Page 13 of Tangled Fates

Jealousy blazed within me. She was always so touchy with him and it drove me insane. He looked back at her with a knowing look, before hardening into a scowl. The lapse was so short that I almost thought I saw it incorrectly. He then looked over at me with disinterest before he and the men left.

My heart started to race like I had found out a secret, but I didn’t know what secret I had found.

“Oria!”

I flinched at Mother’s loud yell.

“I’m sorry, what?”

She examined my face like she was trying to hear my thoughts.

“Why must you be so rude to our guest?” she snapped. “Tay puts a lot on the line to help us sell the vials, the least you could do was be nice.”

“What do you mean he does a lot?” I asked, trying to remain calm. “All he does is pick it up.”

“Everything we have is because of him. Who do you think distributes this for us? Takes the risk to sell it? Give us advances and makes sure we are comfortable here?”

I stared at Mother, feeling like I was missing something.

“The risk of selling it?” I didn’t understand the risk.

“Your power is a commodity, selling isn’t easy and he constantly puts himself in danger to help us sell it,” she snapped at me. “He’s also the only person we can trust with this, his men are under a blood oath and he’s the only man who can keep our secret. If people knew he knew about you, he would probably be a dead man and where would we be able to live? Tay is the only man able to come in and out of this mountain range.”

“I did not know,” I said, wondering what else he did for us and why he would do it.

What was in it for him?

“Next time, be a little more grateful,” she snapped. “I will be gone for two weeks and when I return, I expect you not to get lazy with your chores. I also expect a shipment to be ready.”

They usually came every three weeks and now it looked like all I would be doing while she was gone was make more vials. Alone… all alone.

6

SOREN

There were many reasons why this dreadful place hadn’t been put on a map. It was fucking volatile and everything tried to kill you here. I was perched on a rock as Ryder got some sleep and Gray was out working on the maps.

We had been here for two weeks and we hadn’t found a way out. We tried climbing the first few days, but we almost got killed by a creature that had the head of a tiger, but the body of a spider.

It was terrifying when five of them appeared. I didn’t even want to chance climbing with my vampire speed and find myself in one of their stomachs. That wasn’t the most terrifying thing we had encountered, and it wasn't even an animal. It was a plant. Imagine Venus Fly Traps having tentacles and razor-sharp teeth. My body shuddered as I remembered being dragged towards its mouth before Ryder saved me.

We had tried traveling at night or during the day, but no matter what time it was, this land was dangerous. I had no idea how we had survived, but we were running out of magical artifacts and the worst part… blood. We didn’t think we were going to be gone for this long, overconfident because there had never been a job that had given us a problem like this. We had been in some tough situations, but all it took was to regroup and hash out a few things and we made it work. We always made it work.

I sighed louder than I intended.

“We will get out of here,” Gray said, as papers rustled around him.

“I know we will, but what happens when we run out of food?” I asked, keeping the concern out of my voice.

“We can always eat Ryder and just us two can escape,” he deadpanned.

I barked out a laugh, quickly covering my mouth.

“When in doubt, eat your friend,” I said, when I recovered from laughing.

“Exactly,” he agreed, biting his bottom lip. “Worst-case scenario we need to have a talk with him about feeding from him.”

The thought about feeding from Ryder made me feel uneasy, but if we didn’t, we could end up killing him during our bloodlust.

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