Page 105 of Cursed Shadows 2

Samick’s back jolts with a silent scoff. But he daren’t make a sound, and he keeps the small smile hidden from Rune as they all spear off from the mouth of the cavern.

Rune huffs as he crouches at the bed of a rock pile. He starts to finger through the stones.

Daxeel sighs an exhausted sound, then makes for a different pile. He, too, might have laughed—if they weren’t in a fucking dragon cave, with every litalf warrior on this side of the portal hunting him down.

They each find a pile, and in mere seconds, the sound of rocks rustling, stones falling, pebbles being tossed aside and hitting walls, floods the chamber—that, and crushing bone and torn flesh as the hatchlings devour Prit.

“Found one.” Dare’s flippant murmur startles the others.

Daxeel frowns over his shoulder. The disbelief is etched into every line of his face, but sure enough, Dare has a black, polished-type pebble impaled on his finger—his middle finger, and he aims it right at Rune.

Rune’s pale lip twitches, then he turns his back on him. He starts on his rock heap again—but with the rush of rocks falling, Daxeel suspects he’s looking a bit faster now.

It’s Samick who says, “Your hunting skills might sometimes amaze me.”

Dare pockets the dragon eye, then starts to rifle through the pile again for more. “Don’t be coy, brother.Iamaze you.”

Still fingering through fragments of rock and cliff, Daxeel doesn’t need to look back to know Samick has become frost all over again. Refocused, he has returned to his search efforts.

Daxeel does the same. Reaching out his gloved fingers, he swipes away a dusty layer of debris from the edge of a boulder, then rifles through that small stack for a shiny black pebble with a natural hole carved into its centre.

Some more moments pass by, hearing rocks rustle and flesh being torn from bone as the hatchlings devour Prit.

Then, Dare’s voice comes slick with a smile, “Got another.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Rune’s hiss echoes through the chamber. “You did not find a second.”

Dare lifts his middle finger again, and there is another. “Tell me how much you envy me. I like the flirtations as much as I like the hunt.”

Samick’s icy voice murmurs, “He would sooner tell Daxeel how much he fancies his sister.”

Instant tension bolts Daxeel’s muscles to his bones. A ripple runs through him, his upper lip curling back. “Shut up and focus on the dragon eyes. Two of them is not enough for all five of us.”

With that, the chat is stomped out.

Dare runs his narrowed golden eyes over the pile. His nose wrinkles, as though he’s sniffing the air above the rocks and stones and pebbles—then he shoves back and stands. “This pile is dead.”

A growl catches in Rune’s throat, but it doesn’t do more than sweep a smile over Dare’s face, and he advances on him anyway.

“One should never be too embarrassed to ask for help,” Dare says with a tut, then kneels for Rune’s stack. “Unless, of course, you’re a dark male—in which case, this must be awfully embarrassing for you.”

Some growls come from the pair across the cavern. Daxeeldoesn’t look back at them, but he can picture their pushing and shoving vividly, because it’s all the two of them ever do.

Then, when the roughing dies down, it takes Dare mere fucking minutes to find a third anchor.

Rune and Dare don’t stop bickering. But together, they hunt for a fourth—and maybe Rune rushes his search to at least find one of the five needed.

But Samick’s the next to call out, “Another. That’s four.”

Then himself, Daxeel brushes dust of a particularly gloomy dragon eye. His grim stare bores through it for only a moment before he pushes up to his feet.

He doesn’t yet announce it.

Instead, he runs his gaze over the backs of Rune and Dare, seeing how the latter blows dust in Rune’s face, living to wind him like a clock. Samick is tossing little stones over his shoulder, his pace as glacier as his energy.

Then he looks to the nest, where Prit’s body is—orwas, since it’s mostly devoured now, boots and leathers, too. A fleeting thought of cannibalism passes through his mind. Leathers of dragons, now food for dragons.

Daxeel eyes the gnawed bones and torn flesh with distance in his eyes.

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