Chapter 72 Chapter 72
Amber
Domain’s brows knit and he looked from me to her like he couldn’t decide which of the petulant kids he was babysitting needed a smack.
“If you three can fight a dangerous forest creature that’s hellbent on killing her, sure, be my guest.”
He released me and then kind of pushed me towards them, apparently done with our antics.
I rubbed my wrist while Maya was the one to ask him the question this time, emboldened by drinks and Ellie no doubt.
“What dangerous creature are you talking about?”
Damian looked at me again. “Looks like your friend doesn’t really tell you everything then.”
I tried to glare at him but he didn’t seem to take the cue.
Damian simply dusted his hands and clothes like he was done with us and began walking away.
But Ellie asked out loudly.
“Tell me he is joking, the heirs already hate you so is your life in any more danger?”
I stammered a little, holding my head that was starting to hurt a little.
Damian looked back at me as if daring to say something. “Yeah, please tell her. I’d like to hear your answer”
“He…he is…not wrong”
Ellie looked back from me to him again.
Then to my utter horror, she pushed me towards him.
“Keep her safe. And if anything happens to her…you…you have to answer to us.”
“Ellie, you traitor!” I shouted at her in disbelief.
“You lot are terrifying” He said with a fake shudder and then added. “Go enjoy your party and don't get in any problems.”
The three nodded and my friends, the ones who had convinced me I had to get over Damian, thrust me in his arms and left.
This was unbelievable!
“Come on, Red!” He muttered but I planted my heels firmly and shook my head.
"This is kidnapping!"
"This is me keeping you alive despite your best efforts to die. Besides your friends left you with me"
"They aren’t my nannies!"
“Right, I am,” He muttered and he just kept walking, his grip on my wrist firm enough that I'd have to seriously hurt myself to break free.
“Nobody asked you to..” I kept rambling even as he had dragged me out of the door.
We burst out into the cool night air and I tried one more time to pull free.
"Let go of me right now!"
"No."
"Damian, I swear to the goddess…"
He stopped so abruptly I crashed into his back, and when he turned to face me, his expression was thunderous.
"You want me to let you go? Fine. Go ahead and walk back to campus alone, drunk, wearing that dress, with a wraith waiting in the forest for you. See how far you make it before something terrible happens."
I opened my mouth to argue but the words died in my throat because he was right and I hated that he was right.
"That's what I thought." He started walking again, but this time when he pulled me along, I didn't resist quite as hard.
We made it maybe three blocks before the alcohol in my system and the exhaustion from crying all morning and the emotional whiplash of the entire day caught up with me all at once.
My legs turned to jelly and I stumbled hard enough that Damian had to catch me to keep me from face-planting on the sidewalk.
"For the love of…" He cut himself off, then before I could process what was happening, he'd bent down and thrown me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing.
"Put me down!" I beat my fists against his back, which had about as much effect as hitting a brick wall. "This is completely inappropriate!"
"You can barely walk."
"Because I broke my heels breaking that moron’s balls!" I argued.
"Because you drank too much on an empty stomach and spent all day crying instead of eating."
The casual way he said it, like he'd been paying attention to me even when we weren't speaking, made my chest tighten painfully.
"I hate you," I muttered into his back.
"I know."
"You're the worst person I've ever met."
"Probably."
"I hope you trip and we both fall into a ditch."
"That would be inconvenient."
His completely unbothered responses just made me more angry, and I continued listing all the ways he was terrible as he carried me through the streets toward the forest path that led back to campus.
We'd just entered the tree line when something hit Damian from the side with enough force to send both of us flying.
I tumbled through the air, briefly airborne, before crashing hard into the ground. The impact knocked the breath from my lungs and sent my head spinning even worse than the alcohol had.
For a moment I just lay there, stunned, trying to remember how to breathe.
Then I heard Damian curse viciously and the sound of something moving through the underbrush with a wet, sliding sound that made my skin crawl.
I rolled over, leaves sticking to my dress and probably my hair, and saw the wraith.
It was more solid than it had been before, like three nights of hunting had made it restless and hungrier, more real. The vaguely humanoid shape was clearer now, showing limbs that bent at wrong angles and joints that existed where joints shouldn't be.
And it was circling Damian, who had rolled to his feet with that inhuman grace that reminded me he was far more dangerous than he looked.
"Run!" Damian's voice cracked like a whip through the forest. "Get to campus, Red, now!"
But my alcohol-sluggish limbs wouldn't cooperate, wouldn't respond to the screaming panic in my brain telling me to move, to run, to do literally anything except lie there like prey.
I managed to get to my hands and knees, my dress twisted around my waist, one heel completely gone and the other hanging off my foot by a single strap.
The wraith lunged and Damian met it head-on with a knife that seemed to appear in his hand from nowhere.
He slashed at the reaching limb and the blade connected with a sound like tearing fabric. The wraith shrieked, a noise that made my ears ring and my vision blur, and pulled back just long enough for Damian to put more distance between them.
"I said run!" He sounded genuinely furious now, dodging another swipe that would have taken his head clean off. "For once in your life, just listen to me!"
I tried. I really, truly tried.
I got my remaining heel off and struggled to stand, but the combination of alcohol and terror and hitting the ground hard made the world spin violently the moment I was upright.
“Fuck!”