Page 24 of The Stone Initiation
I’m already airborne, flying stealthily and low enough to skim the water with my feet. I land on the ledge opposite.
Where is she? There. The raptor coming up behind her. My heart slams and my ankle flares with heat again.
Dammit.
Orix lands beside me with a thud. “Please tell me this isn’t what I think it is.”
“Shut up.” My words are a growl.
There’s something else in the water coming up fast to her left.
A river snake.
Not poisonous but lethal if it gets a grip on its prey.
My wings flex, desperate to take flight.
“Dammit, Serath,” Orix growls. “Let her die. You have to.”
Yes, that would be the wise move. The sane move.
The raptor bumps the female, and I grip the stone ledge so hard that rock crumbles.
“It’ll be over soon,” Orix says. “Stay strong.”
Because that first brush is a tease, the second will be a bite, then it’ll drag her down and hold her there until she suffocates. Even if she manages to get away, the toxin will kill her before she reaches the shore.
Doing nothing is the wise choice for me.
The raptor fin circles back and cuts toward her. But it looks as if the snake will get to her first.
It’ll be over.
I need to let it be over.
My anklet sears my skin, fighting to keep me in check, but primal instinct is too strong. I make to launch myself into the air.
“No!” Orix slams into me. “I won’t let you do this.”
“Let me go. She’ll die. Dammit, Orix. She’ll die.”
“I know,” Orix says. “I’m sorry.”
CHAPTER11
CAMERON
Of course, the waters would be infested with something. Probably something equally as dangerous and hungry as the terror hawks.
My lungs ached, my muscles threatened to seize, and the urge to swim against the current to get to the other side faster gnawed at my chest, but I quashed it. I could do this. I was so close, but now I knew that there was something in the water my senses were alert to it.
It was coming for me. Shit. I wasn’t going to—
Something slammed into my side, then a vise gripped my thigh, and the river swallowed me.
Down, down, into the depths.
No. Fucking hell, no!
