Page 147 of Wings of Lies
Chapter
Thirty-Four
The further we walked into The Divide, the thicker the trees became.
“Think if I threw a stick at the princeling, he’d explode?” Oliver leaned over to whisper to me.
I held back my laughter. “Please don’t. We’ve come this far with no incidents.”
Before we were deep in the Damatha Forest, Oliver found some interesting green fruit that he swore was edible. He didn’t want to hunt and leave me with Aspen, so it would have to do. I finished the large, sour morsel before the thick canopy swallowed the sunlight and the trees became car sized.
“Think I could eat those blue mushrooms?” I asked, still hungry.
Oliver laughed. “Yeah, that’s a great idea if you want to turn into a glow-bug or die.”
Aspen scoffed like we needed our brains reevaluated when actually we needed more food and for our lives to be simpler and not the object of everyone’s malicious desires.
A slight twitch hit the corner of my lips as we passed a batch of Celestrus. They lit up one after another like a runway guiding us to the darkness ahead. Distracted by the strange beauties, I ran right into Aspen. I jerked back, not wanting to touch him, and backed into Oliver.
“Why’d we—” I started to say until Oliver covered my mouth. Shooting him a glare, I noticed his face had paled. Confused, I side-stepped Aspen and stopped.
It was so much worse than I could’ve imagined.
The dilapidated cottage crawled with browned vines and fog. Pikes were placed in a ring around the cottage with skulls of animals and humans in different states of decomposition.
“What’d I tell ya? Ms. Decapitator,” Oliver mumbled, eyeing the skeletons with wariness.
Aspen’s jaw bounced in time with the flicker under his chin. “Uncuff me.”
“No,” Oliver and I said in unison.
“If we go in there, and it goes to hell, who will help us escape?” By his tone, it sounded like he already had an answer.So arrogant.
“Oliver’s got enough juice to take down a witch. Right, Oliver?”
I peered back at him. He nodded, but his scrunched, pained look did nothing for my nerves. Turning back to Aspen, I hoped he didn’t see. The last thing I needed was some posturing fight over powers and strength. But as I watched a piece of left-over flesh plop to the ground from a freshly spiked skull and smelled the rancid scent that a swarm of flies flew to, I prayed I wasn’t making some mistake.
Staring at his chains, I contemplated. Would it be so bad? Maybe… I shook my head, snorting at my asinine thoughts.
“We can’t un-cuff you. The moment we do, I’ll just be fodder for your queen. Oliver and good old-fashioned wit will have to be enough.”
“You’ll be fodder if you go in there, as weak and useless as you are.”
I whipped around, eyes wild. So many hurtful words sat on the tip of my tongue, ready to explode in his black-runed face. I had to remember this wasn’t him. But it was hard when our relationship, or whatever you’d call it, was fragile to begin with.
I stormed toward the skin-crawling cottage like I had a death wish, hearing Oliver at my back.
“I’d be careful what you say to her, princeling. Because if that rune ever comes off, you’ll be one sorry bastard when you wake up.” His tone held an unmistakable threat.
Before I got to the first wooden step, Aspen jerked me back with jangling chains, stepping in front. If we weren’t about to be on the porch of a flesh-eating witch, I would’ve shoved him off. I didn’t need his protection. It was only a guise for the need to keep me whole for his queen. Even if part of him wanted to keep me safe, he remained loyal to her.
We stepped onto the decaying threshold, the boards creaking with the shift of our weight. Aspen lifted his hand to knock, and the door swung open before his knuckles could touch, but the doorway appeared empty.
“This is starting off like every horror movie ever, and we’re the stupid people walking into the haunted witch house when we all know we’re going to die.”
I shot Oliver a pointed look that said,shut the hell up.
He shrugged, mouthing, “It’s the truth.”
