Page 216 of Red Ruin

---

That icy flip that makes it hard to breathe.

Fear.

Fuck.

She turned me human.

I grind my fang as the greasy-ass shadows take hold.

I can lose myself.

And we can lose Azridon fucking purpose.

ButIris.

Iris has to survive.

CHAPTER51

IRIS

Simms and Tanare waiting for us in the tunnel to hell. I’m ready to apologize for wasting time, but Tan’s lips are more swollen than mine.

I guess we all needed a few minutes.

I clear my throat. “How far are we from the lich?”

“Hard to tell,” Simms says, shifting his feet through the loosened rock. “There’s a cave system. Feels pretty twisty, but I can punch through walls, and that death aura is like a fucking beacon. I’ll drop us vertical here, and we can track the rest of the way through the caves. But what happens when we meet the monster?”

He turns to me. So does Tan.

Vhex and Remy don’t have to turn—they never stopped looking.

A shiver rolls down my spine.

I’m not going to let them down.

Luckily, I knoweverythingabout liches.

“We’ll face the lich king’s guardians,” I begin. “They’ll be stronger as we move closer to the lich king’s host body. Trolls. Wyverns. Sentinels.” I shudder.That’s just the start. “Expect to be reunited with all the monsters whose corpses you didn’t burn.”

Vhex huffs for attention.

I pat his horn. “I know. You burned yours.”

Thank the stars. His hellfire may have halved the number of enemies in our path.

“Simms will slow the mobs,” Remy says, rolling a shadow between his long fingers. “I’ll bind and decapitate those that can be killed. Trezzoran?—”

“Admit it,” he interrupts with a devilish grin. “You’d be fucked without my fire.”

“Vhex.” Just a touch of his hot, toned forearm, and Vhex’s full focus slingshots to me.

“Iris,” he says huskily.

His soul clings as if one drop of my attention is better than anything else in the world.

It makes me want to cling back.

---