Lifeblood

Chapter 29

Exhilaration encompassed Mary for a brief moment, then panic sent her stomach flying as gravity took hold.

She twisted, reaching out. The first branch snapped, and curses morphed into a shout as Mary crashed against the slanted trunk, bruises flaring across her ribs and hip. Bark carved scrapes up and down her right side, slivers eating at her skin. Pain stabbed her shoulders, and Mary fell backward with a crack.

She flailed but grasped nothing. Her hip struck a stubborn branch, flipping her around.

"H-uh."

Mary's breath escaped her lungs, and she lay stunned.

Branches blurred together, the alive and the barren indistinguishable. Through the fog, a hawk cried. Her eyes snapped wide, and she launched to her feet.

Mary crashed from tree to tree, layers of half-decomposed leaves sliding under her feet. Perspiration gathered on her forehead and dripped down her jaw. The flash of a bird drove her faster, her attention torn between the cracks in the branches and the dips in the earth.

The gaps between trees increased, blue devouring holes in a blanket of green as inch by inch, she was exposed. Unease howled in as her shelter disappeared. Mary glanced behind her, nearly tripping as her foot caught on a root.

There was no one. The platform had been abandoned, and there was no evidence of anyone on the ridge. She searched the sky, alarmed to find the hawk was no longer in sight.

Her ears rang. She shook her head, and the noise stopped. Then rang again. Mary concentrated over the sound of her panting, and her brows knitted together.

A whistle—two different tones, one distant, the other close.

She concentrated, but it didn't repeat itself.

Mary checked the sky again, but there was still no sign of the hawk. Her calves hurt from running at a slant, parallel with the ridge. If she crossed over, there would be more places to hide, but she couldn't see what—or who—was over there.

She didn't have time to decide. Straggly bushes clung to where the level ground merged with a jut of rock, marking a sharp decline before the next peak rose. Mary glanced once more to the sky, and then to the west. Her ankles strained, but she sped up.

Not three feet before the boulder blocked her path, Mary jumped, digging her fingers into the pine-needle-sharp grit and pulling herself up and over the ridge. She rolled onto her feet and nearly tripped at the sight.

Four, five, six . . .

Her eyes darted to each bandit at various points below. A knot of dread began to weave around her lungs. Her moment of hesitation was shattered by a shout as one of them spotted her.

Mary snapped out of it and fought her way across a hardened patch of snow. Fingers numb and scraped, she clawed handholds out of weathered dips in the mountain face. Snow crunched from behind, and alarmed, Mary vaulted over the edge, her arms flying out to slow her fall. Something snatched her wrist, and Mary crashed against the rock.

She peeled herself off, tilting her head back. Yellow consumed her vision as eyes wide as coins stared down at her.

Her heart stuttered. The Beast secured its grip on her wrist with another hand, and as it did her fingers curled into a fist. Mary braced her feet on the rockface, squared her knees, and pulled.

The Beast yelped and fell forward, but its grip didn't loosen. Instead, right after Mary pulled, it reciprocated the action, embracing her.

"Augh!"