All around me, I'd grown a thick layer of moss and grass filled with all kinds of colourful wildflowers. Surrounding my little oasis of calm, I'd grown a layer of trees and shrubs so thick that aside from the thin patch of ceiling which I could see poking through between the leaves at the very top of my woodland escape, I could actually believe that I was outside. All I needed was the sound of a bubbling brook and I would be in heaven, transported to the tiny coppice just outside of my aunt Bianca's vineyards where I'd made myself a little sanctuary to escape to when I needed to be alone for a little while.
I lay on my back and breathed in the earthy scent of my surroundings as I allowed my eyes to fall closed and just bathed in the moment as I tried to escape reality.
Of course, I couldn't really relax, seeing as I was currently stuck in a massive room filled with cutthroat criminals and assholes who would have liked to see me dead, but the illusion of it was nice enough.
I sighed as I tried to puzzle out many of the new obstacles in the way of our escape and cursed Cain for the thousandth time for throwing me in the hole for so long. If I'd been in the main prison during that time, our plan could have progressed, we could have used the key and maybe we would already be enjoying the sweet taste of real fresh air right now instead of being stuck here.
Whatever the case may have been, there was little point in me wasting time on lamenting it. Cain was currently enjoying the wrath of the moon and I was seriously grateful to that bitch for having my back and cursing him. While he scratched his head over my little curse, he seemed to be actively avoiding me too which was all in my favour because seeing his face made me feel stabby. And if I got stabby with him then I'd be shipped right back off to the hole, so that wasn't ideal.
No. I couldn't waste time worrying about stabbing guards or mentally bitching about the ways my plan had gone wrong. I needed to focus. Onwards and upwards. Literally. Because I really needed to get us all the way up and out of this underground dumping ground for the world's most criminally damaged stronzos.
With my fingers tangled in the moss either side of me and my magic connected to the earth at my fingertips, I felt it the moment someone stepped into my little sanctuary. I curled my fingers into the soil even tighter, inhaling deeply as I readied myself for an attack and slowly began to trail the intruder with vines which snaked along the ground in their wake and swung down from the treetops subtly until my uninvited guest was being stalked through the trees without even knowing it.
The moment my intruder stepped through into my clearing and the silencing bubble I’d put up, I flicked my fingers and they were wrenched off of their feet and yanked skyward as a net of vines closed around them.
"Fuck," Roary cursed and a bark of laughter tore from my lips as I looked up at him dangling above me, but I should have known better than waste time laughing.
Roary whipped his arm towards me and a fat snowball crashed into my face a second later, a shriek escaping my lips as I failed to avoid it.
I used my control on the vines to hang him by his ankles so he was fully upside down and then managed to hook one around the hem of his shirt and yank it down to cover his face so he couldn't see me.
I was gifted a view of his golden abs flexing as he fought to break free, but as I was distracted by my desire to drool over him, he flung a hand out and a damn tidal wave of water exploded from his palm and came crashing towards me.
I managed to throw a wall of dirt up between us before it could hit me, crouching down behind it as the water crashed over the top and droplets peppered my skin.
By the time the water had rushed away and I dispersed the wall of dirt, Roary was no longer hanging from the treetops.
I craned my neck to look for him and a prickle of warning raced along my spine a second