Page 20 of Wolf Bitten

My arms and legs burned, but the climb wasn’t as awful as I’d feared.

When we got out from directly under the waterfall, he started making his way down more quickly.

“I’ll tell you when to move and help guide your feet.” He climbed down farther.

I moved to where he’d been a second before and waited for his command. The wind picked up. I shivered, and my teeth began to chatter. I hadn’t been this cold in a long time.

“Okay, lower your right foot six inches,” he commanded from below. “You’ll feel something smooth you can brace it on.”

Gritting my teeth, I followed his instructions, but I couldn’t find the groove. Then my fingers slipped. “Slade,” I said urgently.

“You’re almost there,” he assured me. “Just keep moving.”

That was the thing. It wasn’t happening. “I’m slip—”

Before I could finish that sentence, my hands lost their grip.

Not wanting to land on him, I pushed off with my legs, missing him by mere inches, and fell toward the rocky and shallow edge of the pond over a hundred feet below.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Ifell backward, my eyes locked with Slade’s as the wind rushed past me. With death rushing toward me, I couldn’t feel the cold anymore.

That strange presence churned inside me while my blood remained calm, mixing with the warmth of what could only be hope in my chest.

Slade lifted a hand, and his face twisted with fear as he focused on me.

He was going to watch me die.

Somehow, that made it worse.

I closed my eyes and imagined Raffe, not wanting Slade’s face to be my last memory, and water surrounded me. My back stung from the impact, but the water forced my body to slope downward like I was riding a wave to the center of the deep pond.

Slade.

He’d used his magic to save me.

As my body became immersed in the water, the wave settled back without even a ripple. I wasn’t sure how that was possible, but the respect I had for Slade and his abilities grew. There was no way an amateur could’ve done that.

In the still water, my body sank. The wounds on my neck burned, and my eyes smarted. I surfaced and gasped, treading water. My blood was eerily calm. Normally, it would’ve been fizzing. I feared that maybe my loss of blood was making me woozy.

How bad would it be to drown after what Slade had done to save me? I didn’t need to help my bad luck out by forgetting to swim.

As I paddled to the bank, the wound on my wrist stung, but I bit the inside of my cheek, needing to make it out of the pond. There was no telling how fast the vampires and the witches could break through the rock, and Slade and I couldn’t fight them off much longer, especially with Slade climbing down the rocky edge with broken ribs. I suspected if he could’ve used his magic, he would’ve used his connection to water to help us escape faster. He must have used up most of his magic by helping me.

I reached the edge of the pond and clutched onto grass, roots, and weeds to hoist myself onto dry land. My limbs felt like heavy weights. My wrists and neck burned, and the fatigue from the blood loss and the exertion was catching up to me. Then, the sound of rocks jostling behind the waterfall had that presence inside me surging forward, forcing me up to my full height.

The vampires and Glinda were working on getting out. I didn’t have time to rest.

I studied the waterfall. The water poured continuously, making the area behind it hard to see, but even if it hadn’t, the illusion spell hiding the entrance meant I wouldn’t be able to see what was happening.

Slade was close to the bottom, his movements jerky, revealing his pain.

The sensation in my chest increased in warmth, making my body ache. The yearning sensation was most definitely not my feeling.

I hurried around the pond to reach Slade. He needed assistance, and even though I was weak, I had to help him. He was the reason I was free.

As I reached the edge, he lost his grip and slid the remaining ten feet down. His face hit the rock, reopening the wound on his nose, and he tried to gain traction against the wall with his fingers, bloodying the tips.

---