Page 27 of Eldritch
The whip struck one of his legs, and it burst into a plume of broken chitin.
A thrill of victory washed over me, and I hopped on a squeal. “I did it!”
“Do it again,” Zevander ordered, clearly unimpressed.
Muttering a quiet complaint, I thrust my palm forward again, and that time, it struck the broad side of the creature’s torso.
A crackling sound had me searching for the site of impact. Seconds later, it exploded into a mess of flesh and blood that spattered onto my face and clothes.
Hands held out to the side, I stared down at myself and sighed. “Revolting.”
“Head toward the cabin,” Zevander demanded, ignoring my disgust. “I want you to have a better head start. I’m not going to use my power. No matter what happens. You will need to rely on yours.”
“I don’t like this.”
“Well, we don’t have a choice now. Go!”
I awkwardly darted through the snow back toward the cabin.
“Maevyth!”
I swung around in time to see the spider barreling toward me faster than before, and Zevander hobbling after it. Wounded?
My heart shivered behind my ribs. With the vision of Aleysia still fresh in my mind, I threw out my hand, the bone whip spilling out of my palm onto the ground.
A whimper of panic gurgled in my throat, and I retracted my hand, the beast only a few feet away. One hard thrust of Aeryz widened the space and knocked the creature onto its hind legs. It recovered quickly, but instead of heading toward me, to my horror, it turned toward Zevander.
No.
“Fuck,” I heard him mutter, and he backed up a step. “I’m not going use my power, Maevyth. If anyone is going to stop this, it’s you.”
Rings of hot panic coiled in my chest. “That’s too much pressure! Call on your flame! Please!”
“Absolutely not,” he said, backing himself in the other direction, as the creature slowly stalked toward him, as if biding its time.
It pounced on top of him, and a wild scream shot out of me. “Zevander!” I ran toward them, swallowing back the acids rising in my throat as the creature snapped its jaws at his face.
I thrust out my hand, and the whip floundered through the air, landing ungraciously in the snow. “Damn it!”
“Focus!” Zevander barked in a strained voice. “Her teeth are awfully sharp, in case you hadn’t noticed!”
Closing my eyes, I imagined the glyph clear in my head. When I opened them, I threw my hand out on a violent burst of energy. Power surged in my veins as I hurled the tapered end of the whip toward the unwitting beast, satisfied when it snapped against the creature’s body. In the next breath, it exploded over Zevander, the chunks of flesh falling on top of him. He snapped his head to the side, lips tight, as a large clot of blood splashed across his throat.
All was calm again.
“Had I known that today’s lesson was going to involve risking my life, I would have told you to go to hell.”
He sat up, tossing off steaming bits of Mrs. Primsley’s entrails from his chest and legs, then spat blood into the snow. “How else do you learninstincts?”
“Know that if you ever try to kiss me again, I will only ever see Mrs. Primsley’s bloody bits on your lips.”
He let out a chuckle, scooping up a handful of mostly clean snow and ran it over his mouth. “Then, you do intend to let me kiss you.”
“At this point, you would have to scour your lips in lyme. And, even then, I don’t know if I could imagine anything else.”
He pushed to his feet. “Perhaps that’s your next lesson. How to avoid my kiss without killing me with your whip.”
“You wouldn’t.”
