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RUEN WAS GONE WHEN I finally woke up just after dark. I’d needed the rest and felt recharged. Aurora smiled at me when I sat up. “You looked so peaceful that I didn’t want to wake you.” I nodded, then reached over to grab Ruen’s sleeping sack. I peered inside it to see the faintly glowing torn parchment was tucked at the bottom.
“I thought the trolls were going to kill us when they appeared at our last camp,” she said with a shudder. “The big one knocked me out with a rock and I didn’t come to until we were in their cave.” I pointed at her head and made a concerned noise. “It didn’t tickle,” she confirmed with a grimace. “But at least it healed before I woke up.”
Sensing Ruen coming closer, I wasn’t surprised when he suddenly appeared with a brace of dead birds. “I take it you killed the troll leader?” he said snidely, barely able to force himself to glance in my direction. I shook my head and his head snapped towards me. “You let him live?” he asked incredulously. “Why didn’t you kill him?”
I flexed my bicep and pointed at the bulging muscles. I could have killed him eventually if he’d been my only opponent, but it would have been a lengthy process.
“I think he was too strong,” Aurora interpreted and I nodded in agreement. “How did you win the fight if you couldn’t kill him?” she queried.
Standing up, I grabbed my hammer and pantomimed fighting the trolls. I might not be able to speak, but I’d gotten pretty good at charades. They watched in fascination as I pretended to battle the troll leader. Ruen winced and instinctively put his hand over his privates when I mimed how I’d won the fight. Every monster had a weak point and it had been the only one I could sense on the trolls.
“I guess that’s one way to make sure he went down,” Aurora said with a snicker.
“Trolls are dirty fighters,” Ruen said darkly. “I guess I shouldn’t expect better behavior from such a stupid species.”
They’d been crafty enough to catch him while he’d been sleeping, but he deliberately overlooked that fact. I shared a sardonic look with Aurora when she caught my eye. She wisely kept her thoughts to herself, since he was in a belligerent mood. Not even a psychopathic murderer like him could have won the battle I’d waged. The trolls would have torn him apart with little effort.
“We’ve got a long way to go. Can you help me butcher the birds, so we can get going?” my bestie requested.
My hands were too big and clumsy to slice the birds apart, so she directed the question at the leech. I hunkered nearby, scanning the area with my senses and remaining alert for danger. When the meat sacks were full, Ruen reluctantly agreed to ride on my back again. He would deplete his energy and would fall behind if he tried to keep up with me when I was running long distances.
We headed back the way we’d come, following our faded scents and Aurora’s unerring ability to locate the portal that led back home.
A few days later, we reached the wide river that barred our way. I’d been dreading returning to the river, but I also knew I didn’t have a choice but to cross it. Ruen scouted each night as he hunted for food. He’d spotted hundreds of soldiers on the main road and surrounding areas. There was no way we’d be able to find a bridge and cross it without being chased by the guards.
“Will you let me tow you across the river without a fuss this time?” Ruen asked me sourly. My lips wrinkled back and I bared my fangs at him before I could stop myself.
“Don’t start!” Aurora said sharply before the vamp could launch into a tirade at me. “I’ve been thinking about how we can cross the river without Saige freaking out and I’ve come up with a solution.”
“I’m all ears,” my ex-partner said with heavy sarcasm. “I assume it involves putting a sack over her head so she can’t see the water?”
She slanted a look at me as if she hadn’t considered that idea. I growled low in my throat and she shook her head. “Of course not,” she scolded him. “We’re going to make a raft and float her across on it,” she added brightly.
Ruen forced out a sigh and simultaneously sneered at me. Only he could have pulled off that combination. “This is going to be a huge waste of time,” he complained.
“We just need to gather a few fallen logs and tie them together,” the sex demon said, ignoring his protests. “The sooner we get this done, the faster we can get to the other side,” she added when we made no move to look for logs.
Grumbling beneath my breath, I lumbered off to search for fallen trees. I found a couple of logs that were roughly the same size and carried them back to her.
“That’s a good start,” she said in approval.
Ruen brought a couple more logs that were shorter than mine. He dropped them, then handed her some vines he’d pulled from trees in the nearby woods. “Four will be enough,” he decided. “The raft only needs to stay intact long enough for us to reach the other bank. We don’t need to build an ark.”
I held the logs together, while Aurora tied the vines around them. “I hope they’re going to hold together,” she fretted when she was done. “Help me put it in the river to see if it’ll float,” she requested.
Ruen picked up one end and she picked up the other. I kept my distance while they gently put it down in the water. I didn’t like the way the logs shifted apart as the current tried to drag the raft out of their hands.
“Hurry!” the vampire snarled at me. “This thing isn’t going to hold together forever!”
Aurora gave me an imploring look not to make a fuss about this. I forced myself to cross to her, then my feet became rooted to the grass. Ruen rolled his eyes when it became obvious that I wasn’t going to get on the raft voluntarily. He snatched my hammer out of my hand and threw it to the other bank. “Go fetch!” he said sarcastically when I stared after it longingly.
My bestie took hold of my hand and I looked down at her in mute terror. “I’m so sorry about this, Saige,” she said sorrowfully, then she gave me a hard yank.
I let out a howl of fear as I toppled onto the raft. It went under the water from my weight and I was momentarily submerged. Thrashing and bellowing when I surfaced, I was dimly aware of the demon on one side of the craft and the vampire on the other. They were pushing the vessel and kicking their legs frantically.
“Stop moving around so much!” Ruen hissed when I almost kicked him in the face. “The raft is falling apart!”
The vines weren’t going to hold and were already unravelling. The log on the end in front of me came loose and I made a grab for it. The current carried it away before I could close my fingers around it. Losing my balance, I would have toppled into the river if Aurora hadn’t hauled me backwards. I let out a screech when my feet and lower legs sank below the water.
“She’s acting like its acid rather than water!” Ruen said contemptuously as they furiously propelled the craft along.
“It’s not her fault she’s afraid of water,” Aurora said in my defense.
A second log came loose, leaving only two to support me. I’d pushed myself up on my arms to keep my face out of the water, making my balance precarious. Gibbering and sobbing in fear, my body was now completely submerged from the waist down.
“We’re almost there, Saige,” Aurora said, but I could hear desperation in her voice. The last two logs became separated and I panicked.
Ruen let out a string of curses as my hands flailed in search of something to hold onto. I grabbed him by the hair and dragged him over to me. I shoved him beneath the water to use as a vampire flotation device and he became wedged beneath my armpit. It was a good thing he didn’t need to breathe, because he would have drowned for sure if he hadn’t already been dead.
Aurora was pushing the log and kicking for all she was worth. Ruen thrashed in my grasp, but he couldn’t free himself. The log bumped into the far bank and I lunged for land, letting go of the bloodsucker in the process. He surfaced and shot me a look of pure malevolence.
“Help me drag her onto dry land,” Aurora said, heaving herself onto the bank. Together, they managed to pull me out of the water. I curled into a ball, sobbing in reaction and holding myself in a futile effort to seek comfort. “Here’s your hammer,” my bestie said gently. I grabbed it and hugged it to my chest as she crouched beside me, stroking my furry brow and crooning soothingly.
