Page 58 of The First Trial
‘We’re getting back, Junie. I know it may not seem like it, but we’ve already figured out so much. We just need to find that portal.’
‘And defeat the guardian, whatever that means.’
‘Exactly. Piece of cake.’
I scoffed out loud, earning me a curious look from those in the vicinity. Even the snake side-eyed me like I was insane. If only he knew…
‘Don’t jinx us,’I warned, then spat out a curse when my feet got tangled up in snake.
‘Dude! What the fuck? Can’t a girl walk in peace?’ I snapped, but his only response was to hiss at me and slither further ahead to join his friends.
‘Maybe watch whereyou’regoing,’I heard the Shifter’s distinctive voice in my head, and I blinked back the shock.
‘You’re telepathic?’I sent his way, but shrugged it off when I got no response. I must have just been imagining things.
‘That Shifter is getting on my last nerve,’ Phenex snarked, sneering at the slithery little fuck in question. He was a bully, sure, but there was something else about him that made me want to stroke him backwards to displace his scales.
‘Tell me about it,’ Hawthorne mumbled a few paces ahead.
‘What’s he done to you?’ I asked him, genuinely curious.
‘He just keeps sneaking up on everyone,’ he answered, shooting a glare towards the Shifter in question.
I snorted a laugh. ‘He is pretty quiet in his Shifted form. Which, now that I think about it, is a huge improvement on him in his humanoid form. He’s kind of an ass.’
‘He’s an ass in all forms, then,’ he grumbled.
‘At least he can’t talk as a snake,’ I joked, but only received a grunt in response.
Okay, then…
Oz elbowed him in the ribs and whispered admonishments about being rude, but Hawthorne merely shrugged him off, his eyes stuck firmly on the ground as he picked his way over uneven terrain.
I tried not to let his indifference hurt, but it did. Even with Phenex at my side, my feelings for Hawthorne pricked and stung, buried so far beneath my skin that they simply refused to budge. And Phenex, my sweet, wonderful man, didn’t seem to care. I mean, he cared that my feelings were hurt, but he didn’t seem to mind that those feelings belonged to another man. Not that we’d talked about it or anything, but he could read me like an open book, and I liked to think I could do the same with him.
I tried not to overthink it, but I did give him a few extra kisses. I deserved to be happy, and he deserved to be with a woman who would respect him, and I was determined to be that woman.
We’d been walking for a few hours, following the trees at Hawthorne and Enid’s insistence as we tried to put as much distance between us and the caves. It was smart to stick close to our only known source of food and water, and we’d been snacking on strange little fruits and nuts the trees had been providing us with along the way. It was quite pleasant, actually, excluding certain company.
The more I tried to include the Fae – or even the Shifters, though they were more accommodating than the former – the more they pulled away, and it was getting frustrating. Our only hope was to find a way to come together, and they were making it as difficult as possible.
And don’t even get mestartedon the Angels. We saw them in the distance, flying overhead and circling the trees, but they never once tried to approach us. In fact, they were activelyavoiding us, which was a pain in the ass. We were never going to get out of here if they kept up that bullshit.
Bunch of elitist assholes.
I could practically feel their sneers as they looked down on us, literally and figuratively.
As for the Fae, they were starting to get antsy. I couldn’t understand what they were saying to one another, and Elvina refused to translate, so my suspicions grew from multiple angles.Thatwas starting to annoyme. It made me think she had been planted to infiltrate us for the sole purpose of reporting back to them, and the only thing keeping me from booting her right back to them was the fact that we needed to play nice.
I was good at playing nice, even if I wasn’t feeling particularly friendly towards the grumpy, pointy-eared beings. I wondered if they were all like that or if we just got stuck with the worst of their kind.
On that note, I hoped we weren’t stuck with thebest, because I already wanted to throttle them, and if they got worse than this, I was going to lose my shit. I was already refraining from slapping the perpetual scowls off their perfectly symmetrical faces. I mean, come on. Did they scowl so much as children, their faces just got stuck that way or something? It wasn’t normal.
However, my feelings toward Elvina changed more in her favour when their group moved further ahead, and she took the opportunity to pull me aside. I could tell straight away by her defeated but anxious demeanour that things were not as they seemed.
‘How are you?’ she asked, eyes fixed firmly on where my unconscious mate was draped in my arms.
‘I’m okay. You?’ I asked, tilting my head in the direction of the stony-faced Fae. I hated that she was being shunned, but I was also wary of it. Was it real? Or was it part of a plan to make her look more trustworthy to us?
