Total pages in book: 194
Estimated words: 187754 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 939(@200wpm)___ 751(@250wpm)___ 626(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 187754 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 939(@200wpm)___ 751(@250wpm)___ 626(@300wpm)
“No need to wait. Done. Doubled.” Wrapping my arms around one of his, I rest my cheek on his strong shoulder. “I know I can be hard to deal with.”
Laughing, Tyler shakes his head. “What is it you told Joanna? Better hard to deal with than easy to play with?” Smiling, I nod. “Besides, how could I leave you? You’d be lost without me.”
“Literally.”
I’m rewarded with another snort, and then he says, “Come on. The beacon is this way.” He points to the other side of a ravine forty feet below us where the forest continues.
I immediately wrinkle my nose. “But how are we supposed to get down there?” Please don’t say climb. Please don’t say climb.
“We climb, princess.”
I groan. “Can’t we go around?”
“That could take hours and cost us another day to reach the tail. Another storm could hit, and we may not be lucky finding shelter again.”
“We could also fall to our death, Ty.”
Tyler’s jaw ticks, and I know he probably wants to take control and tell me we’re doing this, but he’s also remembering that he works for me, which means I’m in charge.
Technically.
After watching him struggle with indecision, I decide to cut the only person in the world who actually likes and gives a shit about me some slack.
“So how do we do this? We don’t have any rope.”
Tyler looks relieved that I’m not going to go Godzilla on him, and then he’s frowning again as he trudges over to the edge of the small cliff and peers over. “Slowly. I think I see a way down. I’ll go first, and then you follow. Step where I step. Hold what I hold. We should be fine.”
“Piece of cake,” I tease. We’re gonna die.
Pushing away from the tree I’m huddling under, I take one step toward the cliff’s edge when I hear something like a clap and a boom. Startled, I look around in confusion, but before I can ask Tyler what it could be, the ground under my feet begins to shake. It trembles so hard I have to hold onto the tree I abandoned for balance.
“Earthquake!”
The rumbling grows louder, and I follow its direction through the trees from the north. There’s a wall of white that seems to get closer and closer. At first, I assume my eyes are playing tricks on me because it looks like the air is moving.
“Aurelia…” The horror in Tyler’s tone has me looking away in time to see his deep-dark skin turn gray as he looks through the trees, bending and swaying from the quake. “Fuck! That’s not an earthquake! Run!”
Ignoring his order, I hold my hand out for him as he makes a break for the tree that I’m still clutching. My head swivels back and forth as I measure the distance between us and the distance between Tyler and all that white.
He’s naturally fast, but the deep snow slows him, forcing him to take giant steps to cover more distance, which also slows him down. Each step costs him precious life-saving seconds. Meanwhile, the mass of snow gets closer and closer, and I realize with impending doom that I’m just out of its reach. If Tyler can get to me, he’ll be saved, too.
The mass of snow rockets by me and sucks all the air from my lungs from how biting the cold is. My shriveled fingers become impossibly stiff, but I keep my hand out for Tyler, and I wait for the brush of our fingers that never come.
Tyler is still too far away.
“Aurelia! Ru—”
The mass swallows him up, and I scream as it hurdles him back toward the ravine, back toward the cliff’s edge. Helplessly, I watch as it carries my bodyguard over. The snow keeps spilling over the edges like a frozen, deadly waterfall, and then, as fast as it began, it ends.
Ignoring the numb seizing control of my body, I crawl through the snow to the cliff’s edge and scream over the ravine for my bodyguard.
“Tyyyyylerrrrrr!”
AURELIA
It feels like a building fell on top of me.
My ears are ringing, and I can’t feel the rest of my body. I’m choking on something cold and powdery, and whenever I try to breathe, my lungs scream that there’s no air. Meanwhile, something keeps beeping, and it annoys me.
Where am I?
What happened?
The last thing I remember is…
A massive wall of snow, ice, and death racing toward the four of us. I remember how there was no time to run. Seth was swept up first, followed by Thorin and me.
God, I didn’t see what happened to Khalil.
He was the furthest away from us. The avalanche would have hit him last. He would have watched us get swept up like I had to watch Tyler.
I whimper, and it sounds like Khalil’s name to my ears. The beeping grows more rapid and louder, and then I hear my name.