Page 49 of Xantera
Look at you, asking all these good questions.The words might have sounded patronizing if I couldn’t feel his emotions swelling through our connection—actual pride. And a bit of admiration that makes my cheeks heat even in this frigid nothingness.I can sense if someone is trying to connect, like a knock on the door,Lucan explains.But I can’t actually hear anyone’s thoughts until I shift into my monstrous form.
So whenever you’re talking to me, you really are the Monster. And we’re connected because…
That vial between your breasts,Lucan says, and I try to tell my nipples to stop pebbling as his voice drops low.It contains the blood of my grandfather, from when the Guardians slayed him in his shifted form.
Okay, well that was enough to get my nipples to calm down. My shoulders deflate, and the vial suddenly feels much too cold against my skin. The idea that there’s actual ancientbloodtrapped within it…
Whenever that vial of blood is pressed against your pulse, it connects us,Lucan continues.A clever contraption the vampires made to spy on those of us who escaped.His tone is so bitter, so biting, that I want to ask him more questions. But something about the space around me pulls my attention away.
I rub my eyes, trying to blink away the shapes in front of me again. I can’t imagine how Diggory knew where to go when he escaped down here. Maybe he brought a light with him.
A light…
My body straightens. Is it really just my imagination procuring shapes in the darkness, or is the darkness itself thinning out? I swear I can see the silhouette of the ceiling above my head, and now the texture of the walls ebbs into focus—rough and rocky, like someone carved out this tunnel with a crude knife.
Lucan, I think there’s light up ahead.
I move faster now. The further I follow the tunnel along its curving path, the more I can see: the stalactites hanging from the ceiling, the pools of water at my feet, my own hands raised in front of me. The light is flickering now, a jittery orange glow that makes shadows sway along the walls. And when I round a particularly sharp corner—
I stop dead, staring at the open cavern before me.
It’s a round space held up by stone pillars, with five or six other tunnel openings forming gaping mouths all around me. A thin film of water forms a glassy sheen across the floor, but I swear it almost looks red, as if someone else’s blood dripped into the water. The whole thing is lit by what I can only describe as really, really large candlesticks fit snugly in metal brackets on the wall.
Torches, Lucan says urgently.Someone’s been down there recently to light them. You need to get out of the open, Saskia. Now.
It doesn’t take his bristly tone of command to spur me into action. I surge forward and splash my way to one of the other tunnel openings, letting myself melt into the shadows again so that I can observe the open space from a new angle.
What would this place be used for? As far as I can see, there are no ancient skeletons leaning against any of the walls, so I’m pretty sure this can’t be the old royal catacombs. No, this reminds me more of a hollow heart, with veins and arteries running off itfrom every direction. Leading to where, though? Who could have lit those torches now that Diggory is gone?
An idea is prickling at the back of my head, but I don’t have time to analyze it before something clangs from one of the other tunnels across from me.
Get back as far as you can without making a sound, Lucan says immediately, and hearing his fear sends my mind in a whirl.Press against the wall, cover your bleeding finger, and hold still.
I do as he says, a dim part of me recognizing that I like it when he takes control, just so I don’t have to worry about what to do when my body is already so spiked with adrenaline. Shrinking back and crouching down against the wall, I wrap my stinging finger in the folds of my cloak and wait. Watch. Listen.
It’s a smooth sound that greets my ears. Almost like a snake sliding through water, the footsteps glide toward me, closer and closer, until my heartbeat is thudding through my eardrums, louder and louder…
A pale face emerges from the shadows of the tunnel, like a moon rising from a bed of dark clouds.
Arecognizableface. One I’ve seen hung up on walls, threaded into flags, carved into statues alongside his brothers and sisters. Marble-white skin. Oily black hair. A long, prominent neck.
The Eleventh Guardian.
The one who was in Odette’s dream.
For the next few seconds, nothing exists except for that precious space between the vampire and me.
My heart pounds in my ears, and I wonder briefly if he can hear it, feel it.
If he finds me hiding in the shadows of one of his tunnels right now, I’m dead. I don’t know how I know that, but I do. There’s a certain glaze in his crimson eyes that I can see from all the way across the flickering cavern, one that reminds me of someone who is never quite satisfied with their meal.
His Adam’s apple bulges as his neck tightens before he stops dead in between pillars and cocks his head, like he just caught a whiff of something.
Lucan’s snarl floods my brain, but of course, the Eleventh Guardian can’t hear it. Just like I’m hoping he can’t hear the inhales and exhales I ever so slowly pull in and out of my lungs, either. Heissmelling something, though, his gaze roving around the cavern, his chin tilting up as he takes a deep breath in.
He’s going to find me. He’s going to race toward me and grab me by the arms, and then he’ll tear out my throat or smash my skull in or rip my body in half or…
The Eleventh Guardian focuses on the tunnel I just came from—the one that leads to the complex a block away from mine—and streaks off into its gaping darkness.
