Chapter 22 Dreadborns
Brea's POV
The jumps had slowed as he came down onto solid rock and stayed there as he set me down.
I took a second to find my footing. My legs were fine, but my heart weren't.
The clearing sat at the edge of a wide stone shelf that jutted out over a drop falling away into nothing but forest and dark, no lights anywhere and no sound from anything human, just trees on three sides and open sky ahead.
"Where are we?"
"Somewhere I don't take people," he said.
He walked to the edge and stood there. I watched him for a moment. Something in had changed, like he'd finally put down something he carried everywhere else.
"I used to come here," he said, and I waited, and after a moment he continued.
"When the court got too loud, when my mother needed something from me, when everyone in every room wanted a version of me I had to maintain." He paused. "I'd come here and just stop."
"No one knew about it," he said.
"No one?"
"No one."
I looked at the back of his head and then at the drop and then at the trees standing black and still on every side of us before I spoke.
"So why am I here?"
He looked at me. "You're the first."
I didn't say anything, because I didn't know what to say to that and didn't want to try, so I just turned and looked out at the forest the way he was looking at it and stood there with him in the quiet.
"It's peaceful," I said finally.
"Yes."
"I didn't think you needed..... peaceful."
"Everyone needs.....peaceful," he said. "Some people just don't admit it."
Rayne went still, his eyes moving slowly across the treeline like he was tracking something I couldn't see.
"Rayne?"
"Don't move," he said quietly, and he wasn't looking at me but at the treeline.
"That's not possible," he said, low, to himself.
"What isn't?"
I heard it before I saw it. Then it was at the edge of the clearing a tall, white-skinned, red-eyed, dragging one foot and twitching forward in short broken lurches like its limbs weren't fully under its own control.
It came straight for me.
Rayne hit it before it crossed half the distance. He caught it mid-air, drove his knee into its chest and brought it down hard enough to crack the stone beneath it.
It was back up before the dust settled. Like the impact had meant nothing.
He caught its arm on the next lunge, used its momentum, spun it and threw it into the nearest tree. Wood splintered on impact.
It dropped, got up on a leg bending the wrong way, and came again.
Rayne came down on its shoulders with both feet and drove it into the ground. That time it didn't get up.
He landed and turned, and there were three more at the treeline.
"Behind me. Now."
I moved.
They didn't come one at a time. They came from three directions at once, no pattern, no spacing, just fast.
The first one Rayne read early..sidestepped the lunge, let it pass, grabbed the back of its skull and brought it straight down into the rock face-first. It didn't move again.
The second hit him from the side before he fully turned, raked both hands across his back.
When he grabbed it, it didn't resist, it just kept pushing into the grip like being held meant nothing. He spun into it instead of away, got inside its reach and drove his elbow up under its jaw.
The third cut an arc around him. Toward me.
I saw it coming and had nowhere to go until Rayne was between us, catching it full in the chest with both palms and blasting it back into the treeline.
It hit two trees, came up in a crouch, launched back without pausing. He caught both its wrists, turned with the momentum, and hurled it off the edge of the rock. It dropped into the dark below.
More were coming out of the trees. Six. Then eight.
"Dreadborn," he said, low, almost to himself. "That's not possible. They've been dead for a thousand years."
"What are they?"
"Blood eaters. They don't distinguish between vampire or humans, it doesn't matter to them."
He moved into them. He came down into the middle of them, hit one across the jaw and drove another into the ground in the same motion, vaulted off a third, came down behind the group and used one to take out the one beside it.
They kept coming. I pressed my back against the rock face and tried to remember to breathe.
Then I saw it. Above me in the canopy, crouched on a branch directly overhead, completely still...watching me the way the others weren't watching anything. With focus. With intention.".
"Rayne" My voice came out too small, and he was twenty feet away and buried in the middle of them. "Rayne there's one above me—Rayne"
He turned his head, but not fast enough.
It dropped, and I tried to move but my back was against the rock face and there was nowhere to go.
It landed right in front of me with a sickening thud.....I didn’t even have time to scream.
It lunged. Its clawed hand clamped around my forearm like a steel trap, crushing my bone and muscle. Then, it's teeth sank deep into my shoulder, tearing through my flesh in one brutal motion.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAH!” The scream tore out of my throat before my brain could even process what was happening.
I thrashed wildly, trying to rip my arm free, but the monster’s jaws only clamped tighter. Blood poured hot down my chest and back as its teeth ground deeper.
“GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF ME—AAAAAH!” I was screaming so loud my voice cracked, slapping uselessly at its head with my free hand, nails scraping uselessly against its hide.
The pain was blinding. Every nerve in my body was on fire. I could feel its hot, foul breath against my skin, the wet crunch of its teeth through muscle. My vision whited out at the edges.
Then, suddenly it was gone. Rayne had it by the throat, ripping it backward with terrifying strength.
There was a snap, a gurgling shriek from the creature, and then it was flying through the air, slamming into the ground twenty feet away with a bone-breaking crunch.
I stumbled backward, clutching my shoulder. Blood was everywhere, soaking my sleeve, dripping between my fingers, splattering the stones at my feet.
“Rayne!” My voice came out thin and trembling, barely audible over the ringing in my ears. “It bit me.....oh God!”
He was in front of me in the same heartbeat, both hands cupping my face for a split second before one pressed hard over the torn flesh of my shoulder. The pressure made me cry out again,
"It hurts—Rayne, it hurts" He pulled me closer, his arm steadying me as my knees started to give.
"I know," he said quietly. "Stay with me. Just stay with me."
He looked up at the treeline and I followed his gaze.
They were all still.
Dozens of them lined up at the edge of the dark, not moving, not attacking, just watching with those flat empty eyes.
My arm had started to burn, deep and spreading, like something was moving under the skin. I looked down. The edges of the wound were already turning black.
"Rayne." My voice shook. "What's happening to me?"