An Isle of Mirrors (A Shade of Vampire #88) - Bella Forrest Page 0,13

wheeze. Sweat began dripping down my face and seeping into my already moist shirt. My blood ran cold, and I wasn’t sure how I’d get out of this predicament. I didn’t really need Unending to tell me what the plate was, since I already knew it had been designed to hurt people. It didn’t take a genius.

“It’s similar to the landmines used by humans,” Unending said, cautiously running her fingers over the runes. “But it’s loaded with a Reaper’s personal energy. It’s weaponized against Reapers, and it will easily obliterate a living person. You won’t stand a chance.”

I gave myself a moment to let it all sink in. “Okay. What do we do?”

“I can teleport you away, but we need to make sure we don’t end up on another one of these. We also need to be as far from this plate as possible, because I have no idea what the blast radius will be.”

“Won’t it leave a hole in the jungle itself, if it’s a big one?” I asked, my tone uneven, my throat scratchy with anxiety. “Would she do something so extreme?”

“Nature recovers,” Unending said. “But you’d be pulverized, and I cannot let that happen, my love.”

“I understand. You should zap us somewhere off the beaten path, then,” I suggested. “I assume these traps are more limited where the terrain is harder to cross.”

Unending stepped back, her brow furrowed. “Give me a second.” She vanished, and I was left on my own. I tried not to shiver or make even the slightest movement. Taking deep breaths, I waited while she scoured the woods for a safer place to drop me. The traps would hurt her, too, so she had to be extra careful as she briefly scanned the increasingly hostile terrain just to save my bacon.

My wife was an absolute badass, I thought to myself. She reappeared and took my hand, smiling with sparkling confidence. A split second later, we vanished, and only the faint echo of the blast reached us as we were teleported a mile farther north, smack in the middle of the untamed wilderness. The trees suddenly came to life, veins illuminating and eyes opening to find us standing and shaking like leaves. We’d escaped a terrible, violent fate.

“Are you okay?” Unending asked.

“I’m alive. I’m whole. Yes, I’m definitely okay.” I chuckled, though I was still very much on edge. She didn’t let go of my hand as she guided me deeper into the woods.

“This will be slightly safer, I think,” she said.

We trekked through the untamed and uneven jungle, keeping away from any noticeable paths. Other people may have come around at some point or another, in smaller or larger numbers, for a variety of reasons. Some may have survived. Others perhaps had died, while the rest would have scattered upon dealing with Joy’s many hidden traps. But the forest floor seemed to have remembered them all, keeping their paths from being swallowed by the sprawling ferns with succulent-like leaves.

“Have you told Death telepathically about this place? Or about Joy? I mean, about you knowing about it?” I asked as we carefully advanced through the wilderness, the glow persistently following us around.

“No. I want to see what it’s like first. I want to see it for myself. To maybe understand why she kept it a secret, why she lied about the soul fae’s demise.”

“But you will tell her, right? I doubt Joy will keep this a secret,” I said.

“Of course. I do wonder if she’ll be okay with me taking the Mixer.” Unending chuckled. But that raised a different question for me.

“What if she says no?”

Unending stopped, giving me a sideways glance. “I’m not sure what we’ll do. We can still try to take it and deal with the consequences later. Let’s see what this place is about first. Then we’ll handle Death.”

“But if we don’t or can’t get the Mixer, what then?” The prospect of halting the mission here bothered me more than I’d originally thought it would.

“Then we’ll stop our quest,” she said. “And we’ll adopt. I’ll find a way to exist with this yearning. Maybe a child of another world will keep me busy enough to stop my mind from crumbling. I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers, my love. Let’s just take this one step at a time and see where it leads.”

Finally, we reached a clearing that looked rather strange. It was empty, and the air rippled all around it. I needed no magical skills to figure