“Okay,” I whispered back. I wasn’t really sure what we were doing, but I trusted him.
“Can’t you use my blood?” Dylan offered.
Arisella wasted no time shooting him down. “Your blood is useless.”
“The only blood that can invoke the pons is that of an Irisbourn,” Adrian explained as he dragged something sharp across the palm of my hand. I was thankful that I couldn’t see what he was doing.
I felt him place his pons into my bloody palm and gently enclose my fingers around it, before removing it and handing it to Arisella. It had begun to glow a soft pink, pulsating with light at the rhythm of my heartbeat.
A shrill shriek filled the air just outside the warehouse, and Arisella cursed under her breath. The caeci had found us.
Arisella moved the pons in a rapid, egg-shaped movement, leaving a trail of thin, pale light suspended in the air around her body.
“I’m not sure I can remember the incantation,” Arisella said in a panicked voice.
Something huge slammed into the door of the warehouse, making the entire building rattle.
“Try!” Adrian said through gritted teeth.
Arisella closed her eyes in concentration and began to murmur indistinguishably. Despite her frequent stumbles, the thin line of light in the air grew wider and brighter, expanding inwards – filling itself.
She uttered the words with increasing hesitance until her voice died in her throat. “I-I can’t remember the rest,” she stammered.
The door of the warehouse shook again. A thin beam of light appeared down the center of it.
“You are a terrible Divinblood!” Dylan burst out madly.
Arisella didn’t even react. She kept repeating the last of the incantation she could remember in a futile attempt to jog her memory.
I heard the caeci gnashing their needle teeth as they dug their nails through the crack in the door.
A surge of visceral adrenaline overtook me, and without thinking, I pushed Arisella out of the way and claimed the pons from her. The last of the incantation came pouring out of my mouth in steady, confident cadences.
“Portemur,” I concluded, filling the final gap in the portal with light.
After I had finished, I felt the influx of energy leave me as suddenly as it had come, replaced by the return of control over my body.
I turned to Adrian hesitantly. “I think I did it.”
“Unbelievable,” he breathed.
Arisella held her palm to the surface of the portal, sending ripples through it. “Take us to the Black Forest.”
The portal shimmered, then changed a cloudy color.
“See you on the other side,” Arisella saluted us before charging through it. The portal reacted like water, beads of it jumping up around her, encasing her, before being pulled back to their original state. Arisella had disappeared, and the portal returned to its smooth stillness, bearing no traces of what had just happened.
Adrian pushed Dylan in behind her without warning, and he too disappeared.
The door ripped loudly and more light streaked in. I could see slender, wiry caeci arms protruding through the crack, grasping blindly for their prey.
“Ladies first,” Adrian gestured toward the portal.
I closed my eyes and stepped through it, prepared for any unearthly sensation that might accompany being transported between worlds. But it didn’t feel like anything – it was just like walking through light. An instant of burning brightness flooded my vision before dissipating altogether. That was all it took to get between the two worlds.
I felt something slam into my back and knock me onto the ground.
“Oh, Gods, sorry,” Adrian apologized, while he helped me to my feet. He must have launched himself through the portal right into me.
“Occludere! Occludere! Occludere!” Arisella shouted at the portal frantically. The portal shrank away, fading into a final speck of light until it vanished completely.
Arisella exhaled hugely and flopped down like a dead fish onto the ground. “Well everyone,” she said, her drained voice muffled by the ground. “Welcome to Fallyre.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
To be honest, the forest I was standing in didn’t look too different from one I might have found on Earth. It was still undeniably creepy, though, what with the colossal trees towering over me, blotting out the daylight. A dense sheet of fog crept along the ground, as if it were suffocating the decaying gray leaves and shrubs.
In the treetops, foreign creatures cried out to one another in unfamiliar squawks and screeches, disturbed by our unwelcome presence.
“That was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced,” Dylan huffed. He was squatting on the ground, his hands on his knees and his chest heaving up and down.
Still reclined on the ground, Arisella looked up with a confused expression on her face. “How did you know the words to the incantation?”
“I don’t know. They just came to me,” I shrugged. Weirder things had happened to me. “I think a better question would be ‘Why didn’t you know the words to the incantation?’”
Arisella scowled. “I had only heard it once before. I thought I might be able to remember it, but – get this – it’s hard to remember things under pressure.”
“Unprepared,” Dylan coughed under his breath.
“What did you say, human?”
“Why did you take us to such a gloomy place, anyway?” I broke in.
“The pons can only take you somewhere you can see clearly, somewhere you are connected to emotionally,” Adrian answered.
“And this was the only place I could think of that wasn’t directly in the Blood Kingdom.” Arisella tossed her hair over her shoulder and disinterestedly ran her fingers through the strands.
“Wait, hold on,” I said putting my fingers to my temples. “Are you telling me that we’re on the edge of the Blood Kingdom?”
“Yup.”
I stared at Arisella openmouthed. “Didn’t you say you and your father used to hunt grimalkin in these woods?”
“Not in this area, but yup.”
I gaped at her in disbelief. I was getting sick of her blasé attitude.
“Hey, calm down.” Adrian put a hand on my tense shoulder. “We can remember how to get to the Praetus from here.”
“And then what?!” I turned on him. “You leave me there? What about Dylan? I didn’t give up my life to take part in some ill-conceived plan!”
Adrian cautiously wrapped his hands around my wrists and tried to hold me still. “We’re not going to let anything happen to you – or Dylan. The Praetus will take the both of you. And we won’t leave you until you want us to.”
“I won’t want you to leave,” I whispered, calmer now.
Arisella fake-gagged at us, and I self-consciously broke free from Adrian. Adrian grinned shamelessly at her.
“We need to keep moving.” Arisella got to her feet and put her hands on her hips. “It’s a three-day walk. At the very minimum.”
From his backpack, Adrian removed something that looked like an elaborate, platinum-plated compass, designed almost like a square pocket watch. On the back, the engraved letters “E.B.” caught the light, while an elaborate dial spun uncontrollably at the center. Adrian patiently held it still in the palm of his hand until the dial stopped spinning.
“This way,” Adrian announced, moving in the opposite direction of the dial.
We all followed Adrian’s lead and trudged through the forest, which seemed to only grow darker and colder with every step. I couldn’t imagine how Adrian wasn’t freezing – after giving his shirt to me in the car, he had changed into a second identical American Eagle T-shirt, but this one was white instead of gray.
“Hey, Dylan, could you pull my sweatshirt out of my – Dylan!” I snapped around and found him intently waving his iPhone above his head in the air.
“What?” Dylan asked obliviously.
“We are on an entirely different planet. You’re not going to
find a signal.”
“Well, it was worth a try,” Dylan frowned. He put his phone back into his pocket before tugging my backpack off me and handing me my UCSF sweatshirt.
“Thanks.”
As the only one who hadn’t been carrying anything, Dylan apparently felt the need to sling my bag over his shoulder, but not until he had first rifled through it for two Clif Bars. He shoved them into his mouth one after the other without barely breathing or chewing. I looked at him in disapproval.
“Human! Don’t eat all the food!” Arisella barked from ahead of us.
“Whaf? I’m hungrfh,” Dylan said with chipmunk cheeks.
Arisella rolled her eyes and exhaled with distaste. “I’m hungry, too, and you don’t see me snorting down our provisions.” She pulled her bag off her back and threw it at Dylan. “Carry mine too.”
The bag bounced off Dylan’s chest before he grasped it in surprise. “What do you think I am, a pack mule?” Dylan retorted.
“Of course not.” Arisella batted her eyelashes innocently. “A pack mule would be far more useful than you.”
“How dare you –”
I put a hand on Dylan’s arm before he could do anything too rash. As snippy as Arisella was, we needed her help, and we could not afford to piss her off.
“Thank you for finally taking responsibility for your human,” Arisella smiled.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “He is not mine. And his name is Dylan.”
Arisella waved me away blithely. “Doesn’t matter. I’m going hunting. Would you like to join me?”
Was she seriously asking me? She wasn’t looking at Adrian. And she definitely wasn’t asking Dylan.
“Sure?”
“Excellent. Get the clothes out of the front pocket of my bag and put them on.”
“She’s still so new, Aris. I don’t think this is such a good idea,” Adrian said disapprovingly.
“Nonsense. She’ll be able to help me scout what’s ahead,” Arisella replied.
I reached into her bag and removed two bands of black cloth. Ugh. Her special Spellbourn underwear.
“Oh, don’t make that face, now. I washed them.” Arisella popped her head out from behind a nearby cluster of trees, exposing her bare shoulders. Her shirt was on the ground beside her, and I averted my eyes quickly. “Well, what are you waiting for? Get over here.”
I hastily walked over to her makeshift changing screen and stripped down.
“Not bad,” Arisella commented, her hands on her bare hips. I felt the burning trail her eyes left on my bare flesh as she scanned me from head to toe.
“Oh my God,” I blurted, shielding myself with my sweatshirt that I had tossed onto the ground. The only things she still had on were the two strips of black cloth at her chest and waist, and – although I hated to admit it to myself – I knew I looked nothing like the sculpted ivory goddess in front of me. “Can you please have the decency to look away?!”
Arisella snickered. “Just calling it like I see it.” She flexed her shoulder blades and smoothly shifted into a grimalkin before stalking back to the boys.
“Dylan, you’re going to, uh, pick up my clothes for me, aren’t you?” I said as I wiggled into Arisella’s Spellbourn undergarments.
“Of course.”
I was suddenly very grateful for Dylan’s presence. I wasn’t sure if I would have been comfortable with anyone else in the group handling my clothes.
I lithely hopped up and down, warming up my body, while I allowed memories of my mother to flood my mind. The change came much more easily now, and with every change I found myself able to initiate it with less fear and more control.
Stretching with my body’s contortions, the black Spellbourn fabric was absorbed into my skin, rather than tearing to pieces like it should have. I was genuinely pleased.
I tentatively stepped out from behind the trees, my tail swishing behind me.
“Well, hell, Amber!” Dylan exclaimed, his lips curving into a huge smile. With my swelling bag on his back and Arisella’s on his stomach, he provided a goofy contrast to the eerie forest around us. He boldly put a hand on my head and stroked behind my ears, which, to my surprise, felt nicer than it should have. “I have to say, I like this look on you.”
For the sake of his amusement, I produced a low, rumbling sound that was the closest I could manage to a purr. As a form of farewell, I brushed my head against Dylan’s leg and padded over to Adrian. I looked at him intently to ask for his approval to leave.
“Aris, don’t make me regret letting you do this,” Adrian said, without breaking eye contact with me.
Arisella released a savage howl – which was strange, since I had always considered her a cat – and took off ahead of us.
I surged after her so quickly my haunches burned from fatigue. She was so much faster than I was, and she was so far ahead that before long I was no longer following the silver blur ahead of me, but its scent. Hold on – its scent?
Sure enough, Arisella left an unmistakable aroma of spice and soil in the air, leading me to her better than a map. So this must have been how the caeci could find us so easily.
I heard her vicious snarls in the distance, and I pushed my legs faster in alarm. Her smell became mixed with the salty, metallic scent of blood, and I began discovering fresh crimson streaks decorating the crushed leaves on the forest floor.
At last, I could see her, a large, silver mass of fur on the ground, her abdomen rising and falling sporadically.
Fear pooled in my stomach as I sprinted toward her body. I know Arisella had told Adrian that she would keep me safe, but how would he react when he discovered that I couldn’t do the same for her?
I found her hunched over a lifeless, black dog-rabbit hybrid half as big as she was. Its torso had been lacerated, its entrails spilling out of it, as Arisella sank her teeth into the poor creature. The fur around her mouth and neck was completely matted with blood, and she made nauseating, wet sounds while she consumed the thing’s intestines.
I inched toward her in an effort to study the poor animal, but she snarled at me and curled herself around her kill possessively. Shocked by her utter lack of humanity, I planted myself in a sitting position several yards away.
She looked up from her meal just long enough to toss her head in the direction she had been headed, as if urging me to leave. What, was she the one who needed privacy now? The fur on the back of her neck bristled, and she growled at me impatiently.
Whatever. If I got lost in these godforsaken woods, she would have a hard time explaining that to Adrian.
Casting Arisella one final sickened look, I continued onwards, indignation coursing through my veins. I heatedly raced through the forest without a single care as to where I was going, so I was surprised, to say the least, when I found myself no longer surrounded by trees, but grass. I swiveled around hectically and took in my new surroundings.
I had reached the end of the forest and run straight onto a lush, verdant riverbank soaked with light. Everything had suddenly become so bright and warm, and the light bounced off the small waves of the three-thousand-foot-wide river coursing beside me.
Enticed by the water’s coolness, I trotted down to the river and knelt beside it. Transparent all the way down to the billowing eelgrass, the water was clearer than I had expected it to be. Overheated and exhausted, I arched my neck down to lap up a taste of the rushing water. Hell, if Arisella could consume a raw wild animal, the river water wouldn’t be a problem for me.
A pair of green teardrop eyes glimmered from within the eelgrass, and I froze halfway above the water, my tongue hanging out of my mouth. A gentle feminine face shifted into visibility behind the eyes, surrounded by floating cascades of endless red hair. Captivated by her beauty, I leaned toward the water as the face rose gracefully to the surface.
A pair of hands jerked me backwards onto the grass, and I lost my composure and shifted back into my normal body.
“Damn it, Amber. As much as you may like gi
rl-on-girl action, that’s really not my style. Now, get off me!” Arisella aggressively rolled my barely-clothed body off hers. I must have landed on her when she pulled me.
“What the hell is your problem?!” I shouted at her. “First you thought I was going to steal your latest slaughter, and now you won’t let me drink from the river? Are you trying to be awful or do you just think I’m not entitled to anything in this world?”
“Will you be quiet!” Arisella got to her feet and glared down at me. Her face and chest were still smothered in dried blood from her earlier kill. “First, I happen to get a little carried away with being a grimalkin when I hunt. If you don’t like it, that’s just too bad. Second, that river is teeming with kelpie. If you so much as dip your finger into it, you’ll get pulled in and we’ll never see you again.”
“Kelpie?”
Arisella groaned at my ignorance. “Body of a woman, tail of a fish? Pretty but deadly?”
“Oh,” I said in realization. “You mean a mermaid.”
“Whatever. They’re notoriously fickle as well – never able to decide quite what they want. Anyway,” Arisella jerked her thumb toward the river, “don’t go near there.”
She started back to the tree line where Adrian and Dylan had emerged. Adrian tossed Arisella her clothes in a huge wad, which she caught deftly before slipping them on over her bloody skin.
Dylan and I were much more awkward about the clothes exchange. Extremely self-conscious about my nakedness, I remained rooted in place on the riverbank and waited for Dylan to come to me. Making a gentlemanly effort not to look in my direction, Dylan gingerly set the clothes two feet away before scampering back to Adrian.
I pulled myself into my clothes and joined everyone by the trees. Despite my best efforts to pay attention to their conversation, all I could think about was how everyone had basically just seen me nude.
“You let Amber run through the forest alone?” Adrian scowled.
I jumped at the sound of my name. “What?”
“And why were you by the river?”
“I wanted to get a drink. Oh, but don’t worry,” I said quickly when I saw the horror on Adrian’s face. “I stopped when I saw a kelpie.”
Feral (The Irisbourn Chronicles Book 1) Page 21