“Stop it.”
The bastard obeyed too easily. He dropped the pendant and grabbed a knife from the nearest soldier, quickly slashing the sharp edge across the back of her hand. Morgan hissed, clenching her fingers into a fist and clutching it to her chest when her skin was split open by an invisible blade. Blood instantly welled up from the cut. Kincade pulled the sword he’d saved from the arena, while Ryder grabbed her wrist, putting pressure on the cut.
“Uh-uh.” Katar shook his bloody knife at Kincade. “You cut me, she suffers the same.”
“Unless I fillet the mark from your skin.” Kincade spun the sword, careful to keep himself between her and the soldiers.
“We’re wasting time.” Katar tucked the knife into his belt. “We leave, or we’ll learn how many cuts she can withstand before screaming. Do you think the pain will get to her first, or will she be driven insane, wondering when and where the next cut will land?” He flashed her a creepy grin. “She has a high tolerance for pain. She refused to break in my laboratory. I’m looking forward to trying again.”
“Stop!” Morgan leapt forward, barely getting there in time to place herself between her men and Katar and his guards before they surged toward each other, bloodshed the only thing on their minds.
She glared at Katar, his superior attitude pissing her off even more. “You want to get my men out of the way, but may I remind you, if you kill them, your leverage is gone. I will sit here and wait for you to rot. Considering the condition of your arm, I don’t think it will take long.”
His smug smile wilted. “It seems we’re at an impasse. Yet the longer we wait, the more people die…including your mate. Every second, the infection anchors itself deeper inside him.” Katar pointed to the tunnel he selected. “So what will it be?”
Admitting defeat despite her misgivings, Morgan followed Katar into the passageway. The farther they walked down the tunnel, the more the light dimmed. They turned the corner, and even with her enhanced vision, she couldn’t see more than a foot in front of her. Chipped shale from the walls crackled under her feet—or so she thought until she saw the floor and walls literally move.
“Um, guys?”
Her voice seemed to be a trigger.
The guys closed ranks around her when clumps of the ceiling began to drop.
Something hit her shoulder with a heavy thump, and she reached up, only to come face to face with a furry spider the size of her fist. She jolted with instant panic to get it off her, flicking it away with shaky hands, her skin crawling, still able to feel its hairy feet tiptoeing over her.
Only then did she realize it wasn’t her imagination.
Chaos erupted as bugs rained down from the ceiling. Spiders with legs bigger than her fingers roamed above the rippling floor. Centipedes at least six inches long, cockroaches the size of her boots, and a churning ball of an assortment of smaller bugs began to crawl up their legs.
“What the fuck is up with these prehistoric bugs?” She slapped at her pants, watching the guys doing a weird sort of dance, trying to shake off the critters.
Loki leapt from her shoulder, hovered midair for a second as he flung out his wings, and then tackled a spider that was seconds away from smacking her in the face. They hit the floor with a solid thud. When the spider pried itself away from the gardog and stood, she realized the critter was almost bigger than the pup. Not deterred, the hound went wild, nipping and clawing until parts went flying.
“Son of a bitch.” The guard next to her swore, slapping at a wood grub three inches long and two inches round. Thick juices with the consistency and color of pistachio pudding splattered everywhere as he crushed the bug, leaving behind a swath of green slime. More and more people began to swear when they were bitten.
Then she saw one of the guards yank out his knife, rip open his shirt, and begin to carve up his stomach, uncaring how deep he cut, shrieking that the bugs were burrowing under his skin, eating him from the inside out. His guts spilled out, and he began to sort through his intestines, as if searching for a bug that had somehow gotten inside him. “Get it out!” he shrieked. “Gotta get it out.”
The more bugs they killed, the more frantic the soldiers became, as if the bugs contained a hallucinogenic drug, making them see things that weren’t there.
Another soldier was on the ground, his body covered in large welts, bugs swarming all over him. He lifted a large rock and repeatedly smashed his legs with it, trying to stop the bugs from burrowing up to his crotch. Bones cracked, but he continued to beat away the bugs, oblivious to the fact that his legs were so busted he’d never walk again.
“What the fuck is happening?” Ryder and Ascher were helping the soldiers, trying to stop them from mutilating themselves, while battling their own infestations. Atlas was relatively uncovered, the infection possibly a repellent. He swiped the bugs off her back and plucked them out of her hair before flicking them across the cave.
“The tunnels amplify our greatest fear.” Atlas sounded grim as he hacked and slashed as fast as the bugs fell, and yet the beasties showed no sign of stopping their attack.
Draven didn’t freak out like the rest. He yanked out his knife, flicking the bugs away from him, leaving behind little nicks and cuts as he went, the blade gouging deeper each time. She caught his arm, but he was surprisingly strong.
“Stop!” But it was like he didn’t hear her, the number of his cuts increasing. She watched in horror as the tip of his blade pierced his flesh, so she did the only thing she could…she head-butted him, knocking him off his feet, the blade clattering to the stone.
The loss of a weapon didn’t alleviate the need to carve himself up.
He began to claw at his arms, leaving deep grooves in his flesh. Kincade came to her rescue, helping her pin Draven’s elbows to his side. When he continued to grapple with her, Morgan crawled onto his lap. She grabbed his chin, making him meet her eyes. “Can you see me?”
He gave a jerky nod, his struggles stopping immediately.
“Do you have your shit together?” Breathing heavily, he nodded, and Kincade tapped her arm.
“I got him. Help the others.”
Trusting him, Morgan got to her feet, and surveyed the chaos. The soldiers seemed to be taking the brunt of the attacks, lost in their own crazy, and she realized they wouldn’t stop until they killed themselves, many of them already too far gone to save.
“Everyone get out.” She grabbed the captain of the guard and slapped him as hard as she could. His head snapped to the side, the blow nearly knocking him off his feet. “Get your men out of here. Those you can save. Go back and wait for us.”
“No.” Katar scratched at his face. “If they leave, they will lose their chance at the cure.”
“What about you?” The captain gave her a suspicious stare.
“One way or another, we’re going to stop the infection.” Morgan lifted her chin, daring him to disagree.
With another searching look, he nodded. “Don’t let us down.”
“I’ll pay you a fortune,” Katar screeched, chasing after the departing soldiers. “When I gain power, you can name your price.”
To her surprise, five soldiers, half of the group, opted to remain for the promise of glory and gold.
“Fools.” Morgan turned away, searching for another exit when she spotted a surge of bugs spilling into the room. She snatched up Loki and waded through the bugs to investigate, ignoring the way the little hound continued to snap and crunch on the falling bugs.
A hole in the wall appeared to be a tunnel…if you could call the narrow crack a tunnel. The space was tall enough for them to wedge themselves inside and crawl, but not a lot of room for much else.
If they ran into trouble, they would be very vulnerable.
Great.
“Guys, it looks like we’re going spelunking.”
Chapter Twenty-two