6. Soren

There were many reasons why this dreadful place hadn't been put on a map. It was fucking volatile and everything tried to kill you here. I was perched on a rock as Ryder got some sleep and Gray was out working on the maps.

We had been here for two weeks and we hadn't found a way out. We tried climbing the first few days, but we almost got killed by a creature that had the head of a tiger, but the body of a spider.

It was terrifying when five of them appeared. I didn't even want to chance climbing with my vampire speed and find myself in one of their stomachs. That wasn't the most terrifying thing we had encountered, and it wasn"t even an animal. It was a plant. Imagine Venus Fly Traps having tentacles and razor-sharp teeth. My body shuddered as I remembered being dragged towards its mouth before Ryder saved me.

We had tried traveling at night or during the day, but no matter what time it was, this land was dangerous. I had no idea how we had survived, but we were running out of magical artifacts and the worst part… blood. We didn't think we were going to be gone for this long, overconfident because there had never been a job that had given us a problem like this. We had been in some tough situations, but all it took was to regroup and hash out a few things and we made it work. We always made it work.

I sighed louder than I intended.

"We will get out of here," Gray said, as papers rustled around him.

"I know we will, but what happens when we run out of food?" I asked, keeping the concern out of my voice.

"We can always eat Ryder and just us two can escape," he deadpanned.

I barked out a laugh, quickly covering my mouth.

"When in doubt, eat your friend," I said, when I recovered from laughing.

"Exactly," he agreed, biting his bottom lip. "Worst-case scenario we need to have a talk with him about feeding from him."

The thought about feeding from Ryder made me feel uneasy, but if we didn't, we could end up killing him during our bloodlust.

"Not my first choice," I said, trying to lighten the mood.

"I mean it"s either him or that carnivorous plant and I'm sure you've had enough plants to last you a lifetime," he chuckled.

I shuddered again thinking about that damn plant.

"I'll take Ryder then," I grunted.

Silence enveloped us as I kept watch and Gray worked. Ryder moved to his back as he started to snore softly. The sky lightened to a light blue as I slid off the rock to walk around. My body was a little stiff from sitting there too long.

"We should get ready to cover some ground today," Gray said, getting up to stretch. "It's your turn to wake him."

I groaned, hating the job of waking Ryder. He was so grumpy when he woke up and he had been in a foul mood since we hadn't been able to escape. Poking the bear, I ran away before he could snap at me. It took him a solid ten minutes to finally get up and when he did, he looked like a wild man with his hair all messed up. His beard had a few leaves in it and he had a scowl that could make a grown man shit himself.

"Are we any closer to getting out of this hellhole?" he grumbled, sitting down grabbing a protein bar and some jerky.

It's the fourth day in a row he's had to ration his food and I know the lack of calories was getting to him. Realization hit me that if he didn't eat, we wouldn't be able to drink from him. We might just fucking die out here.

"I don't know, I've been mapping where we've been going and I feel like we've been going in circles," Gray said, running his hand through his hair. "There is no way we could be here for so long and not at least get to the end. This place can't be that massive for it not to be on a map."

My lips thinned at the information, adding to my stress of us not living through this. We would have failed Serena. We would have failed Katarina. And now we were paying the price of being overconfident. Also, if we ever got out of here, Joseph would get ripped limb from limb and die the slowest death possible.

"What if this is the biggest kept secret?" I played devil's advocate. "Something is hiding here, and someone has been keeping it secret for centuries.

"Then, let"s keep looking. If something is down here, maybe finding it is the only way out?" Gray looked thoughtful.

"Well, let"s hurry up because we've been dark for over two weeks. I know Serena is probably worried and I can only imagine how Katarina is feeling," Ryder said, stuffing his face.

"Our supplies are also dwindling," I stated, knowing it was obvious.

"I know, I need food to keep you guys fed," he said, like he had heard our earlier conversation.

I nodded, knowing Gray was thinking the same thing.

"It's not over guys, we still have a chance to get the hell out of here and get what we need," he said, before securing his vest on himself and grabbing his backpack.

I followed suit, tightening my boots, checking my knives and artifacts before we started our jog through this dreadful place. Gray and I had to keep pace with Ryder since he was just a slow shifter, but he was faster than a human so there were some small miracles.

Midday came quickly and our environment hadn't changed much. The afternoon was passing us by, and it seemed like we hadn't gone too far from where we started this morning. The surroundings quickly changed into mostly big trees—which made it harder to run through—with the occasional deadly plant life from the desert-like environment we had first fallen into. It all looked the same, but I didn't know how we'd been going in circles. Every day it felt different. We were always seeing new fucked-up shit in this unusual gorge.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up before I was tackled to the ground by my twin. A loud snarl passed us as an enormous lynx jumped over us. At least that"s what I think I had seen because another snarl sounded before we took off running.

"Ryder!" I yelled because I hadn"t seen him in a minute.

We ran at full speed, rounding back to look for Ryder. Gray and I were so in sync that we didn"t have to voice our plans, we just did it. A fucking huge lynx thing jumped toward Gray, but he slid down as I jumped up wrapping my arms around its neck and jerking it to the side.

"Fuuuck!" Gray yelled.

Looking around frantically for him, I saw him wrestle with one cat, while another one tried swiping at him. Their claws were huge as I tackled one, staying away from their paws. I broke its leg before he tried to bite me, but I caught its upper and lower teeth ripping its jaw right off.

"Ryder!" I yelled, getting worried that we hadn't heard from him, while Gray killed the other cat.

My mind immediately pictured a broken Ryder being pulled apart. Another cat jumped on my back while I was distracted. I snarled, getting ready to punch them when a familiar scent invaded my senses.

"You asshole," I snapped, seeing a large wolf looking at me with his tongue and blood running down his mouth onto the fur on his chest.

He shifted while he chuckled, standing in his birthday suit walking away from us, pulling his backpack out of some hole in a tree.

"What the hell were those things?" He chugged some water, then rinsed the blood off his face and chest.

We all desperately needed a shower, these two weeks consisted of washing ourselves in the small river that ran in the middle of the gorge. We tried washing ourselves and clothes as often as we could but we were all paranoid of being caught with our pants down—literally.

"I don't know, this place feels like it was purposely made to be dangerous so that it would keep people out or kill them if they got in," I said, still on high alert. "Something is hidden here, and I have a feeling if we find it, it"s going to make us very rich."

"I agree, it"s the only thing that makes sense. Someone would have mapped this place out already or we would have heard of this before today." Gray walked up next to me. "This isn't natural. Something is here, but the longer we are here the less I think we are going to find it."

"Then let"s not find it and just get the hell outta here so we can return to our mission and get what we need." Ryder pulled a black shirt over his chest, before putting on his vest, checking all his pockets. "Let's go, but let's make sure we don't run into those again."

We took off running as we heard another snarl coming from behind. If we could just keep going, maybe the animal would get tired. It only took another minute before the animal grew tired and we were able to relax.

"I hate coming here." I heard a voice in the distance.

"Come on, let"s get going before one of those spiders comes around," another person said.

"Hurry up, you fools," a woman's sharp voice snapped.

Gray glanced over his shoulder as we slowed down.

"There's no sense in rushing," a man snapped. "I'm sure you could demolish this entire chasm."

"Excuse me?" she shrieked.

We slowed down when we spotted them, hiding in the overgrowth of grass and vines.

"You heard me, pull that thong from your ass, so you can quit being a bitch," a man growled as he opened a portal.

"If we run quick enough, we can make it," I whispered.

"Yeah, but what will they do to us when we do?" Gray asked.

"At least we will be out of this godforsaken place," I growled.

"I think our best shot is to run after them. Once we get through, one of you can carry me out and we can make our escape," Ryder said, slowly inching towards them.

"This could end badly," Gray hissed. "We don't know who these people are and what if they use another spell against our powers."

"We don't have a choice," I said, seeing the last few people come up to the portal.

My body shot forward ready to go through the portal when a fucking pain in the ass cat blocked my way. I hesitated for a moment. He was focused on the other people when I snapped his neck, but just those few seconds robbed us of our way to get out.

The portal closed just as I was getting close to it.

"No!" I yelled.

"Shit," Ryder snarled, looking around like we might get lucky for another portal to reopen.

I looked up, trying to calm my rising anger, but that felt like it was our only opportunity to leave. I walked to the mountain to the left of us, ready to punch the shit out of something. This piece of the mountain was covered in vines, and I wished for a moment climbing was an option.

I put both hands up to the mountain, but when I thought my hands were going to hit rock, I fell through into a cave. I was about to lose my shit when I realized I was in a cave in the mountains. I walked through the cave moving some vines, realizing I was in the middle of a mountain range with a large tower in the middle of a big piece of land and a waterfall off in the corner.

"Shit," I whispered. "Did I just find what we were looking for?"

The description Ryder was able to get from that man was identical to what I was looking at. Movement to my left had me hiding behind a nearby tree. A woman was walking back to the tower with long, beautiful hair. The smell of sunflowers and lilies traveled to me, making my mouth water immediately. It was oddly familiar, but it smelled like the best and most comforting scent.

My chest felt tight, the need to follow her overwhelmed me. Was this what the gorge protected? Without thinking of the consequences, I used the darkness to move around worried there would be an army of people protecting her or whatever was here.

She got to the entrance of the tower looking around like she knew that I was watching. I was behind a tree peeking around it to keep an eye on her when she looked in my direction. My chest tightened again, feeling like it was too much pressure. I inhaled her scent again as she opened the door disappearing inside the tower.

I didn't care, so I made a mad dash for the door, hoping she hadn't locked it. Luck was on my side when she continued up the steps without a backward glance. Waiting until she walked further up the stairs, I opened the door slowly, hoping it didn't make a noise.

The inside of the tower was massive. I wasn't paying attention enough to think this through, but the need to follow her, to see her, was overriding everything I knew. It felt like she had cast some sort of spell on me and I was useless against it. I didn't care if she was luring me to my death. All I wanted was another glance at her, another lungful of her scent and a chance to be in her presence.

"Could you stop being such a pest," a voice traveled down to me. "Look, just because she's gone doesn't mean anything."

Her voice was soft, sweet, melodic and just imagining my name on her lips made my body flush with desire.

I slowly made my way towards her. The winding staircase traveled up over several floors until I came to a floor that looked like storage, but I smelled it immediately.

It was Oria. What we had been looking for and what we thought we still needed to find. Stress that I didn't even know I was carrying, eased slightly; this was fucking perfect. I hated that we missed the portal, but it was fate. We were meant to find this place.

As much as I wanted to go after her, the Oria took priority. Stepping into the room, I opened a few boxes, finding nothing but packing supplies and vials. But my eyes caught a box left half opened in the back and something shiny inside.

Opening it, a vial of metallic liquid sloshed inside. Shit… this was what we needed to create a portal out of here. The box was full of them and I grabbed a few knowing this would be our way out. Loud stomping made me hurry. It was stupid to come here alone, but now that I knew what we were looking for, this was going to be easy.

I left things as they were, making sure everything looked like it was supposed to be. Listening for anyone in the stairwell, more loud stomping from above made being here alone too risky.

Getting out, I kept my eyes open, looking for anyone around, but I saw no one. That didn't mean they weren't there. I finally made it out of the tower, running towards the tree I was behind and ran up the mountain to the opening I had come through.

Passing through the illusion, expecting to see Ryder and Gray right away, I was met with a quiet night. My mind immediately thought of the worst-case scenario and I instantly felt horrible. I put them in danger because of a woman.

"Where the fuck have you been?!" Gray ran to me with Ryder in wolf form behind him.

"That part of the mountain is an illusion. I think I just found our ticket home and what we need. Oria."