Adrianne hated the movie Sahara. Had never been a fan of Lawrence of Arabia, either. And now, here she was, stuck in a real-life version of the set for both.
The heat was indescribable. She’d been to Arizona once as a kid with her mom, and she thought that had been hot. Arizona was cool as a mountain spring in Switzerland compared to this place.
Speaking of which…
“What is this place called?” she asked as she trudged up yet another burning hot, orangish-hued sand dune behind Gabriel.
“Nexxus,” he said over his shoulder.
“That doesn’t seem right,” she muttered. The name was way too innocuous for a place like this. “Any place that smells like brimstone shouldn’t have a harmless name like that. It should be called something like, I don’t know, The Deadlands. Apocalypse Town? Or maybe just something totally straightforward like Doomed As Fuck?”
He stopped, turned to face her, and she took a moment to appreciate how good he looked standing in the light of three suns before he said, “You know, you get more like your stepmom every day.”
Aw, that was maybe the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her. “Thank you.”
With a shake of his head and smile that made her hotter than the sand she was walking on—which was practically hot enough to melt the soles of her steel-toed ass-kicking boots—he turned and started up another dune.
“Where are all the people who live here?”
He snorted. “No one lives here. The only parts of Nexxus that are habitable, other than my father’s keep, are on the opposite side of the dimension. But we’re going to stay far, far away from that side, yeah?”
Worked for her. Something told her she wasn’t likely to make many friends over there, anyway.
She resisted the urge to ask how much farther it was to his father’s dungeon. It felt like they’d been hiking for years already.
She wasn’t tired, though. Gabriel’s demon energy had been like an all-over jolt of pure caffeine with a happy ending. Heh. She was like the damn Energizer bunny now.
Too bad all that energy couldn’t save her from being bored. There was literally no scenery here to look at. Just sand, sun, rocks, and more sand, sun, and rocks. No animals, no vegetation of any kind, no man-made or natural structures.
It broke her heart that Gabriel had grown up here. How could anyone—demon or human—be a child in a place like this? No wonder he’d always been so reluctant to accept love or anything good in his life. He’d never had anything like that here. It was all foreign to him.
She wasn’t sure she’d survive a week in a place like this, let alone a lifetime like Gabriel had. It was so lonely.
Which did make her wonder…
“You said everything wants to kill us, but there’s nothing here but sand and sun and rocks. What’s so dangerous about this?”
The words had no sooner left her lips than the ground started quaking beneath their feet. She glanced at Gabriel with wide eyes as his chin hit his chest and he muttered, “You just had to ask, didn’t you?”
“What the hell’s going on? Earthquake?” she yelled as the loose sand shifted precariously beneath her feet.
“Worse,” he yelled back, grabbing her hand. “Run!”
They raced side-by-side, slipping and sliding as the sand dunes rose and fell around them like waves on a storm-tossed sea. They ran as fast as they could, but something was behind them, and it was clearly gaining ground.
“What’s back there?” she asked, her breath coming in pants now.
“Glaritch,” he said through clenched teeth.
Yeah. Great. As if that meant anything to her. “What’s a Glaritch?”
She stumbled, but he shifted his hold from her hand to her arm and kept her upright. “You remember the movie Tremors?”
Of course, she did. They’d watched it together. She’d thought it was hilarious and had loved every minute of it. Gabriel had watched the whole thing with a stoic expression better suited to a World War II documentary than a campy horror film.
Then it dawned on her.
“Oh, shit,” she said. “Are you telling me there’s a giant worm after us?”
That’s when the monstrous thing popped up in front of them and breached the sand.
“Yep,” he said dryly. “Only less cuddly than the one in the film.”
She would’ve gulped, but her throat was too dry—from dehydration or fear, she couldn’t be sure.
The creature was unlike anything she’d ever seen. It had to be at least thirty feet long, and it was a bright, toxic-looking shade of purple. It smelled like it’d been dead for a hundred years and there was a line of bony-looking spines marching down its back that reminded Adrianne of the Spinosaurus in Jurassic Park III.
Then there were its teeth.
When it shrieked at them, Adrianne caught a glimpse of three rows of razor-sharp teeth on the top and bottom of its gaping maw, each dripping with goo that she assumed was venomous. Because why wouldn’t it be a giant, purple, venomous worm?
Everything here wants you dead.
And this thing really wanted them dead.
“There!” Gabriel shouted.
Adrianne followed his gaze to a small grouping of boulders. It didn’t look like a particularly defensible shelter, but if she remembered Tremors correctly, the only way any of them had survived was by staying on rocks that kept the creature from surfacing. She’d prefer hiding out in a vibranium-lined bomb bunker in Wakanda, but in this instance, the rocks would have to do, she supposed.
Gabriel swept her up into his arms and ran for the rocks at a pace that made her head spin.
Behind them, the Glaritch let out an ear-splitting shriek of outrage that sent a shiver down Adrianne’s spine.
She let out a shriek of her own as Gabriel tossed her onto the boulder island as if she were weightless and scrambled up after her.
The Glaritch collided with the rock, cracking one of the boulders they stood on, but not shattering it.
Adrianne bent over at the waist, gasping for breath. “What do we do now?”
Gabriel shook his head in disgust as the Glaritch rammed its head into the stones over and over again. “It’s not going to give up. I’m going to have to kill it.”
She sputtered. “You’re going to fight it? That’s crazy!”
He had the nerve to shrug. “I’ve done it before. I just have to get ahold of its neck. It’ll be fine.” Then he gave her a quick, hard kiss on the mouth. “Be right back.”
The crazy bastard jumped down off the rocks, unarmed, and faced off against the Glaritch.
Adrianne was pretty sure her heart stopped as the thing charged him. Gabriel must’ve anticipated its move, though, because as it shot forward, he dodged left.
Too bad for him the sand was unstable. He lost his balance as the ground shifted beneath his feet.
“Gabriel!” she shouted.
The Glaritch grabbed him with its tail and twisted, holding him aloft over its mouth.
That might’ve been part of Gabriel’s plan. He might’ve been able to break its hold, grab it by the neck, and kill it.
They’d never know.
Because at that moment, seeing Gabriel in that thing’s grip, thinking about him being ripped to shreds by those jagged, venomous teeth, Adrianne felt as if she’d lost control of her body and something else entirely took over.
Instinctively, she raised her hands toward the beast and shot a stream of white-hot energy at it. Her energy wrapped around the Glaritch’s throat like a noose, lifted all thirty feet of the thing out of the sand, and tightened.
The creature let out one last, choked-off, startled squeal before its head exploded.
Gabriel, now covered in purple and green sand monster goo, stood up, dusted off his pants, and eyed her like she was a bomb about to go off.
Adrianne looked down at her hands. “How the hell did I do that?” she whispered.
A furrow deepened between his brows as he approached her—slowly—and took her hands in his. “New powers, it would seem. Are you OK? How do you feel?”
She considered the question for a moment. “I feel…good.”
To say he looked shocked was an understatement. She could see it in his eyes. He’d been afraid she’d feel horrified by what she’d done, that she’d be racked with guilt about killing a living creature with her bare hands. But she wasn’t.
She was strong. In control. And ready to kick whatever asses needed kicking to get the hell out of this, well, hell.
“Really?” he asked.
“I mean, I’m as surprised as you are, but, yeah. I feel great. I’m ready for whatever else this fucking place throws at me. Let’s keep moving.”
The surprise and relief that flitted across his face was beautiful to behold. He laced his fingers through hers, brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingertips. “Yes, ma’am,” he said.
They’d been walking for a few minutes when he said, “You know…what you did back there…”
She held her breath, half expecting a lecture about using her new powers wisely, about the great responsibility that comes with being able to do what she could now do. About the importance of control and only using her powers in moderation.
Instead, he said, “It was crazy hot.”
And that was just one of the many reasons why she loved this man. He accepted all of her—the good, the bad, and the ugly. Always.
She released the breath she’d been holding. “I know, right?”