Blood Rage by Young Ileandra

Author:Young, Ileandra
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2024-02-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-one

As promised, the van is off-road, down a little slip of hill, and wedged between two trees with low branches. We have to use the rear doors to enter and then climb through in order to reach the front seats. Rayne takes the driver’s side. I take passenger and coax Norma down into my lap.

“She looked burned,” I murmur.

“Son-dar? Kar, kar?” Norma considers me with one beady eye.

Rayne grips the steering wheel. “I’ve never seen anything like that before. She was fused to you. I couldn’t lift her away. Nothing I did could move her. I felt like something was holding her there. Something stronger than me.”

“I thought it was just a scar, but this? She asked what was in me. Like I’m carrying something.”

My back feels normal now. Or at least as normal as ever it has over the last few weeks. With my shirt back in place, I’m able to use the backrest of the seat and not feel a thing. Maybe an itch or a twinge, but no pain. And certainly no traces of the strips of skin Fiona lost.

“We need to leave,” she says at last. “Moarwell isn’t equipped to deal with whatever this is. We need to get back to Clear Blood or at least SPEAR, so we can tell them what we know.”

“But we don’t know anything.”

She tenses. “We know that something on or in you is calling out to someone or something else. We know that our being here gives Linda permission to harass Bubi. We know that Fiona is terrified of you, and we know that the sprites in those caves are hostile. That’s enough.”

“But the Blade—”

“It has to wait.”

“For what?” I face her. “What, exactly? None of this is going to get any better. Since we’re here, shouldn’t we do everything we can now?”

Rayne gazes out the front window. “I think we should leave. We should regroup and find a better plan.”

“You want us to come back here? Isn’t that worse?”

“It might give the council members time to cool off.”

I can’t help but stare at her. This is nuts, she must know that. “And in the meantime? We let Linda bully us out of doing our jobs and leave without what we came for?”

“I came for you.”

“Well, I came for Shakka. That creep isn’t going to let me off so lightly. Remember he’s the one that fixed things so we could get here. I can’t leave without that spearhead.”

At last, Rayne looks at me. Her eyes have the tiniest silver sparkle in them, which is the only sign she offers of her fraying temper. “Those sprites nearly killed you.”

“So we go in more carefully this time. Maybe there’s another way.”

“There isn’t.”

“Perhaps we can dig in?”

“And disrupt their home even further? You heard Fiona, and Bubi for that matter. Those sprites have been agitated for a while, probably because of excavation work to gather stone for the church. They want to be left alone.”

Norma gives a little squeak in my lap.

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