Page 53 of The Princesses of Ruin
I peek at her from between my fingers with a muffled “Sure.”
“She caught him rubbing antlers with a pine.” She raises her eyebrows at me. “Get it?”
I sigh. “Yes, I get it.”
She grins and I see my wife again. My heart stutters at her beauty, and I know I have to keep her here in this moment.
“One more,” I say.
“How do you know if a duskwalker is male or female?”
I scowl. “How?”
“Cut yourself and run through the forest. If the only thing hard is on their heads, you’ve got a girl!”
“That’s not always true.”A voice like groaning wood in a torrential wind drifts down our trap hallway.
I let myself get lost in her and didn’t hear the creature’s approach. I open my demon senses and listen for movement. There’s nothing beyond the crackling fire and the howling wind.
Lily’s face is pale, but she swallows and wets her lips. “Oh, is that so?”
“Females have hard claws, too.”
The voice is behind us now, well within range of my wards, yet none have been triggered. I look over my shoulder, my hand flexing on the hilt of my axe as my demonic eyes overtake my vision. There’s nothing beyond the firelight but our runes carefully hidden in the walls of stone and ice.
Lily harumphs, the sound forced. “You just didn’t get the joke, I guess.”
The voice bounces from side to side, encircling us.“Are you trying to baaait me?”
I lurch forward, ready to protect Lily, but she holds up a hand to stop me. I want to see my enemy, and the denial of that has my ire rising. But my wife is clever. She knows what she’s doing.
“What if I am?”
The voice snickers like the clacks of summer cicadas.“Then you are very stupid. Why have you come?”
I hunt through the cavern with all my senses, searching for any sign of the monster, but there’s none.
“We’re on a quest,” she says, reaching into her bag. “We need to collect items.”
“Iteemmmssss.”The sound is like rustling leaves in the fall.
Lily pulls out a tonic mixture of pain dampener and calming draught. Scarlett warned it could easily kill the drinker if they can’t sense their own body’s limitations, and for a fraction, I worry for her.
“Why have you come to my domain? What itemsss could you be seeking here in the desolate lands?”
Lily takes a sip, then passes the bottle to me. I shake my head. I need to keep my senses.
She swallows. “How rude of me not to invite you to our fire. Please, visitor, join us.”
Vibrations of laughter bounce off the walls. It sounds like a man now, instead of the wilds. Shadows flicker and pull my attention. None of them are the monster we’re hunting.
“You invite me to your fire?”
Lily opens her arm to the spot beside her on the stone. “It was poor manners to not invite you sooner. Very unprincessly.”
“Princess,” the voice murmurs from the end of the cave.
Its form appears, cast in the stark shadows of our camp. I raise my hand to block the glare of the fire and narrow my gaze on it. Lily made the cave nine feet tall to accommodate my full demon form and still the creature must hunch over. Its antlers scrape the top and it turns its head side to side, as if sharpening its rack. The noise is grating on my patience. My hands itch for blood.
