Demon of Darkness (The Hellbound Hellion #2) - Tansey Morgan Page 0,19
them to stop him. He got us all.”
I paused. “You said you were far out… but that Wretched, Relevir, he was in the city. How long do you think it’s been since you were swallowed?”
“I don’t know, but the Wretched can cover huge distances in a short span of time, which is why I’m worried about where we might be.”
“We need to put down… I need to rest.”
Isla nodded. “I’ve been saying that for a while, but you’re just as stubborn as ever.”
The mountaintop I had wanted to land on had whizzed past, and so had another three. I had pushed myself further than I had meant to, squeezing every ounce of energy out of my muscles. But now I was done. I didn’t have another few minutes of flight left in me… but then I saw it, and so did Isla.
It was only a spot—a rigid, white blotch against an otherwise dark, mostly green mountain. Then I saw the path, winding through the trees. Isla pointed, and I almost thought I could feel her heart leaping into her throat.
“What’s that?!” she yelped, pointing.
“It looks like a house to me, what about you?”
“And a road! I don’t see a city, though.”
“No. Looks like we found a needle in a haystack. Hold on.”
Invigorated, I swooped lower, feeling the rush of the wind through my hair and against my face. The closer I got to the house, the more I started picking out its features. It was small, but there were lights, a driveway, a car. Next to the house was a large wooden pole with cables jutting out of it, cables that raced along the winding road leading toward and away from the house.
It was the only house in the area, that I could tell—the only house I had seen in this entire forest so far—and we had found it. With any luck, they had a phone, or at the very least a way of figuring out where we were. Hope filled me, radiating from inside of me like a hearth burning inside of my chest.
“When we set down,” I said, “I want you to wait while I do all the talking… okay?”
“You want me to wait?” Isla asked.
“Yes. I need to determine if the people in that house can be trusted.”
“With all due respect, Prince, if you want those people to trust us, you let me speak to them.”
“You?”
“Yes, me. I’m human-born, and I look like a woman who’s just been through hell and back. I’ll be able to talk to them a little more convincingly than you might.”
“I’m going to try not to take that personally. I still don’t think you’re in any condition to do… anything.”
“You saved my life, and you’ve carried me this far. I’m going to care of this… understood?”
Grumbling as I set us down near the house, I let Isla go. “Remind me never to introduce you to Cari.”
She turned around to look at me. “You know, that’s the second time you’ve mentioned that name. Who is that?”
“Just… someone.”
Isla cocked an eyebrow, then knelt to the ground and scooped some dirt into her hands. “Just someone? Or someone important?”
I paused. “Someone important.”
“Then in that case, I very much want to meet her.” Isla stood up again and smeared some of the dirt against her face, her chest, and her arms. She still had a lot of slime on her body, and though it had all turned hard and crusty, it was still going to be harder to explain that than the dirt she was covering herself in.
“Then I should very much like to meet her,” she said. “How do I look?”
“Like you just crawled out of the earth.”
“Good. Now, you can wait here, and I’ll go deal with the humans.”
Isla straightened her back, shook her shoulders, and her wings started to fall away like mist. I realized I had seen that before. I had done that before. She’d glamored her wings away the same way Cari was able to glamor hers. Until then, I hadn’t even known it was possible to hide our wings, but Isla made it look natural.
“Is that… a human-born thing?” I asked.
“Huh?” she turned her head to look at me, puzzled.
“Never mind. Go, I’ll wait.”
Nodding, Isla emerged from the wooded area onto the dirt road leading up to the cottage ahead of us. It was getting dark, but the lights that were on gave off a warm, inviting glow. I realized then that I was getting hungry, and I could absolutely