I strained to follow Corson as he disappeared and reemerged from the shifting shadows while circling the pit. He stopped before another tunnel and rested a hand against the dirt wall. Leaning forward, his head turned back and forth as he inspected the opening.
I strained to hear anything coming from that tunnel as I reached over my back. My heart sank when I realized a familiar weight was missing even as my hand connected with my shirt instead of my quiver and bow. Glancing around, I spotted my bow half hidden in the dark.
Striding over, I bent and drew it toward me. When I lifted it into the air, the bottom half of the bow clattered onto the ground while the snapped string floated in the air before me. “It took me a week to find the perfect branch, whittle it, and smooth it to get this where I wanted it,” I muttered. “I’ve had it for five years, and one stupid misstep snatched it away from me.”
“We will find you another,” Corson murmured.
I sighed and set the bow aside. “Better the bow than us.” It still stung though, especially since it had been my misstep that landed us here.
You’re still alive.
But for how long? I wondered as I glanced at the distant light overhead before focusing on the cavern once more.
I spotted the edge of my quiver peeking out from under the deer. Walking over, I lifted the back of the deer as much as I could with one hand. After some maneuvering, jerking, sweating, and unspoken swears, I managed to tug the quiver out from under the animal. I lifted the crumpled remains and turned it over to empty it out. The broken pieces bounced across the ground and scattered around my feet.
Bending over, I placed my hands on my knees and took a second to steady myself before looking to Corson again. “Can you climb out of here?”
He didn’t look back at me as he replied, “By the time we made it to the top, it would be too late.”
I liked the sound of that about as much as I liked the idea of having my fingernails pulled out. “What does that mean?”
“It means our fall and your yelling will have woken the beast. It will be looking for its dinner.”
“And we’re its dinner?”
“Yes.”
I wiped my sweaty palms on my pants and straightened. He wouldn’t know the apprehension his words roused in me. “And what is the beast we woke?”
“The ouroboros.”
“What is that?”
“A giant serpent. It devours its own tails when it’s starving. When it has a food supply…”
“It eats the supply,” I whispered when his voice trailed off, and he gave me a pointed look.
“Yes.”
“A giant snake, fantastic.”
I turned back to the wall and tried to ignore the galloping beat of my heart as my mind spun. There was always a plan, always an action to take; I just had to calm down enough to think of one. Deep breaths. There are options.
“What about Malorick?” I blurted as I recalled the telepathic demon. “Can’t you reach out and tell him where we are?”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Corson replied. “He can reach out to communicate with me, when and if the others realize we’re missing, but I can’t talk with him until he opens the pathway into my mind.”
I gazed at the distant, unattainable circle of light as I ran through more options. “If we call for help, maybe the angels will hear us and come.”
I wasn’t overly fond of either of the angels. Not Raphael with all his golden beauty, or Caim with the black wings the fallen angels possessed. Both of them had proven to be loyal to the king and queen, but Raphael was often an asshole, and Caim…
Well, I actually kind of liked Caim’s blunt, sort of crazy ways, but he’d been on Lucifer’s side until a few months ago, so I didn’t trust him. Fighting for us now or not, Caim had proven he was willing to change sides.
“Never trust a traitor,” Randy’s words from years ago whispered across my mind.
They were words I’d followed ever since, just as I’d followed most of Randy’s advice. The only reason I was still alive was him. Many had perished, but Randy had made sure I survived, and over the years, I’d come to love him as much as he loved me. I didn’t know what I would do if he were dead, couldn’t imagine the world without him in it, smiling at me and guiding me, but somehow I would survive that too.
However, traitor or not, I preferred riding Caim’s shoulders out of here over being the stomach contents of a self-eating, behemoth snake any day.
“Yes, by all means, keep shouting. I’m sure the angels will hear you all the way down here and arrive before the ouroboros does. At least the appetizer you present will keep the ouro occupied while I’m hauling ass out of here,” Corson drawled.
I shot him a ferocious look as my hand fell to my gun. His gaze followed the movement. He widened his stance and seemed to dare me with his eyes to do it. My bullets wouldn’t kill him, but it would feel good to shoot one into his arrogant face.
I never would though. This demon irritated me more than any other, but I’d agreed to work with the demons, and I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize our agreement with them.
Never trust someone who doesn’t keep their word. Randy advised in my mind. I had no idea what he would think about my agreeing to work with the demons. He’d broken his group of followers in half, entrusting me to lead half of them while he took the other half with him. If he were dead, he’d probably rolled over in his grave half a dozen times by now over my course of action. If he was still alive, then he might consider me a traitor now.
The idea of Randy being dead tore at my heart until I found myself struggling to breathe. The possibility of Randy turning on me unnerved me more than the giant snake probably making its way toward us right now. I wouldn’t be able to handle it if he came to despise me, but I’d done what I believed was best to keep the Wilders alive, and if there was one thing Randy understood, it was keeping his people alive and being loyal to those who were loyal to him.
I never would have extended the offer to work with the demons if the other Wilders hadn’t agreed to it beforehand. After witnessing what escaped the gateway, and with what we’d come to learn of the demons, we decided that working with them was our best, and maybe only, chance for continued survival.
No, not survival, our best chance for hope. We’d spent the past fourteen years doing everything we could to live until the next minute. Working with the demons offered us the first promise of a future that we’d had in years—a promise none of us had dared to hope for before.
Even now, trapped in this hole with Corson, and with the possibility that I might end up being snake shit by the end of the day, I still wouldn’t have changed anything. The Wilders above had a chance at a better life because we were working with the demons. My death was worth one of them having an opportunity to age enough to wrinkle and go gray.
But I wasn’t dead yet, and I didn’t plan to go down easy if my end was coming soon.
“How do you intend to get out of here?” I asked Corson.
Lifting his hand, Corson pointed down the tunnel he’d been inspecting. My gaze followed his talons to the nothingness beyond him. I resisted gulping. The tunnel was twenty-plus feet in diameter. I did not want to be anywhere near the thing capable of creating that.
“Are you nuts?” I asked.
“I’ve been told it’s a possibility.”
“We’ll be walking straight into that thing’s home. It opened its door for us”—I waved a hand at the hole above us—“but I don’t think it’s going to offer us coffee and cake.”
Corson grinned at me. Yep, he’s nuts, I decided.
“Probably not coffee, but maybe it has some snake cake,” he replied with a wink, and I glared at him. “There are going to be more side tunnels in there. The ouro wouldn’t have only one way in and out. We have to make it into one of those side tunnels and soon. This is a trap, and the ouro most likely sensed when it sprang.”
“What if it’s in one of those side tunnels?”
>
“Then we have to face it,” Corson replied.
“Wouldn’t it make more sense to wait here, in this bigger room to kill it?”
“It has more space to maneuver in here, which will make it a lot harder to kill.”
My hands fisted as I realized he was right. Why was I so stupid right now, while he was calmly pointing out all the facts I should have seen on my own? Was it just that I was standing in the pit of a gigantic snake, or because I was stuck here with him? When I thought about it, the idea of being alone with Corson scared me more than the ouro did.
I resolved not to think about it.
Taking a deep breath, I gazed longingly at the faint source of light over my head. Once we moved away from it, there would be nothing to guide us, no proof the world existed beyond this underground cavern.
“We have to go,” Corson urged. “Now.”
I tore my eyes away from the distant hole and back to the most infuriating demon in existence. Long ago, I’d resolved not to let others know how I was really feeling. There were those who would use any fear or hesitance they saw in me against me. I didn’t think Corson would, but years of ingrained habit rushed to the forefront now.
With a confidence I didn’t feel, I thrust my shoulders back and grinned at him. “Well, all right then. Let’s go do some snake hunting. I’ve always wanted a pair of snakeskin boots.”
The look Corson gave me said he wasn’t buying it, but he refrained from commenting before he started into the hole. I stepped away from the wall and followed him into the ouro’s den. I only made it three feet into the ouro’s tunnel before it became so dark I couldn’t see Corson’s back in front of me.
There was nothing like blindly winding deeper into the home of a giant, self-eating snake.
Chapter Seven
Corson
With no light piercing this deep into the bowels of the earth, it was impossible to see what lay before me, even with my enhanced demon senses. I kept my right hand raised; my talons extended straight ahead as we wound deeper and deeper into the labyrinth the ouro had created.
My left hand ran over the cool dirt wall. The ouro had traveled through here enough times that the earth and stone beneath my fingers had been smoothed by its passing. I kept my hearing attuned to any hint of danger as my hand fell into the open air of another tunnel.
We’d already slipped into two different passageways since leaving the main pit behind. I had no doubt the ouro was coming for us, but if we kept taking turns, there was a chance we might be able to avoid it. A tiny chance.
Fifteen minutes ago, a vibration beneath my feet alerted me the ouro was traveling toward the trap it had created and we’d fallen into, but I hadn’t felt any vibrations since then. If I’d been Shax, I would have been able to detect the faintest movement of earth, would have known the ouro was coming long before it arrived, but Shax remained above with the others.
I strained to hear the faintest hint of sound, but Wren’s breaths were all I detected, and she kept those so quiet I knew no one beyond us would hear them. I’d seen the flash of fear in her eyes earlier before she’d declared she wanted to do some snake hunting, but she didn’t display any unease now.
When Wren had been at the wall for a bit, River had told me she believed Wren might be a little insane, and maybe River was right, but I didn’t think so. I thought Wren was more scared of the things residing in her world than she’d ever let on to others, especially demons, and she hid behind a bravado some would find off-putting. Wren would probably shoot me if I ever told her that though.
Instead of dirt, rocks began to increasingly scratch my palm as we traversed a gradually sloping descent. Wren’s arm grazed mine while I followed the dips and hollows of the ground. The heat of her body warmed my skin, and her natural scent of leaves and pine filled my nostrils. She lived and breathed the Wilds, and it radiated from her pores as she stepped so close to me that her breasts brushed against my back.
Gritting my teeth, I flexed my right hand as my cock stirred. Now was not the time to be thinking about taking her, but my body wasn’t accustomed to being denied sex for as long as it had been and I’d never been this close to her before. She’d affected me without ever touching me in the past. In these tight confines, she was likely to drive me mad. Her hands fell briefly on my waist when I came to an abrupt stop.
Images of her naked and straddling me burst through my head, making it difficult to think about anything else.
My breath hissed in through my teeth as I struggled to regain control of myself. As soon as we were out of this place, I’d find another woman and slake my lust with her. A night of screwing would purge Wren from my system. My head would be on straight once I had sex again, but if I didn’t get it on straight right now, I’d be dead.
And so would Wren.
For some reason, the thought of Wren’s death was more of a wake-up call than the possibility of my own. It doused the lust she so easily roused in me. I would not allow anything to happen to her.
“Why did you stop?” she whispered.
“To listen.”
Her hands fell away from me. The end of her braid tickled my arm when she tilted her head to the side. My hands flexed as I focused my attention away from her and onto the tunnel.
The absence of noise in this place made it feel as if I’d gone deaf as well as blind. We were so deep below the earth now that I couldn’t detect so much as a worm moving through the soil. Anything capable of living at this depth had either fled the ouro or been devoured by it.
The only time I’d ever seen the ouroboros was when the seal caging it fell. That glimpse had been more than enough to sear the one-hundred-foot-long and twenty-foot-wide, green serpent into my memory. The ouro possessed two hooked fangs and a hood that unfurled from the sides of its diamond-shaped head. Its black and red, forked tongue flickered in the air when it hunted its prey.
“Do you hear anything?” Wren asked.
The beat of her heart drifted to me as it increased. She would never admit it, but she was scared. Placing my palm against the tunnel, my fingers dug into the rocky wall, and I took a steadying breath to ease the unexpected rage growing within me. I should have protected her from this. She shouldn’t be here. She was in jeopardy because I’d enjoyed baiting her and watching the sway of her hips as she stalked away from me.
“I’ll get you out of here,” I promised.
She stiffened against me. “I don’t need anyone to rescue me.”
I turned my head to try to see something of her. She was inches away from me, but black encompassed my vision. “I didn’t say you did, and no, you’re all I hear.”
“Then maybe we should keep going.”
“Demanding woman,” I murmured as I continued forward with her following closely.
“Can this giant snake do anything special, like is it poisonous too?” Wren inquired.
“Its venom can kill, and it eats everything in its way. If it requires more room in its stomach to kill, it throws up so it can eat more. From its back, snake tails curl out every fifteen feet, and each of those tails has a rattle at the end. If it doesn’t have any other food, it will eat those tails and wait for them to regenerate before eating them again.”
“So it surpasses most expectations of horrific Hell creature.”
“Yes.”
“Good to know.”
My left hand fell into open air again. I paused to inhale the rich aroma of dirt and the more mineral-like tang of the rocks. Unlike the tunnel we were in now, a rancid breeze stirred the air from within this new branch.
It smells like rotting corpses, but it could be a way out. As the possibility entered my mind, some instinct within me shouted it wasn’t a breeze I detected, but a breath.
Leaping back, I wrapped my arms around Wren and spun her to the side at the same time something hit my arm and knocked me back. I pressed Wren against the wall, my body melding over hers as the smooth ripple of scales ran across my flesh. The suppleness of
the scales was surprising given the rigidity and thickness of the body beneath them.
Then a smaller tail hit me. The rattle bashed my cheek as it vibrated in the air. The distant echo of more rattles resonated down the tunnel and bounced off the walls.
Wren gasped as another tail lashed out with a whistle. Throwing my hand up, I honed in on the sound the tail created and sliced it away before it could hit her. The appendage thudded against the ground, its flopping movements hitting my calf as the pitch of the rattles became higher, and a loud hiss filled the air. I didn’t need my vision to know the ouro’s head had swung toward us. I felt the shift in the air currents when its tongue flicked out, and the stench of death washed over me.
Lifting Wren, I pinned her to my chest. I much preferred to stay and attack, to slice the ouro to shreds and end it, but I couldn’t risk her getting hurt while I battled the beast.
Wren’s hands shoved against my shoulders, and her feet kicked my shins as I turned and fled down the tunnel with her. “Put me down,” she ordered. “I can run; I can fight.”
Rocks and dirt clattered behind us, the rattles reverberated against the walls as the ouro came after us. Where the silence had been deafening, this cacophony beat against my ears until it became my entire world. Wren went still in my arms before she wrapped her legs around my waist and clung to me while I ran.
Chapter Eight
Wren
My mouth went dry, and my fingers dug into Corson’s shoulders as he raced across the ground. That hiss seemed to come from only feet away, but the constricting walls and the blackness threw all sounds off. The ouro could be only inches behind us or fifty feet away. The not knowing was worse than the ouro’s foul breath, which smelled like it had fifty dead skunks trapped in its fangs.
Hell on Earth (Hell on Earth, Book 1) (Hell on Earth Series) Page 4