Chapter Eighteen
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The heart of a Hero is not ruled by selfish desires, but the greater good for all.
Something had changed between them. Rui felt it keenly.
Wolfe had been angry, disappointed,hurtat the lake before the others came. He’d been shocked, confounded, and hurt even more when Morgan divulged what she knew, and when Rui showed her own lack of surprise.
She wanted so badly to reach out to him, to comfort him. To tell him all of her truth. But there wasn’t time for it. The task before them was greater than the needs of her heart, his heart, greater thanthem.
And then, despite his hurt and disappointment, she felt it when they fought together:
His unconditional love.
How proud and confident he was of her. That despite everything, he would never be her opponent. Only and always her supporter. Protector.
He was a true hero. And he washers.
Invigorated by his belief in her, Rui was flooded with a power she’d never felt before. As strange monsters emerged from the shadows of the cavern and rushed at them, she slashed through the beasts with superhuman strength and speed, even in her mortal form.
There were grizzly bear-like creatures with gigantic jaws and three eyes. Wolves several times the size of normal wolves that dripped yellow acid from their lolling tongues. Half-man, half-beasts with sharp, curling horns, standing on massive claws, who shot arrows at them and brandished heavy, broad swords.
Sorin, Wolfe and Rui cut these red-eyed monsters down, one by one, while Ere and Morgan stayed close behind them, protected by the semi-circular barricade they made at the front. When a monster or two managed to get past the warriors’ frontal block, Morgan used her spells to keep them in check.
Rui noticed out of the corner of her eye that the spells could indeed be categorized as “binding” for the most part. The witch sealed monsters’ jaws or claws together, or tethered them to nearby trees and bushes, making the branches come alive to shackle their foes.
Together, they fought into the yawning black depths of the cavern until no more monsters came at them. And they were swallowed by another dense fog.
This time, the fog contained a reddish glow, like the embers of a dying fire. It was enough to see by as their eyes adjusted and they moved deeper into the cavern. But only barely. They stayed closer together this time, a compact unit, knowing that if they were separated, it would be almost impossible to find each other again.
Though they did not touch, Rui felt Wolfe’s heat at her back. His male musk filled her nostrils, deeper than before, enriched by the exertion and something else—
The scent of a male protecting his mate. A warning to all others not to come close, or suffer his wrath.
She snorted up that gorgeous musk like an addict desperate for a hit. And it did “hit” her. It lit her up and made her strong. Stronger than ever.
The fog gradually thinned out enough that it blanketed the ground like a few inches of ghostly red snow. They exited the tunnel they’d come through and stopped before the edge of a ravine, bridged to the opposite side by a narrow path.
On each side, there was only darkness. Neither the ceiling nor the bottom could be seen. There was no telling what was above or below them. But based on the resonance in the cave, the small sounds bouncing off stones, Rui knew that if they fell from the edge, it would be a long, sudden drop to a painful demise.
The bridge across the chasm seemed suspended in air. Because it was covered in fog, the ground beneath could barely be seen. One simply assumed that there was solid ground to walk upon, if the fog settled there and nowhere else.
But it was an assumption. Perhaps even wishful thinking. Perhaps the bridge was all illusion and there was nothing but air.
“I’ll go first,” Wolfe said, pushing to the front of the group.
Rui immediately opened her mouth to argue, but Morgan beat her to it.
“No, it makes better sense for me to go,” Morgan declared. “If I fall, I can try to save myself with a binding spell. And if the bridge is fragile, I am much lighter than you, warrior.”
Rui could have said the same. Not the binding spell, but her lightness and speed. The chasm was too far to leap across, but she had tricks up her sleeve.
Morgan already put one foot in front of the other, however, not waiting for anyone’s permission.
“’Tis solid,” she called back to them. “But step carefully. The path is narrower than the fog leads us to believe.”
Carefully, painstakingly, the five of them navigated across the bridge with little incident. Though halfway over, rumbling from deep within the cavern shook the fragile path, making small rocks and pebbles fall from unseen heights, the sounds of their seemingly endless descent to a bottomless unknown raising Rui’s hackles with apprehension.