Page 9 of Tangled Fates

Immense pain radiated from my shoulder as I felt pressure in my wound, making my legs buckle and my vision go blurry until everything disappeared for a moment. Usually at this point I had already healed completely.

“Drink.” Soren pushed a bag in my face as I opened my eyes, seeing Ryder still in front of me.

The smell of blood made my mouth water as I quickly drank from the straw. The blood was rich on my tongue, tasting like the best thing I had ever had, instantly replenishing my body. My vision returned sharper, my limbs didn’t feel sluggish and even though my wound wasn’t healing, it was less painful.

I finished the blood pouch ready for another one, maybe even two, but I knew we would have to ration these out for who knows how long. Hopefully we could find a food source so we could keep our supply untouched, but I didn’t want to risk putting us in that position.

“Come on, I’ll carry you while we let that work its magic,” Ryder said, bending down to pick me up.

“I’m good,” I said, giving the bag to Soren.

“Gray,” Soren chastised me.

“Let’s keep moving,” I said, walking even though my legs felt shaky with exhaustion.

I felt their eyes on me as they followed, but we didn’t have time to argue.

“As soon as we find a good spot far away, you are resting,” Ryder said, walking beside me as Soren pulled up the rear.

“You got it, boss,” I said, hoping it was sooner than later.

As vampires, we don’t need a lot of sleep. We can sleep, but it isn’t out of necessity. As soon as we found a spot to hunker down though, I immediately passed out. It wasn’t until the next afternoon that I woke up feeling refreshed that they told me I was out for almost two days.

“I’ve never slept for so long,” I said, putting on a new shirt.

“We all slept that long,” Soren said, sitting on a log. “Whatever was in that spell either zapped our energy or the magic that makes us who we are has been suppressed. I can barely feel myself getting back to normal.”

“They have to be hiding more valuables behind such a powerful spell,” Ryder said, biting a piece of beef jerky. “I still can’t feel my wolf and it’s making me feel antsy.”

“I don’t feel at a hundred percent, but I feel a lot better than two days ago,” I said, attempting to run and sure enough I was faster, but not as fast as I normally was.

“Good thing no one followed us while we were passed out,” Ryder grumbled looking around. “We would have been screwed if someone found us while we were incapacitated. I’m sure we still have the magical signature and they could have seen it was us or the culprits who tried to steal from the shop.”

“Small miracles,” Soren said, getting a few things out of his bag with a map and his phone, which he immediately tried using, but I didn’t think we would get any service down here. “Dammit, no service down here.”

Grabbing the map, I looked at it, immediately spotting the area we should be in, but the map was blank. Nothing was put in the spot we had fallen off and every other map that we had was blank where there should have been a gorge or even a mountain range.

“This feels purposely left out or no one has had time to actually map out this area,” I said, going back and forth between two maps trying to get a rough idea of where we had landed.

“Or no one has survived to record their findings,” Soren said with a grin, always catastrophizing every situation immaculately.

Ryder laughed while I rolled my eyes.

“You’re a ray of sunshine,” I said, looking back at the maps to find the best way out of here.

“I’m just being realistic, we don’t know what’s down here and I wouldn’t be surprised if we found something dangerous,” Soren said, leaning back against a rock, like he was on vacation, soaking in the sun.

“He’s not wrong,” Ryder said, looking through his pack. “It's awfully suspicious that this isn’t on any major map we own.”

“Looks like we might make money on this,” I said, pulling out a map that gave me the best view of the mountains on either side of us. “I’m sure we can sell this to a couple of cartographers who’d love to know what’s down here.”

“Lindsey might know of one,” Ryder said, leaning over my shoulder.

“Perfect, let's make sure we don’t die,” I said, just as a loud roar sounded in the distance.

We all looked in the direction it came from, then at each other. Whatever the hell we had just heard could be the reason no one had ever mapped out this area.

“Dammit, I hate being right,” Soren said, getting up to set up a perimeter.

---