Page 36 of Bite of Passage
“I mean it.I’ll come down there, beat your ass, and then I’ll prance my butt right back through the doorway.I’ll leave you there to rot or burn to ash or whatever happens to you blood drinkers in the sun.I have no clue whether I can ever come back if I go home now.Me being here at all is a miracle.That means if you want a last chance to touch these boobs you better get in motion.Now.”She glared down at him, half her gaze on the horizon where daylight lurked.
His fingers hooked the cord and wound it around his hands, which he used as leverage to pull up.
“I’ll pull.”She gripped the rope and strained to walk backward so hard her feet slipped.Her arms trembled.Who was she kidding?She weighed less than half what he did.This was about him, not her.He’d need a lot of give-a-shit to get up this rope.
She tugged until she panted, but sensed no movement on his end.A peek over the edge showed him in the same freaking place, arm in the air and eyes closed.
Damn it.
“Skarde!”
He glanced up, eyelids droopy.
“You’re going to leave me up here to face off with VanFliet alone?I have a bad feeling he won’t have any restraint when it comes to biting me.”
“Is he up there?”He pulled himself upright.Yeah, she thought that’d get him moving.She resumed pulling.
Fingertips crested the edge of the cliff.
He slipped.
“Almost there,” she called out.
Another few endless minutes of heaving later, her shoulders and arms ached, pointing out her pitiful lack of upper body strength.But she kept pulling.
Hooking one of his arms with hers once Skarde’s front half was over the edge, she tugged.Her feet slipped and she started sliding for the edge.Her fingers clawed the ground to stop her slide.He grabbed her arm and flung her back toward the tree.She landed hard.With a boneless collapse, the vampire landed face first in the mud next to her.With a huge effort, she managed to roll him over.
She’d done it.Well, they’d both done it.
She held up both middle fingers to the sky and pumped them back and forth.“Take that, destiny gods or whoever you are.You can’t have him.Not this time.”
“What was that?”His wide-eyed stare suggested he questioned her sanity.
“I’m telling the writers of this stupid show, or maybe it’s destiny or whatever fate beings are out there, to go screw themselves.They don’t get to write you off.They’ve been trying to get rid of you for three episodes.Thanks to me, you’re still here.”She grinned.
“True.Since you showed up things have been more life-threatening.”He smiled, but it came off pained and half sedated.His gaze wandered towards the peach glow rising above the horizon in the east.His face flushed as he held up an arm to shield his eyes.“Been a long time since I watched the sun rise.”
Humor faded as she stared at the glimmer.“No sunrise viewing today.Don’t pass out yet.Let’s get you into the forest over there.”She pointed to the line of trees about a hundred yards away.
“Cut the rope and save it.”He handed her a knife.
“Screw the rope.We don’t have time.I’ll get it later.Sun’s coming up.”She draped his limp arm across her shoulders.“Help me.I can’t pick you up.”
He didn’t move.
She lifted his face to meet hers.“If you don’t help me help you, you’re going to die.I can’t protect you from the sun and everything that might want to kill you out here in the open.”
“Tired.”
“I’m scared shitless VanFliet will find us out here.I don’t want him to bite me.Please get up.”It wasn’t like Skarde would be a lick of help if the other vampire showed up, but maybe his need to protect her would activate him.
He reached to hook a low branch of the sole tree above the cliff’s edge and pull himself up.Leaning on her, they shuffled into the woods.Their progress was slow with a lot of stumbling.
“Can’t go on.”He pointed to a bunch of bushes.“That’ll work.”
The branches hid a small hollowing in the rock.
He folded himself into the hole, parts hanging out.He looked like a queen-sized pillow stuffed into a standard case.She draped the fleece blanket over his body.“It’ll shield you and keep you as warm as possible.”
