Page 67 of Wolf Queen Ruin
I continued falling, the darkness rushing past me, and still the memories came.
A different crypt, this one covered with a strange glowing orange moss.A woman with dark braided hair holding a small child while sitting on a rock formation away from the moss while examining her bare feet.“Fuck, Luna, I think it climbed into my boots.”Her friend’s eyes rolling back in her head as she and the child in her arms went limp simultaneously.Luna’s panic, immediate and visceral.
The memory fragmented, replaced by impressions rather than clear images—Luna’s desperate research, countless dead ends, the growing shadows beneath her eyes, the dwindling of her bank account, the frantic calls to specialists who couldn’t help.
Until Dr.Felix at the Repository.
I’d seen countless humans die over my centuries.I’d caused many of those deaths myself.Yet the thought that formed as I fell was not of my own impending impact, but of Luna failing in her quest to save her daughter and friend because I wasn’t there to help her.
To protect her.
To save her.
Something lashed around my torso, jerking me to an abrupt halt that would have broken ribs had I been human.The leather strap cinched tight, cutting into my chest and arms, the burn of friction against my skin a welcome reminder that I was still in one piece.
I looked up.Luna’s headlamp created a halo of light above me, her face a mixture of strain and fierce concentration as she braced herself against a stone pillar, the whip that had caught me secured around it to create a crude pulley system.Sweat glistened on her skin, and her hair had come loose from its braid, framing her face in wild tendrils that caught the light like filaments of gold and copper.
“Gotcha,” she grunted, her muscles trembling with the effort.
Caught between up and down, I shifted my gaze downward.Twenty feet below, the darkness was punctuated by dozens of wooden stakes, their sharpened points aimed upward like the teeth of some colossal beast.They were made of heartwood, lethal to vampires even if—especiallyif—one didn’t catch me in the heart.A single puncture would mean true death.
“Damien,” Luna called, her voice strained.“A little help?You’re not exactly lightweight.Try to swing to the wall and climb up.”
I shook off my momentary paralysis and grasped the whip, preparing to swing myself.“I’m coming.Hold steady.”
“No other choice,” she gritted out.“This pillar feels about as stable as my credit score, so let’s get on with it.”
“Right.”I began to swing, the leather whip slick beneath my palms.
Except I didn’t have enough slack to reach the jagged stone wall several feet away.Despite the narrow hole I’d fallen through, this cavern was enormous.I wrenched at the leather whip around my torso to give me a few more inches, but it had cinched tight.
“Luna, I need more slack,” I called.
“Um…” Her gaze flicked behind her to the stone pillar.“Shit.”
Tremors ran through her arms, and the pillar she was braced against shifted and crumbled with each movement.
Okay.Think.
Whatever I did next, I had to hurry.With the whip squeezing my arms to my sides, I awkwardly wriggled one hand closer to my obsidian blade holster at the back of my belt.I’d have to cut myself loose first.And afterward?Get out of here somehow without bringing the whole crypt down on top of us.
But then I saw it.
A dark shape moving across Luna’s shoulder, eight legs advancing.Fuck.The Brazilian wandering spider from our camp had somehow made the journey with us.Its distinctive posture signaled it was preparing to strike, mere inches from Luna’s exposed neck.
If it bit her, the neurotoxin could incapacitate her within minutes, potentially killing her within hours.And in this place, with my ability to help heal her compromised…
“Luna,” I called, keeping my voice calm.“I need you to hold very still.”
Her eyes narrowed.“What?Why—“
“The spider from camp.It’s on your right shoulder.”
Her face went still, only her eyes moving to try to glimpse the spider without turning her head.“Well, that’s inconvenient timing.”
The pillar at her back that helped support my weight shifted again, a shower of stone dust raining down.The spider, disturbed by the movement, raised its front legs in threat display.
“You think it’s just passing through?”Luna asked, her voice tight.
