Page 50 of Red Ruin

“Iris. I won’t forget.”

Uh huh.

Just like he won’t go straight for my closest artery the next time he has a mighty thirst.

I stroke his shadows anyway. “Go. Help Vhex. I’ll be right here.”

Remy snags my wrist, licks my pulse, then smirks and disappears.

Vampire spit tickles.

I wipe it off on my pants.

Using my glaive’s pole as a support against the uneven floor, I creep to watch the battle.

I don’t see Remy.

In his pyro-devil form, with hellfire hiding all but the outline of his body, Vhex hurls himself and columns of liquid flame at the monsters.

He jumps from island to island in the lava lake. The painful vibration of his energy leaves me gritting my teeth.

I thought he was in rough shape, fighting those kobolds.

This Vhex singes my spirit from a distance. I can’t even sense the most primitive lizard brain in the pattern of his thoughts.

He doesn’t think at all. Just reacts.

My pussy might not be magic enough to save him.

But we’ll try our best.

I scope a path from island to island, planning how to reach him from my perch. Only, one of those islands isn’t an island.

It’s a craggy nose.

The humped shapes that pop from the lava are all the bouldery pieces of defeated trolls.

My heart pangs.

Vhex may be utterly bananas, but while I was sleeping and getting shadow head, the Sentinel was battling alone in the dark.

He needs his own Guide.

For as long as he’s mine, I ache to save him and find out what kind of man is hiding beneath that horn.

A cave-shaking troll roar almost makes me drop my glaive. I shift the pole to my elbow and cover my ears.

Shadow blades stab at the smallest rock troll’s eyes. It bellows and swings, trying to swat the fly.

Remy’s shadows coil between the other trolls’ toes. The monsters are so massive, the shadows can’t stop them, only slow them down.

But if Vhex cooperates?—

I realize how fucking stupid I am the second Vhex launches a fireball.

Ignoring his actual enemies, that banana-horned bastard aims straight for the vampire.

I’m guessing Remy has already forgotten my name along with the rest of his vocabulary. He abandons the trolls to dive-bomb Vhex in a magic attack that rattles the cavern.

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