Page 25 of Conquering the King of Storms

Unless I got to a point where I thought I could trust Sirus implicitly, I could never allow myself to consider being anything more than friends with him.

I promised myself that, as I stared into the cave’s darkness.

No matter how intimate things got for us or how much I wanted that epic love I had hoped for, we were going to be friends, just like he had offered. Nothing more.

Chapter 6

My thoughts continued spinningas I let Sirus sleep. Though my own eyelids were heavy, he needed the rest more than I did, so I forced myself to stay awake.

Time passed slowly, but it did pass. I found a bit of a rock at one point, and started drawing random things on the smoothest part of the stone. I was a shitty artist, unlike Ivy, but it was something to do to pass the time.

I was in the middle of adding sun-rays to the large circle I’d drawn above my crappy forest when I heard what sounded like a baby’s wail from dark part of the cave in front of us and off to my left.

My eyes jerked over to Sirus, but he was still asleep.

The baby cried again, its wail sounding sadder, and every human instinct I had told me to go toward the noise and help the infant.

Shit.

What was I supposed to do?

Sirus had warned me not to trust anything I heard or saw in the cave. I couldn’t see worth a damn… but I definitely heard a baby.

“Think, Harper,” I muttered to myself, my gaze fixed on the darkness in front of me.

The baby wailed again, and this time, it sounded slightly closer.

Fuck.

Babies couldn’t move. Well, they could crawl, but they’d do it slowly.

And we were in an underground water-prison-cave.

What was it called again?

The Aboa.

Theoretically, the only things down here were monsters, and three of the elemental kings plus their human mates. Well, two human mates and Ivy.

Sirus was right—the baby’s cry had to be a trick.

But did that mean the noise was coming from a monster of some kind? I couldn’t just sit there and hope for the best. Should I wake up Sirus?

Another wail sounded, this one closer than the last.

Holy shit, it was coming for me.

No more time for questioning.

I grabbed the king’s shoulder, and shook hard. “Sirus,” I urged. “There’s a monster. Wake up.”

The man’s eyes opened slowly, revealing glowing purple orbs.

Shit.

“This is really bad timing. We need to go,” I hissed, trying not to be too loud. The damn thing was already coming toward us; I didn’t want to tell it where we were if it didn’t already know.

Another wail sounded, and at the end of the cry, the sound morphed into a roar.

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