thud.
“No! Stop it!” Eveline cried, swinging in Rhys’ direction.
But before she could make a move, she was swept up into the eagle warrior’s arms as he flapped his great wings to carry them out of the cavern.
Not again.
Ramses reached the mouth of the cave as well and leapt up to grab onto the eagle king’s foot. He sent a few loose boulders toward the eagle to bombard him and keep him on the ground, while also trying to avoid hitting Eveline.
But the other male deftly dodged the falling rocks and continued to gain speed up and out of the cave.
Ramses managed to hold on, and together, the three of them ascended up the side of the mountain; Eveline in the eagle warrior’s arms, Ramses dangling from his foot.
The weight was slowing him down, Ramses could tell. In his half transformed humanoid form, his wings were smaller than what Ramses imagined to be his full Beast form. With three bodies to carry, his own and two others, his ascent up the mountain wasn’t easy or smooth.
But there was little Ramses could do to stop him. Not while Eveline was there. He could probably survive a plummet to the ground himself if he forced the eagle to crash; Eveline might not.
Ramses could tell that Eveline had the same thought when she looked down at him and their gazes locked. There was nothing either of them could do until the eagle king let them down on solid ground.
Up, up, up, they went, the air getting thinner and colder the farther they climbed.
At least the eagle king had a tight hold on Eveline and didn’t try to dislodge Ramses from his leg. In fact, it was almost as if he wanted all three of them to be together; Ramses just didn’t know why. But he would soon find out.
Because suddenly, they crested over the top of Mount St. Helens, and the eagle warrior deposited all three of them into the middle of the ash-filled crater.
*** *** *** ***
Eveline felt like she was reliving a bizarre dream.
Yes, re-living, because she’d dreamed about this before, over the past few days. Ramses and another warrior, equally matched, on top of a mountain much like this, if not exactly the same one.
It had been nighttime in the dream, while this was daytime. The surrounding landscape was different too. One could see water on the horizon from the top of the dream mountain, while there were forests at the bottom of this one. But these were merely details.
Eveline’s more pressing concern was the fact that both mountains seemed rather angry if the restless rumbling and shaking were any indication.
The other noticeable difference was Ramses’ opponent.
Ramses himself looked much the same as he had in the dream, though slightly more “mature” if not physically “older.” Now, his face seemed harder, more implacable, more determined. His body radiated raw strength and power, but more controlled. And his eyes… His eyes showed his true age, the experience of thousands of years, many more millennia than Eveline. But she noted that there was something new in those mesmerizing obsidian orbs.
There was a new hope, as well as a new fear.
When she first met him, he looked like a male who seemed indifferent to everything and everyone around him, and perhaps, most of all, to himself. But Eveline saw that beneath the indifference was a deep, unknowable pain and frozen fury. Now, she glimpsed something fragile in his eyes—
Especially when he looked at her.
Ramses’ opponent, on the other hand, looked similar to the warrior in the dream, but noticeably different at the same time. So different, in fact, that Eveline hadn’t picked up on the resemblances until she saw Ramses and him together on this mountaintop. The build was exactly the same, but the coloring was different. The symbols embedded in his skin, his hair and eye color were all new.
But the biggest glaring difference between the two scenes—the dream she had and this present predicament—was the presence of Eveline herself.
She surreptitiously gave herself a hard pinch on the arm to see if she would wake up. Nope. No such luck. This current standoff was unfortunately very real, and Eveline was very much in the middle of it.
Literally, physically, in the middle of it.
“See here…” she began, her eyes shifting nervously between the two amped up, bloodied, terrifyingly aggressive warriors.
“Let’s talk about this like reasonable adults. No need for violence.”
Neither male looked at her when she spoke, each concentrated fully on the other. Except