Ruby Shadows (Born to Darkness #3)(61)

“Go—go!” he growled in his deep, harsh voice. He slapped Kurex on the rump and for the first time, the big horse reacted as I’d thought he would. With a sharp, terrified whiney, he plunged forward, leaving the basement of the Hotel Infernal and taking us into the next level of Hell.



Chapter Nineteen

Laish





I turned back into my regular human form as soon as I could—as soon as I was certain that none of Druaga’s minions were following us. The denizens of one circle are generally unable to cross to another. Of course, there are a few notable exceptions such as myself and the tenacious HellSpawn I was certain was still following Gwendolyn’s scent.

I had felt something as we left the second circle and entered the third—nothing of great consequence but it still gave me pause. It was a vague sensation that we were not alone. That more than just Gwendolyn and Kurex and myself had passed through into the next circle. I looked carefully to be certain the HellSpawn had not crossed the barrier with us. This would have been the perfect time to attack—when we were disorganized and on the run. To my relief, I saw nothing.

But my relief was short lived. When I looked back at Gwendolyn, she was clinging to Kurex as though her life depended on it and watching me with wide, haunted eyes. Inwardly, I sighed. I hated that she’d had to see so much carnage—especially with me as the cause of it. My dragon form seemed to have bothered her much more than I had thought it would. Not that I am pleasant to look at in that form—I am not meant to be. I cultivated it to strike fear in the hearts of enemies and inflict maximum casualties during battle. It had gotten us safely into Minauros, the Great Desert, but it also seemed to have cost me the trust I had so recently earned from my little witch.


“Are you well?” I asked her as I snapped my fingers and clothed myself in lightweight attire appropriate for dessert travel. “Are you hurt anywhere? Burned?”

She shook her head, not saying a word. I tried again.

“Do you still have your water bottle?” I hoped that she did. A mortal cannot cross the vast tract of Minauros—even the narrow area we were going to traverse—without proper protection and hydration. They are simply not strong enough to withstand the unending heat and aridity. I could, of course, make something for her to drink. I had lost my sacrificial knife when I changed forms but I could call another to me easily enough. However, I foresaw that getting her to accept anything like food or drink from my hand in the near future would be extremely difficult.

To my relief, she nodded again and patted the brown leather satchel she’d brought with her. I blessed her presence of mind in taking it when we were leaving Baator. Now at least I didn’t have to worry about her dying of thirst. Getting her to take nourishment was something else but I decided to worry about it later, after we had put some distance between us and the barrier between the circles. Druaga probably wouldn’t be up to following us himself but he might find someone who could. I wanted to be far away with our tracks lost in the shifting dunes by the time he did so.

I conjured a lightweight, white cloth for Gwendolyn and tried to hand it to her.

“Here. Throw this over your head and shoulders. It will deflect some of the sunlight.”

She shook her head.

“I don’t want it,” she said in a low voice. “I don’t want anything from you.”

“Fine.” I shrugged my shoulders nonchalantly, though my heart was sore at her refusal. “Burn then, for all I care.”

She flinched but rallied enough to shake her head.

“I have kind of a natural tan—or didn’t you notice?”

“Your skin is flawless as I have seen for myself firsthand,” I said, taking Kurex’s bridle and beginning to lead him across the sand. “But despite your lovely creamy brown tone, you will burn in Minauros without protection. Everything burns here.”

“Stop saying that—stop talking about burning.” She leaned down from the horse and snatched the wrap from me. Throwing it over her head and shoulders, she looked straight ahead. Well, at least she was protected from the sun. The wrap was one I’d had made for her especially to withstand the Desert of Death as Minauros is often called.

We walked in silence for a long time, Gwendolyn occasionally sipping from her water bottle and Kurex plodding patiently under the blazing sun. There was a hand-shaped mark—a white spot on his black haunch that showed the clear outline of a palm and fingers where I had slapped him. I was sorry for that—though he was a dumb beast he had more than proven his worth. Gwendolyn could not have ridden safely on my back as she could on his, as we ran through the maze beneath the Hotel Infernal to the barrier. My skin is much too hot when I am a dragon—or a wyrm as the ancient texts call it.

At last, after an hour of the plodding pace, she spoke.

“You didn’t tell me you were a fire demon.” Her voice was soft but filled with tension though she still looked straight ahead into the shifting sands and not at me as she spoke. “You said you were a demon of lust.”

“And so I am,” I answered, wondering again why this distinction was important to her. “I am a demon of fire by nature—I can bend it to my will and it is a part of me—will always be a part of me.”

That was because when I was first cast down and out of the heavenly realm I had landed in the Lake of Fire and it had infused me with its power. But I saw no need to tell her the details.