“Now you tell me?” My whisper rose to a squeak. I might have formed a foolhardy trust with Jacques, but he’d always had his motives to fight against his own instincts. This lot though? I was a banquet, dangled before the starving.
“Don’t worry. They won’t come near.”
Easy for him to say. He wasn’t natural prey, a veritable blood bank, ripe for drinking. He might be as much a predator as the monsters crawling the walls, but it didn’t mean the vampires weren’t desperate. Centuries of hunger might outweigh their fear of one fae prince. They might risk taking him down if it meant getting to me.
“Besides, I thought you liked vampires?” A hint of amusement danced in his voice.
“You are not funny, Idris.”
“I happen to disagree.” With his blade poised, the prince continued his resolute trek, dragging me with him.
I hunched my shoulders, trying not to catch the gleaming eyes of anything, but I could feel their hungry stares raking over me. I wanted to burrow under Idris’ arm and squeeze my eyes shut, and stay like that until we came out the other side. Instead, with my heart thudding and my breath short, I took one step, and then another.
Idris gave my hand a reassuring squeeze. I tightened my own grip and didn’t loosen it again.
Whose idea had it been to put a rift down here anyway? A more chilling thought occurred to me. Who had thought to locate their coven right beside a rift, and why? Easy pickings? As far as I could see, it wasn’t the most desirable location. Before the rifts had closed, humans had come and gone all the time. I couldn’t imagine many had made it through the warren of the Blood Gate unscathed. And worse, how many vampires had used the rift to cross to my world? Had they hunted there? The puncture wounds on my neck began to burn, but I resisted the urge to let go of Idris and rub my dressing.
It was a miracle I’d lived long enough to meet Jacques at all. Had I drifted down this river, unconscious, before emerging into the sunlight? I’d thought myself lucky not to have drowned, but I’d never before grasped the true extent of my good fortune.
“Aliza. You’re cutting off my blood supply.”
“Oh. Oh! Sorry.” I hastily loosened my fingers, but only slightly. There was no chance in hell I was risking being dragged away by some fanged beast.
But Idris was right. Though I glimpsed movement and bright eyes, nothing approached as we picked our way through the caves. We were left unhindered as the ground began to rise.
Before long, I could barely hear my own thoughts over a relentless crashing roar of water, and I stopped to stare in wonder as Idris’ light illuminated an underground waterfall, at least five times as tall as either of us. The path veered off around a wide pool, before twisting up the far wall at a steep incline, but Idris didn’t follow it. He led me over rocks and boulders, waiting patiently as I scrambled up them, and holding my hand steady as I hopped down. By the time we reached the waterfall, I was flushed, and the icy spray came as a blessing.
It was too loud to speak, but Idris jerked his head, and together, we crept around the water’s edge, pressing against the cliff face, and squeezed behind the curtain of black water, edged in blue-white light. A cave within a cave lurked behind the fall. The air was different here. Heavy. Hard to breathe. The sickly-sweet aroma of mold wafted up my nostrils, and I wrinkled my nose, wishing I actually couldn’t breathe.
All at once, my feet slipped from under me. I lurched, grabbing onto Idris, but the world tilted anyway, spinning around me.
Then it stopped.
My feet were planted firmly on the ground, and everything was dark and damp and disgusting, just as it had been a moment ago, but I knew that everything had changed. Gone was the roar of the falls, and though darkness still pressed on me, Idris’ light had sputtered out. I didn’t need to see. Everything was bleakly familiar, right down to the stench.
“Is this…”
“We’ve crossed over,” Idris answered my unspoken question. “You’re home.”
Well, not quite. “Can you still see?”
Idris huffed a laugh, but I couldn’t bring myself to smile. “Of course I can.”
“Good, because believe it or not, I don’t live in a cave.”
“Understood.”
We began to walk again, and with every step, the cave lightened. My boot sloshed through a puddle, and I grimaced. Before long, I caught a glimpse of the Fairy Glen beyond the cave. It was…
“Daylight?” How long had we been wandering the Blood Gate? It couldn’t be dawn already.
We emerged to a dismal, cloudy day. Typical English weather. Was it my imagination, or had all the colours faded while I’d been away, like a veil of translucent grey had been draped over the world? Or was it only that I’d never been exposed to the full spectrum until I’d arrived in Neath? Either way, the sight of the deserted glen didn’t fill me with the same sense of joyous homecoming I’d anticipated. Even the birdsong seemed shrill, drilling into my head.
My stomach swooped at the sight of a decaying mound of bouquets, piled against the cave walls. I didn’t need to read the cards to know they were for me. Faded pastel ribbons hung limp and dirty from the trunks of nearby trees.
“So, this is the human world?” Idris muttered, and I became aware for the first time since leaving the cave that he was still holding my hand.
I twisted to peer up at him. He surveyed the glen, giving no indication of his thoughts. “It’s not much, I admit. And believe it or not, this is actually one of the nicer parts, not including the smell.”
A faint smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth before he turned to face me. “Well, here we are.”
“Yeah.” I should let go of his hand. Instead, tears sprang to my eyes and my grip tightened. “I suppose this is goodbye. Just so you know, I hate goodbyes, and I’m definitely going to cry.”
“I’m not too fond of them either.”
“Idris…” This was it. Time to find something inspiring and profound to say, something that he’d carry with him for the rest of forever. A way for me to help him through the dark, even after I’d gone. I took a deep breath, opened my mouth, and promptly dissolved into tears.
Finally, I tugged my hand free, burying my face in my palms. Something huge and warm and smelling of a sky much brighter than this one wrapped around me. I sagged against Idris’ chest, letting his strong arms take some of the weight from my legs.
“Well… that was quick,” he murmured against my ear.
I tried to shove him, but the smug bastard’s arms were clamped too tight for me to move. Still, through my tears, I managed a small smile. “I did w-warn you.”
A broad hand swept over my hair, cradling the back of my head, holding me close. To think, barely weeks ago he’d seized me by the throat and berated me for being a liability, and now…
“Will you actually miss me?”
He snorted. “If you mean will I think of irritating mortals every time I’m trying to enjoy a moment of peace, then yes, probably.”
