Page 89 of Auctioned for Her Blood
I shift, trying to use my shoulders to nudge away his huge arm, but just that one limb feels like it weighs a ton against my body.
Pressing down into his fur for leverage, I try again.
He snorts, and tightens his hold on me. Crap. I’ve woken the beast.
I lie still, hoping to fool him into thinking I was only moving in my sleep, but he turns over.
He’s going to crush me.
I fight to get free, unwilling to suffocate without putting up a fight.
But the creature gently settles me onto the stone, my body retracting against the cold hardness after the bear’s body warmth. He nudges me up to sit.
His breath is warm and moist, and as my eyes adjust to the darkness, his shape backs away from me, whimpering each time his left paw strikes the ground.
“Are you hurt?” I ask, even though it seems foolish to talk to a beast.
His head dips and rises, like he’s nodding.
“Can I help?”
The beast exhales a sound, almost like an attempt at vocalization, but I have no idea how to interpret the sounds of a bear—even if I’m right and that’s what he’s trying to do.
“I can’t see much.” I fight to keep my voice calm, but it’s equally scratchy and shaky.
He moves again, continuing to favor his left paw, and then gently nudges my body.
“You want me to stand?”
He huffs.
I rise onto my feet, and then feel the pressure of his snout at my hip.
“This way?”
He huffs again and, keeping one arm on the stone wall, I walk slowly, the creature moving alongside me, guiding my way.
He snorts and I stop. Then I feel the pressure of his snout pushing up one of my arms. I reach along the surface of the wall until I reach something different. My hands explore what it seems like he wanted me to find, and I recognize the shape from the ones I saw in the halls. A torch.
But how do I light it?
I fumble around, feeling everything, until I discover a thin, metal stick protruding from the base of the torch.
The bear snorts. I lift the stick. It releases from the base, and I feel its length, detecting a different texture at its tip. Is it a match? Or something like that?
Remembering a different texture on the wall to the side of the torch’s base, I find that place again. Yes. There’s a place on the wall that’s rougher, unlike the smooth cold dampness of the cave walls.
The bear nudges me again and something brushes my other hand. The bear is trying to give me something. I take it, trying to guess what it is from the texture. Twigs? Straw?
Going on instinct and hope, I drag the stick’s tip quickly across the rough spot. A spark! It’s just a flash, but it confirms the position of the rough area to the side of the torch, and what it’s for.
Excited, I raise the straw near as I strike the rough patch again. Then again. On the fifth try, the spark hits the straw and it lights, small flames flaring in the darkness.
I raise it and the torch springs to life, filling the space with light.
“I did it!”
The bear snorts and huffs, and my pride is flooded out by fear as the mammoth creature comes into full view. Bigger than any bear I’ve seen on TV or the movies. He’s several times the size of a human and his brown fur shines in the torchlight. But nothing outshines his eyes, amber that borders on gold with flecks of bright light that seems to come from within.
