the numbness fading away.
“There you go,” Erna said cheerfully.
I sat up on a raised dais, still dressed in my dirty clothes but free of pain, my arm no longer broken. I lifted my jumper, checking my side to find it healed, my skin flushed a rosy pink.
“Feeling well?” she inquired, her yellow eyes hungry.
I nodded as a cold shiver licked up my spine.
“Excellent news.” She walked away, humming again.
I watched her stride across a large cavern toward a table made of bones.
And the bone theme didn’t end with the table. Complete skeletons were mounted on the mud walls, random pieces embedded in the ceiling as morbid decorations.
I wanted to vomit.
Erna rearranged a pile of stones on the table, then looked up at me. “You can bathe and eat and relax. There is no need to fear.”
Easier said than done when she stood at seven feet tall, covered in freshly cleaned white fur, built from serious muscle. She was a much bigger creature than I first realized.
Flaming torches burned in sconces at various points in the cavern, their light dancing in the hollow eye sockets of skulls. There were also two arched doorways, one of them an exit.
Hopefully.
“What is your name?” she asked, picking up a strange blue stone.
“Orion.”
“Orion what?”
“Bloom.”
She put the stone down, offering me a smile. “A pretty name for a pretty man.”
My chest constricted. “I… I… Thanks.”
“No need to be nervous.” This time, she picked up a white stone. “Aren’t they pretty?”
Stars. Did I really have to engage? Which of those arched doorways led outside?
“They’re lovely,” I answered.
Both potential exits were dark maws giving nothing away.
“I’m glad you think so. I want to give you one as a present. But it must match the golden glitter in your eyes.”
