Page 35 of Heart of Dawn
I got to him first, throwing his scrawny body over my back. He groaned again, muttering something as he locked his arms around me.
“Okay there?” I asked.
“Been…better.”
“Can you manage him?” Daria asked.
“Yeah. Can you run?”
“I will make myself.” She seemed stronger already. “Dawn. It?—”
“We’ll talk about it later. Let’s go.”
We checked the other ladder first. The lower roof was clear and flat, stretching all the way to the curve in the road, ending close enough to the woodland fence for us to leap over it.
“Come on,” I said, climbing onto the ladder.
A head crested the wobbly ladder, pink eyes blazing, tendrils of smoke swirling around its head.
“You will not escape!”
Dawn controlled a man’s body with no extras. No wings, claws, or tentacles. God, never let it be tentacles. They reminded me of a scary story my sisters told me when we were kids about some giant squid in the ocean snatching cruise ships from the surface. It still haunted me to this day, putting me off boat trips and cruises for life.
Now was not the time for jaunts down memory lane. I moved down a couple of rungs, then dropped safely onto the lower roof. Daria followed, the two of us breaking into a run.
Dawn cackled like some wicked witch. “Run, run, run!”
I glanced over my shoulder, seeing it watching us from the higher roof. On the road below, to my right, the horde charged.
We picked up speed.
This better work.
Approaching the edge, I performed a quick inspection, preparing for my leap.
“Jump. Run into the trees,” I ordered. “We’ll find shelter.”
Daria responded to my orders with a nod, getting herself ready. After a stint at being Dawn-possessed or whatever, she was doing great.
We ran the final stretch at full speed, springboarding off the edge in perfect synchronicity. We sailed over the arriving horde, clearing the fence, and landed on a patch of damp grass right on the cusp of the tree line.
“Eat!” the horde boomed.
We took off into the trees, the fence clanging behind us. Those pricks would make short work of it, so speed was of the essence.
A canopy of branches fractured the moonlight, the woodland becoming denser the deeper we went. Wildlife stirred, a rabbit hopping across my path, a deer bolting up ahead. We kept going in as straight a line as possible, Joe whispering his thanks a couple of times.
“No worries,” I answered, ducking a low branch.
The sounds of the horde were a good distance behind us now, but that didn’t mean I’d be kicking up my feet yet. I still needed to go back there to rescue my pack, and then find Ori.
Basil’s scent tickled my sense of smell, trailing off to the west.
Cookies.
“Do you sense the fae blood?” Daria asked as we both came to a stop.
“I do.” The stink of blood magic came with it. “To the west.”
