Page 32 of Mountain Man's Muse
Closer now, the black dogs howled, as if in agreement.
Raze lifted his head. “You are more of a menace here than gone. So go.” He stepped aside.
Without another word, Josh dragged her past the vizier.
She glanced back once before Raze vanished behind the curve of the hall. Gray on gray, he should have seemed part of the corridor itself. Instead, he seemed to float, cut off.
She shuddered. She had been that lonely too. But no more.
She gripped Josh’s hand as they fled.
A blast of light from behind them rattled the hall and she stumbled. Josh dropped the spear to haul her upright. Before he could grab the weapon again, a chunk of the ceiling fell toward them.
She yanked him onward as the corridor shuddered with crashing debris.
There was only one way out now. They ran.
Until the next curve brought them to a wall of steel.
Chapter 13
Josh slapped his hand against the doorway. It was a double door, floor to ceiling, the giant padlock in the middle beautifully executed in heavy brushed steel.
And very, very locked.
He took Adelyn’s hand and whirled her to one side as he yanked the pistol from his waistband.
“Josh, no—”
He fired a round into the lock.
The iron bullet ricocheted with a screaming whine and buried itself in the wall opposite them.
“Damn,” he muttered.
“Not everything fae is an illusion.”
“Too bad the lock is one of the real things.” He stared back the way they had come. “No sense digging out right into the mouths of those devil dogs, but the rubble won’t hold them for long.”
Adelyn touched his hand. “Can you put the gun away? The iron…”
With another curse, he tucked the pistol in the back of his jeans. “Sorry. I forgot.”
She averted her gaze. “What I am must shock you.”
“I knew you were fae.”
“I mean...” She brushed one hand over her bare shoulder where scales dappled her skin. “When you saw the skin in the toadstool ring, you said ‘damn snakes’.”
He dragged one hand through his hair and glanced at her sidelong. “Is that why you left?”
“I couldn’t hide what I am.”
“Adelyn—”
“I don’t mean just the hair.” She wrapped her arms around herself. Even the serpents seemed to coil protectively tighter. “By leading the imp to the valley, I wrecked Vaile’s refuge. I only wanted to save myself, but you saved me instead. I might as well have been a snake without hands I was so useless. You showed me how to use my hands—to touch, to make, to hold—and I wanted to show you…” She caught her breath.
Slowly, he spun on his boot heel to face her. More slowly yet, avoiding the serpents, he raised his hands to frame her face. Under his fingertips, the scales at her temples were silky-smooth, like polished stone but yielding.
