Page 127 of The Spider Queen
I hated him in that moment. But it felt a lot like…something else. Something I didn’t want to examine or identify. So I buried our bond.
“I was right,” Hunter said.
“About what?” I demanded. My patience was done. Gone.
“I knew you wanted him.”
“Really, Hunter?” I stopped walking and turned to face him. “Are we really going to do this? Now? Here?”
His face mirrored his anger. “When would you like to do this, Poppy? We’re on the way to release Thane from a prison he’s been trapped in for hundreds of years. Neither of us know what’s ahead and I might—”
“Your timing fucking sucks!”
“My timing?” he thundered. “Why didyouhave to be the one?”
“I didn’t ask for this! You know I didn’t want it.”
His shoulders slumped in defeat. “I know. God, I know. It just—I thought… I don’t know what I thought.”
I had to stop myself from touching him. It would just torture him—torture us. “I know what you thought. You believed I would be different. That I would remain…unaffected.”
“Yeah.” He looked away from me and up at the stone cave ceiling. “I’m sorry, Poppy. I keep getting mad at you for the same thing over and over again.”
“I hurt everyone,” I admitted. “Without even trying to.”
“It’s not your fault. Feeling the way you do.”
“See? This is why I end up feeling worse. You vacillate between anger and understanding, and I just can’t take it anymore, Hunter. I can’t take it and I—”
My words cut off as I noticed the temperature in the stone cavern drop from cool to extremely cold. I bent over, trying to catch my breath, but I felt like I’d just been launched onto a mountain at high altitude.
“Poppy!” Hunter yelled.
I tried to speak but couldn’t.
Frost began to cover the stone surfaces and ice pellets rained down from the ceiling. Hunter covered his head with one arm, grabbed my hand with the other, and pulled me away as fast as he could. My view was compromised as tiny ice pellets became large chips of ice and the biggest snowflakes I had ever seen came down around us. They hit my face, stinging my skin.
We tried to outrun the magic ice storm, but it was relentless. We tore down the stairs, but somewhere along the way, they became a slide made of stone. Before we knew what was happening the steps had disappeared beneath our feet, sending us careening down the Cliffs of Moher. Hunter and I clung to one another, screaming out in terror as ice and snow continued to assault us, wind battering our cheeks.
The tunnel twisted and turned and then leveled out. I breathed an internal sigh of relief, thinking we were about to come to a halt. But the earth had other plans for us—and spit us out the side of the mountain.
My eyes saw nothing but gray sky.
Salty spray misted my face. We were no longer inside the cliffs, but outside of them, and suddenly we were falling toward the ocean…toward the ragged rocks below…
Chapter 50
A scream lodged in my throat.
The waves churned below us, assaulting the jagged stones of the shoreline. And then the craggy rocks were all too close.
Hunter and I let go of each other.
I hit the water, fighting the tumultuous sea that attempted to throw me against the rocks I’d somehow missed as I fell. The sea was cold and I couldn’t get my bearings. My lungs were already burning from the struggle to survive.
I didn’t want to die by drowning. Not again. It had been bad enough the first time. And I hadn’t come all this way to fail.
I kicked my feet in the water as hard as I could. But the waves were stronger than even my survival instinct.
