Page 11 of Stolen By the Gargoyle
I swerved, following the sounds to find a gaggle of horntail demons scrambling over the sand and kicking up dust as they chased after a lone, running figure in the distance.
Wife.
The word roared through my head as I dove. The demons were gaining on my mate. They were vicious, fast things. Though they were small, their strength was great. If they reached her before I could…
No.
I did not want to think about that.
Nothing would happen to my mate. Nothing.
Because I was there, and I was going to save her.
So it was with a roar that echoed across the sky and rumbled the earth, that I dove down to meet snarls and claws and blood.
And death.
The last thing Iexpected when I burst from the mouth of the cave was the scorching heat of the sun and nothing but deserted land for miles. He’d told me that we were in the Underworld, but I hadn’t really believed it until I saw the hellscape with my own eyes. Maybe I should have turned back around and gone inside, but fear pushed me forward. Maybe that hadn’t been the smartest decision, but I couldn’t bring myself to really care at the time. Not when the threat of what the gargoyle wanted loomed over my head. In that instant, death by sun seemed preferable.
What a fucking joke that was.
I regretted the decision almost immediately, as my bare feet scraped across the terrain, my nails cracking as I tripped. The soles of my feet began to bleed, and I whimpered and cried, regretting that even more when it made my mouth dry.
I craved water, but all I tasted was the salt of my own sweat as it dripped down my upper lip.
I panted, my chest burning with every step I ran and bile choked my throat as I fought not to hurl.
Fuck, why had I done this? I was in literal hell; running was some kind of fucking torture. And there were people who did this shit for fun?
I paused, my feet skidding against sand. A cloud of dust swept up, almost choking me as I tried to inhale. A part of me contemplated turning back. I was in the middle of fucking nowhere with nothing but scorching sun and–fuck–were thosevulturesin the sky?!
Unease wrapped me in a tight embrace as I recalled the gargoyle’s words.
“We are in the Underworld.”
I hadn’t registered them at first. Not with everything else going on, not with everything else he was saying. It had all become a blur of incredulity and fear. The Underworld.
I really was in the fucking Underworld.
I wasnotequipped to live here. I already felt my skin itching. I didn’t fuck with this type of climate.
Fuck, this was bad.
I turned, staring off in the direction from which I came, but all I could make out was a murky horizon. The cave had vanished, as if it had never really been there at all.
Okay, I hadn’t run that far, had I? Where was the mouth of the cave? It should have been there, right? Unless I’d imagined the whole thing.
Maybe I was in some kind of dream-induced hallucination.
Maybe I’d gotten hit by a car and I was in a coma.
Maybe none of this was real.
I took a step forward when suddenly, black dots appeared in my vision a great distance away. One and then another… andanother. Until there were dozens of round formations rushing in my direction. At first, my brain didn’t register what was happening. But then came the snarls that curdled fear low in my gut.
I turned away and ran.
I had no idea what was hurtling in my direction and didn’t want to find out. Fuck, did I look like waiting for those things to catch up to me? I wasn’t some dummy in a scary movie trying to investigate what mysterious and ghostly noises were coming from the basement. Obviously whatever those things were, they weren’t friendly. They sounded like rabid dogs snarling and yapping… and they were coming for me.
