Page 14 of Magic Hunted
My toes snagged on a lip in the uneven ground. My hand wrenched from Ashir’s as I went down, skinning my palms and knees as I slammed onto the unrelenting ground. A shriek caught half way up my throat as the bug descended on me, pincers coming down around my waist.
Dias let out a strangled, wordless shout as he pounced on the bug. He wrapped his hands around one pincher, as Savvas lunged to the bug’s opposite side. He yanked the other pincer, keeping the bug from splitting me in half. The bug threw them against the walls as it fought to free itself from their grip.
Ashir wrenched me off the ground, gripping my hand with an unbreakable hold and hauled me after him. Dias shouted for Savvas to run moments after Ashir dragged me away. My throat thickened at the sound of their pounding footfalls and the enraged rattle of the bug. The jagged edges of the ground cut the soles of my feet, each step a lesson in jarring pain, but that was nothing on the terror of the bug pushing through solid rock to get to us.
“In here. Quick.” Ashir squeezed through a narrow hole at a bend, his broad shoulders scraping the rock. My shoulder wrenched as he propelled me around a sharp corner and into an offshoot tunnel that was nothing but a dim, narrow slit in the rock.
My muscles locked, pure terror flashing through me. It might be better to be crushed in the bug’s pincers than be stuck fast in rock to suffocate to death, but Savvas shoved me after Ashir and the darkness swallowed me. The moss here grew in random clumps, the air here thicker, or it could have been my lungs compressing with the almost absolute dark.
It was easier moving with a downward slope but then Ashir let out a yelp and his powerful grip on my wrist jerked me forward. The ground vanished beneath me. I tumbled down a sharp decline in an uncontrollable mess of scraped skin and bruising knocks, and then I was free-falling. I hit sand and rolled until I slammed into warm hardness.
“Little mate?” Ashir’s voice sounded in my ears before he leaned over me, patting my body, his hands checking me everywhere.
I had no time to take in my surroundings before I was covered in a wave of sand as Savvas bumped into me. Dias quickly followed, his knees hammering my thigh. My brain swam and I panted as hard heavy limbs covered me.
“You’re crushing her!” Ashir said, pushing his bond brothers off me.
Dias cursed and scrambled to his knees. “Is she all right?” His panicked tone startled me. His hands slid over my body, stroking over my bare skin in a gentle swipe, as soft as feathers.
My brain screamed danger, and I gathered enough of my wits to jerk my arm free and roll to my hands and knees. “I’m fine.”
“Haera, I can see you’re far from fine,” Savvas said, crawling toward me.
I had to agree. My arms were littered with bloody scrapes, dirt and bruising. The rest of me was as bad. Now that I’d called attention to my body, the aches and pains made themselves known. I pulled in a sharp breath that didn’t go unmissed. Savvas reached for me and I flinched away from them, the movement too instinctive to be conscious. I scooted away from the alphas, pulling in a quick breath through my clenched teeth. “We should be more concerned about where we are and if that bug is still coming after us.”
All three tensed, shoulders tight, muscles rippling with preternatural awareness. Nothing but silence pressed around us. Well, nothing but silence, my pounding heart and the sound of water trickling somewhere close by. The immediate danger was over and my focus turned to where we’d fallen.
Rock walls rose over our heads in a dome. Great clumps of luminescent moss grew on the ceiling far above our heads, like glowing blue clouds shrouding us in subdued blue-tinged light. Rock enclosed us on all sides. A cavern.
Sand led to a narrow stream running from one end to the other. The water moved quickly, coming from a crack in the rock and swelling at the other end of the cave. I assumed there was an underground drain because the water moved too fast for the cave not to be flooded.
Vines grew high on the cave walls, drooping and twisting over the rock and sand to the ground. Large leaves, as wide as the leaves of the trees in the jungle, rose in tufts. Fruit the size of my fist grew from the center of the clumps. They were a dark blue with luminescent dots running in lines from top to bottom.
It amazed me that plant life grew underground, but this was the wastelands. No one knew anything about them, and after my fall down the slide from hell I understood why. We were trapped.
Above my head, about halfway up the side of the cave wall, was the small hole we’d plummeted from. With the help of some of the vines, I might be able to climb to the hole, but it would be impossible to climb the rocky incline we’d slipped down.
Not that I’d be able to find my way back to where we’d entered the cave system anyway. We were lost deep underground with no way back out. I shivered, winding my arms about my knees, imagining the weight of rocks above my head, and the bugs that might be chomping their way through to get to us.
“I think we may have lost it,” Savvas said. Sweat slicked his mop of unruly hair. Damp curls stuck to his tanned forehead.
“What the hells was that thing?” Dias said.
“Whatever it was, it didn’t like us here any more than I like to be here,” I said.
Ashir turned to the vines, his powerful naked body on display. I tried to avert my gaze, but didn’t have the will-power to take my eyes off that delicious, alpha male flesh. My mouth watered as he walked to look up at the hole in the cave wall and I came face-to-face with an ass I could flick a coin off. Round, taut, I could completely dig my nails into those glutes while he thrust into me…I squeezed my eyes and gritted my teeth, trying to force my mind off the mental image, but it was too late.
Liquid heat built deep in my abdomen, my pussy throbbed with interest and my nipples beaded into diamond points. I wrapped my arms over my chest and curled my legs into my chest, jerking when my forearm brushed the sensitive peaks.
“Like what you see, magic?” My eyes flew open to see Dias smirk. I swallowed. Hard.
“I’d like it more if you put on some pants,” I said.
“I think that’s going to be a little difficult.” Dias rose to his feet. He paused, making sure I took my fill of his perfect form. I locked my gaze on his face, on his full lips and dark gleaming eyes, fighting against the impulse to drop to where I wanted to go. His brow jerked up as he turned, but not before I glimpsed his thick, perfect cock.
Gods almighty. It was going to take everything I had to resist these alphas.
“Are you sure you’re all right, Haera?” Savvas’ low voice broke the spell. His light caramel eyes were almost as luminescent as the moss, giving him the look of some ethereal being. Wreathed in shadows his features were obscured but his burnished skin glowed in the light. Beautiful, and far too good for me to touch. Not with my soiled hands. I turned my gaze to the bruise that had blossomed on his hip and the heat rising inside me evaporated.
