Blade Song - By J.C. Daniels Page 0,79

“The Dominari is not for weaklings or halfbreeds, Kitasa. You shouldn’t have asked.”

I didn’t hear her words. Didn’t notice the guards.

I only saw the walls of the pit as I struggled to climb out. “Let me out!” I screamed, trying to scramble my way up.

My nails, already ragged, broke. I tried to climb until my fingers bled and my arms ached.

It was hours before I admitted the futility of it. My throat ached from my screams.

Trapped. Trapped in a dark, hellish hole that saw no light and no sun… Trapped until they returned?

“Breathe…”

Hard hands, almost brutal in their strength, gripped my head and I found myself nose to nose with Damon as he shouted in my face. “Breathe, Kit!”

I sucked in a desperate breath and gasped, “Why are you shouting at me?”

“Shit.” He closed his eyes and snatched me against him. “You…shit. Gimme a minute.”

I was shaking. My clothes were sweating, sticking to me, and his body was as hot as a furnace, but I was cold.

“What happened?” he whispered against my ear. “Damn it, what happened?”

“A pit.” I had to force the words through chattering teeth. “They put me in one…once. When I was fifteen. I just—sorry. Bad memory. Okay in a minute.”

The hot mantle of his fury spread around me but for once, it didn’t scare me. I so desperately needed the warmth. “Shhhh,” he murmured as I cuddled closer. If it had been possible to disappear inside of him, I might have done it. Might have tried. Twisting my hands in the fabric of his shirt, I breathed in the hot, musky scent of him, focused on everything around me—everything that didn’t smell of my own blood and waste, the weirdly flat scent of cold stone. The brackish scent of water, the hot humid day, even the disturbing scent of reptile that lingered all around. Anything was better than that awful memory.

“I’m okay,” I whispered after a long moment. “I’m okay.”

He continued to hold me. “I’m not.”

A weak laugh escaped me. “But we can’t stay like this if we want to figure this out.”

“We need to call it a day.”

I shook my head. “No.”

Oh, hell no.

Because oddly enough, as the rush of fear and panic faded, I realized…that tugging had grown stronger.

“What do you smell, Damon?” I eased back and studied his face. “There’s something here. Or close. Has to be. What do you smell?”

“Humans.” His nostrils flared. “A lot of them. I know the place. We’ll come back.”

Shaking my head, I said, “No. We have to find whatever they didn’t want people finding.”

Now.

Chapter Eighteen

Every step made the urgency grow stronger.

Every single step.

And after another ten minutes, something about Damon’s demeanor changed. It was subtle at first. I barely noticed because I was so busy dealing with the mad itching that had settled in my palm. This wasn’t the place for my blade, I suspected, but she was calling me…singing to me and she wanted me.

But he’d gone from a lazy predator on the prowl to a focused hunter. As he turned to gaze off to one side, I noticed the light reflecting off his eyes—not normal. His nostrils flared and I could all but see him pausing as he rolled those tastes around in his mouth.

A few minutes later, he picked up the pace and I had to jog to keep up. He was still walking, but those legs of his covered a lot of ground and fast. And each pace was a tug inside me.

Closer. Closer. Closer.

Glancing up, I checked the sun.

And that was when I saw it—

Shit—

I drew an arrow, fired.

As Damon spun around, the arrow buried itself in the camera.

“We’re being watched,” I said flatly.

A short, terse nod and he was moving again.

I was in an all-out run now, fear crowding the back of my throat as memories of that pit danced in the back of my mind.

A huge, fallen tree blocked the path. Up ahead, Damon turned to glance back at me as I leaped on top. He’d taken it and landed with room to spare. While I didn’t have to clamber up and over, I couldn’t do it with the grace he managed. As I went to hop down, he shouted.

I slipped—

Clambering for a hold, I shifted my weight backward over the fallen giant. I didn’t know what it was—

Distantly, I hear something crash.

But that wasn’t what worried me just then. I was sprawled on my back, in an awkward-ass position. And about six feet way was one giant snake. Swallowing,