But then she snapped at him with silvered fangs shattering the illusion.
Keeping her pinned with one hand on his neck and clamping his thighs around her waist as tight as he could, he reached for the utility knife he always kept tucked into the sheath at his boot.
He was grabbing the knife more for show, as a way to make her complacent. In the scuffle he’d lost the pouch he kept on his waist, the one with the netting. He needed to search for that, but he needed her to stop her struggling first.
But the moment she saw the glint of metal she screamed, even though he was pinning her throat and weighed twice what she did, fury lent her strength. Again he was shoved back, but this time when she came at him, he didn’t stop to think about what Danika wanted, or what this creature’s parents desired, all he thought about was surviving.
Jumping to his feet, he lunged at her at the same time she lunged at him. Her hands were up and all he could think was she was going to rip his throat out.
He stabbed for her temple. Aiming to kill with one blow.
But at the last second she twirled and jumped back, causing his knife not to puncture her brain, but slide down her abdomen. An unholy scream penetrated the woods. A mix of pain, fury, and agony.
Suddenly it all stopped. He stood there, almost dizzy from the sudden ceasefire. She stood ten yards in front of him, grabbing onto her stomach as red bled through her fingers. Her breathing was jagged, and heavy. Terrible to hear.
The bleeding heart beneath her eye was crying.
Drip. Drop. Drip. Sliding out from the bottom of the heart as it rolled bloody down her face. Shutting off the automatic sympathy response he always felt around a woman’s tears, he slowly advanced, ready to end this.
She was blinking hard, and shaking her head as if trying to clear her vision. Her steps were staggered, a drunken waltz. Then he spied his pouch not five yards from her.
Pulling her lips between her teeth she spotted the pouch at the same time he did.
“Don’t,” he warned, sensing she was going for it. “Please don’t do this, Chrysalis. Don’t make me do this. I don’t want to kill you. I don’t want to hurt you. I just want to return you to your family.”
For a second he thought that maybe he’d gotten through. Her eyes were wide and luminous and for the barest fraction of a moment he thought he saw clarity. Saw the intelligence hidden behind the lunacy. But like the snuffing of a wick, it was gone just as quickly.
She dived for the pouch.
Jumping for her back, his fingers were within inches of her neck. But she was too fast. Grabbing the pouch, she shoved it down the front of her dress and jumped quickly out of his reach. He knew the wound had to pain her, she kept wincing with each step she took. Inches separated them, but then she wiggled her fingers and something wickedly sharp punctured the back of his heel.
Roaring, he twisted around, expecting to find a snake clamped on him. But it wasn’t. The rotten leech stump was no longer dead, a fat vine of barbs had wrapped itself around his ankle and was pulling him back, the barbs sunk deeper and deeper into his flesh the more he writhed and fought.
Its sucked him back toward the stump, doing what it was designed to do. Immobilize him so that the tree could feed.
Using the knife he still had on him, the Huntsman severed the vine. Black, rancid ichor sprayed his face and chest as the butchered half of the vine no longer attached wriggled back to the stump.
When he looked back, Chrysalis was gone.
All strength left after that. Lungs heaving, he took a moment to try and catch his breath. He could never have imagined that this was the way things would go down. That she’d be as strong as she was, or he as unprepared as he’d been.
“Damn it!” He punched the ground, disgusted at himself for what’d taken place.
The darkness evaporated. Sunlight shone down upon him once more. A few more breaths and then he snatched his pack away from the tree trunk. The vine was nowhere in sight, the leech tree was once again nothing but a dead stump.
Somehow she’d made that thing come back to life when she’d wiggled her fingers. Could she control Wonderland just as her parents could? Right now, it seemed like an absolute possibility.
Squinting into the sun’s bright rays, he crawled on his arms toward the brook, making sure to keep his mangled leg off the ground. It took forever to get to the waters edge. It felt like hours, but was probably closer to thirty minutes. Painfully he rolled his way to a sit up position, able to really study his leg for the first time.