Page 26 of Cruel Vampire King

“Grindylows,” I said aloud, turning to the others. “They like to snatch children and small animals. Guess they took the packs.”

“And how come none of us saw anything?” Greyson narrowed his eyes at me.

Kael cleared his throat. “The little devils are well camouflaged. Pretend to be rocks most times. And in the dark…” He let out a heavy sigh and shook his head.

Ysara fingered her sword. “Are they good eating?”

“I wouldn’t know,” I answered.

She grunted. “Right. Grindylows stay in the water, right? So even if we get our packs, the food will be waterlogged. So much for stretching our stores.”

A thought occurred to me, and my heart jumped to my throat. “The map! Thessa, you had the artifact. Did you—”

She pulled it out from under her shirt and I breathed a sigh of relief. At least we hadn’t lost it along with everything else. My shoulders slumped forward as I sank to the ground. Based onthe progress we’d been making, we were still a few days out from the center of the forest. Food, we could get by, I was sure.

Water, however? Could all five of us subsist with two waterskins? No. Especially since we didn’t know when we’d get the chance to get more water.

“We need to get our packs back,” I said, drawing myself back up. “Grindylows live in more marshy areas. We’ll have to search around the river for bullrushes. They’ll have stashed the packs in them.”

Ysara turned her face toward the sky.

“Can’t we just push on through? We’re not that far,” Thessa said. There was a note of exhaustion in her voice I didn’t like. That’s how it started, the end. Being so tired that you started to make reckless decisions. It always seemed like the end was just around the corner.

As I turned to try to explain, though, Greyson sat next to her. “I know, it’s hard. You just want this over. The waiting, the struggle. The fear. Oh, so much fear,” he murmured, his voice low and soothing. He squeezed her shoulder lightly, and Thessa shuddered delicately. The tension eased from her face. Her shadowed eyes brightened slightly. “It’s not easy to keep going when we’re so afraid. But we have to keep going. And we have to be smart about it. The vampires don’t care if we live or die. So we have to care. For ourselves.”

What did the people watching our channels think about that? For a moment, I imagined Luken, glowering at the screen as I watched Greyson and Thessa. For his sake, I allowed a soft smile onto my face, and I crouched near them. I put my hand over Greyson’s. His skin was soft and warm.

“We should get moving quickly, if we’re going to get those packs back before noon,” I said. “We shouldn’t searchalone. Grindylows might specialize in children, but they’ll take an adult if they can get them alone. Thessa and I will search downstream.”

Greyson met my gaze. I thought he was going to offer to come with us, but he only nodded. He turned his hand, pressing his palm into mine. A slight tingle shivered up my arm. I let my fingers move down his wrist slightly. The reaction to him was so slight in comparison to what I knew my body could do.

Ugh. I didn’t want to think about that again. I pulled away.

Thessa and I headed downstream while the other three went upstream. I was glad that neither Kael or Ysara had decided to come with us. I wanted a chance to talk with Thessa alone.

“When we’re out of this forest, I’m going to have such a long, hot bath that I turn into a prune,” Thessa said as we walked along the rocky shore. “I’ve never done such hard work in my life!”

I’d meant to ask her more about her life before the Blood Trials, but her words brought me up short. She was looking forward with such hope. Didn’t she remember that we weren’t finished yet? There was still the colosseum. It was something I hadn’t forgotten, even when I put it from my mind.

Cruelty. It was the only explanation I could think of for why we’d been forced to rely so heavily on each other through Wickham Forest, only to turn on each other once we reached the end. Luken was a cruel, cruel man.

All at once, I knew that he was laughing behind his screen. He didn’t care about the little games I played, touching Greyson, or any of it. This was more punishment. I stumbled over my feet, and Thessa caught my elbow.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Slippery there,” I lied.

Why hadn’t I thought of it before? He was still punishing me! He didn’t care if I died in the attack on my family. And that night when he took me to the palace, that was to see if I would bow to his wishes. He sent me back to punish me for turning him down. It was all just the same thing. Of course, he was going to leave me in the Trials, because how else was he going to make me suffer for telling him no?

“Thessa,” I said, drawing to a stop. “Before… now, you asked me something. About when we entered the colosseum.”

Thessa’s brown eyes darkened. She looked away quickly. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

I didn’t either. But I had to. I took a deep breath, reaching for her hand. “Thessa, please. It’s too important. None of us are going to hesitate once we’re in the colosseum. You can’t, either.”

“I’m not meant for this. And even if I was to survive…” Her hands clenched into fists as she looked up at me, her eyes fiery. “I don’t want him to drink from me. I don’t want anymandrinking from me. I’d rather die.”

The intensity of her words caught me off guard. I almost asked why but stopped myself. It didn’t matter why. It just meant that she wasn’t planning on surviving the colosseum. Maybe I should have suspected her of lying, but there was too much conviction in her voice. She didn’t want that. She didn’t want to survive to move to the next Trial.

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