Page 8 of Tangled Fates

Right now, I was regretting my decision to join his band of thievery. Our information on Laima’s was either outdated or we were being set up. Currently I was trying to run at my vampire speed only to run like a normal person. The shop was protected against every supernatural, shooting each of us with something that neutralized our abilities and released giant trolls. Now I knew how Ryder felt being so slow.

“We need to split up!” Ryder yelled, looking over his shoulder.

“No, we need to stay together,” I yelled back, grabbing a small knife from the holster on my chest and throwing it at one of the trolls. “We need to find a place to hide.”

Soren grabbed my arm as I grabbed Ryder taking a sharp left into the woods behind the small town, the shop was in. This felt like a really dumb idea since we were not familiar with the area, but I couldn't think of anything better.

“Fuck!” Soren yelled when a troll cut us off, swinging his giant mallet at us.

I pushed Soren forward before dragging Ryder to our right, barely missing the mallet. We rolled as I grabbed a small vial of acid from my tactical vest, throwing it at the troll to slow them down. Soren climbed another troll, producing a short sword and stabbing him in the neck before jumping off to run with us.

Another troll and a few men were quickly right behind us when I heard a roar knowing one of them was going to swing at us. Then I noticed the cliff. We were running too fast with nowhere to go.

“Jump!” Ryder yelled.

My instinct was to stop immediately, but I pushed through that feeling jumping as far as I could over the ledge. The sound of an arrow flew past me, a sting and then pain radiated from my shoulder. I grunted as we free fell, wondering what the hell Ryder had up his sleeve.

It was a long drop and the closer the ground came to us, the further my heart creeped into my throat. About a hundred feet from the ground Ryder threw something on the group. A gust of wind shot up at us, lowering our speed and making our fall less

impactful.

I rolled away from my injured shoulder, looking up to see no one was following us.

“That information was fucked,” Ryder growled. “Who the fuck gave us that information?”

“Joseph,” I growled. “Or his sister.”

“That fucking asshole. Did you pay him for it?” Ryder sat up, looking at me.

“Half now and half when the information came through.” I gritted my teeth against the pain in my shoulder as I sat up. “Soren?”

I looked over to see him on his back with his arm over his face. A moment of panic hit me before he grumbled something about heights and how he hated trolls. I chuckled feeling the lightning sharp sting radiate in my shoulder.

Ryder stood up looking around us, on high alert. We had no idea where the hell we were and unfortunately, I hadn’t studied the maps of the surrounding area because I thought the information we had been given was going to be fine. That was my mistake, and I wouldn’t make it again.

“Where the hell are we?” Soren said, scanning our surroundings.

“I don’t know,” I said, getting up, turning to Soren so he could pull out the arrow. He had a gash on his face, probably from an arrow.

He pulled it out quickly, the squelching sound of blood was the only sound we heard in the gorge we were in.

“Fuck,” I growled.

“Our only bet is to walk that way,” Ryder said, pointing just ahead of us. “Since we can’t use our powers yet, we better get moving before one of the trolls or the men that were with them decide to come down to make sure we are dead.”

“How long do you think we will be powerless for?” Soren started walking. “It’s such an awful feeling to be so slow like you Ryder.”

“Screw you. I don’t know, the longest void spell I’ve seen is two weeks, but that would be too expensive for a shop owner, but I might be wrong.” Ryder walked next to him as I pulled up the rear, the steady stream of blood wasn’t slowing down.

“Someone is going to have to stanch the bleeding in my shoulder,” I said, feeling sluggish, my limbs felt heavy, my body was shutting down.

My vampire healing had been affected, and an unfamiliar feeling was washing over me. As long as I was fed, I never tired and I never had a wound that didn’t heal.

“Shit, without his power, he won’t heal,” Soren said, coming up to me, turning around so he could see the wound. “He’s bleeding too much; we need somewhere to stop for a moment so he can feed, and I can dress his wound.”

“Dammit,” Ryder whispered, holding me while I felt Soren unsnap my tactical vest and cut my shirt. “Pack his wound quickly and I’ll carry him until we can get far enough away where they hopefully won’t follow.”

“This fucking sucks,” I slurred, but Ryder looked at me like I had said something in French.

---