Page 27 of Kiss of Death
I stared at the fire, helpless to fight his assumption. Callum took my heart when he left, and I feared I would never get it back. I wondered where he was, why he hadn’t come back to me, if I needed to hold on to my faith…or accept the truth.
That he’d left me.
A new wave of tears started to form in my eyes again, and after a sniff that I couldn’t control, I wiped away the moisture with my wrist. I built the dam behind my eyes to stanch the flow of the river. I tightened my jaw so my lips wouldn’t tremble. I took a deep and slow breath, steadied the shaky ground beneath me.
He wouldn’t leave me.
He would come back, or I would find him.
Zehemoth rose to his feet then approached the campfire, every step of his massive feet making a distinct thud against the ground. He couldn’t enter the clearing and approach the tents because of his size, but he let his head reach me, lower on the ground so his cheek was next to my leg.
Like he was a cat in my lap, I moved my hand to his snout and caressed his scales, looking into orange eyes that mirrored the flames from the campfire.
The devastation in his eyes made it look as if he might weep for me.
“I’m okay,” I whispered, lying to myself but making it sound true to my best friend. “I’m okay…”
“We’re almost there,” Viper said when he kicked out the dying flames of the campfire. “We just need to cross this stretch of sea and pass over the cliffs. It’ll be a long journey with nowhere to land for an entire day.”
I can handle it.
“He says he can make it,” I said aloud for Zehemoth.
Your brother worries about you. Movack has asked about your well-being every morning and every night.
At least you can tell him we’re almost there.And then we had to make the return journey…another week. But if we had the platinum in our grasp, I supposed that wouldn’t matter to me.
Viper broke down the tents and returned them to the packs, and then we climbed on Zehemoth’s back together and launched into the sky. After an hour of flight, we made it to the sea, and then it stretched endlessly before us.
Ever since I’d told Viper about Callum, he hadn’t touched me. He gripped the horn in front of me to stay on the saddle when Zehemoth launched into the sky, but he didn’t hook his arm around my waist like he had before. He was distant and cordial, polite but not talkative. Not really a friend but not a stranger either.
But I knew he wasn’t angry at me, just trying to be respectful.
It was dark by the time we reached the landmass, the ground only visible because it didn’t reflect the moonlight like the surface of the water did.
“Continue north,” Viper said. “We’re at the top of the cliffs.”
“Can you make it the rest of the way?” I asked Zehemoth.
Of course I can.
We continued to fly in the dark, and then quickly, I felt the coldness creep through my clothes and touch my skin. I was still dressed in my armor and uniform, but it wasn’t ideal clothing to keep warm.
“You’re almost there,” Viper said. “I can see the lights of the castle.”
I couldn’t see anything.
As can I.
Vampires and dragons both had better vision than humans, apparently.
As we came in for a landing, the snow and the wind started to pick up, and it slapped us hard in the face like shards of ice. We seemed to arrive in a blizzard because Zehemoth struggled to land, his wings tipping left and right in the gusts. Even he wasn’t heavy enough to fight the wind.
Hold on.
“He says hold on,” I said out loud.
Viper grabbed the horn in front of me with both hands, boxing me in between his arms so I wouldn’t fly off.
