And according to Rose, the shining ones were the only beings with any answers. Now … what were the odds they would be willing to tell us?
Jacob got all serious then. “You know Brax and the others will be waiting for us at the center of Faerie. If we make it out of here, there’s a great chance you’ll run straight into your mate’s arms.”
I swallowed roughly, my throat and body tightening at the mere thought of being with Braxton again. I knew Jacob was giving me this little motivational speech for a reason.
“How bad is it?” I asked him, unwilling to turn my head and see for myself. I was not tripping over a log or some crap right now. I needed full focus in case the maze threw out any obstacles.
He didn’t answer immediately, which of course allowed my mind to imagine the worst shit possible. Before I had a chance to beat the information out of him, the world exploded around us. Creatures flew out of every bush and crevice, so many that there was no way to accurately assess their level of scary. We had no choice but to slow, the path blocked on all sides, with more continuing to fill in the gaps.
Jacob brushed closer to me. “How bad is it, you asked? Well, on a scale of one to apocalypse, I’m going to go with an eight,” he said casually.
Eight … if this was an eight, what the hell was apocalypse? Dammit, okay, we could deal with this, we’d been here before and we would be again. I was not getting taken out today, not by a bunch of chipmunk freaky Faerie creatures.
As they pressed in closer to us I could see there were more than just the chipmunks here – though they had brought fifty thousand of their closest friends. There were slime-coated fire slugs about the size of a small poodle, their tails lit up like a very orange fireball. And also a weird rabbit thing, almost shaped like a kangaroo, but wider and shorter, its ears long, and with some lethal looking claws on its front paws – not to mention large, webbed feet and bucked teeth to finish off its ugly-ass-ness. Elements danced in the air around us as Jacob pulled his power. The fey were so much stronger here than on Earth. I’d never seen fire and air respond to him so quickly. The rumble beneath our feet indicated he was shifting the plates, using the ground as a weapon of sorts.
“Don’t forget about Braxton,” Jacob said with his jackass grin on. “He’s waiting for you and you need to survive this, Jessa babe. If you don’t, then none of us do.”
The odds were against us, but he had given me the best incentive of all to slay these fey creatures. I just wished I could shift into my dragon; she would pretty much eat all of them up in one gulp. Jacob pulled a knife from his belt and handed it to me and in the next instant we were under attack.
I focused on the creatures around us, my grip firm on the long-handled blade. Most of our stalkers might be smaller than us but they had fey power and it would be the epitome of stupid to underestimate them. Three came at me from the left, and at the same time at least half a dozen flew at Jacob. Neither of us hesitated. I hit the ground, rolling clear of their attack and coming up beneath them. My blade hummed and then seemed to actually move of its own accord, eviscerating two of them in a rapid succession. I loved when I used fey-made blades, they pretty much had a mind of their own. My partially shifted left hand was useful too. The third was taken out by a claw to the brain.
Pain grabbed at my spine then, right near the base. I dropped backwards, directly to the rough ground. I heard multiple squeaks, and whatever rodents had attached to me were either squashed or jumped free just before I landed. Of course, now I was down, and that left me vulnerable.
I rolled across to the side, just in time to receive multiple slashes in my arm. My wolf and dragon started to growl as pain rocketed around my body. I was not in a good mood. These little assholes were going to die, seriously.
Dislodging a few, I jumped to my feet. The pain was dull, pounding across my lower back, and I wondered if they’d done some real damage there. A quick glance told me that Jacob was cleaning up his section, making me look pathetic with my half a dozen dead. He had dozens fried, drowned, suffocated. His elements were a distinct advantage, but there is nothing like getting your hands dirty. I was a down and dirty sort of girl.
I let the shifter energy course through me, and as I felt the wolf respond; the hum of dragon power dipped across the wall between us. A flood of panicked confusion welled within my mind, and immediately the blocks fell back into place.
Shit!
That had been the perfect opportunity to connect, to break down the barrier once and for all. I had a sense that if I figured out how to break this wall between us, and not because I was about to plunge to my death, then it would be gone for good.
If there was one opportunity, more would follow.
My train of thought was cut off again as more chipmunks, fire slugs, and mutant rabbits dived toward me. They were working in larger teams now, two of each Faerie creature forming a ring and coming directly at me. I could feel the heat of the slug’s tails and as I slashed out with blade and claw, the fire was close enough to bubble skin and singe clothing. I was killing them as fast as they dived, but there were just so many of them.
I need you, I cried out to my dragon, and she smashed herself against the wall. Inside my mind I started to holler, expelling every ounce of my frustration, fear, and anger. It was a pure expulsion of energy, and as my beast came at me just as fiercely, the very first fissure appeared in the wall between us. I sucked in rapidly, still slicing and dicing my way across the thousands of creatures that were trying to stop Jacob and me from making it any further through the labyrinth.