A hissing sound echoed at Isadora’s back. She turned just in time to see the winged creature open its mouth to reveal three rows of razor-sharp teeth dripping with blood. An ear-shattering shriek erupted from its throat and then, with a great flutter of wings, it charged.
Horror enveloped Isadora, held her tight where she stood. Her legs trembled as the monster flew through the air.
“Run!” Demetrius yelled just as it reached him. He swung out with the spear.
Screams and grunts mixed with the clash of Demetrius’s spear against flesh and bone. The beast’s claws arced out and caught Demetrius across the abdomen. He swiveled. Blood spurted from his wounds. He reached back and hurled the spear hard.
The spear caught the monster by the wing, tearing a large hole that gushed bloody fluid. The monster screamed and dropped to the ground.
Across the sand, the boar roared and dashed forward, as if it had suddenly realized it was about to miss out on all the fun.
Demetrius hooked another spear with his bare foot and kicked it up in the air. “Fucking run!”
His voice cut through the terror-filled haze. Isadora stumbled backward, caught herself on her good leg before she went down.
The boar charged. The winged creature screamed again, righted itself. Its eyes seemed to grow even redder.
Oh, shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit…
The pain in her leg only a dim thought, Isadora tore off across the sand as fast as her weak leg would let her. Her heart pounded hard as she dragged the ladder with one hand, which now made a sick sort of sense, and held the spear in the other.
Like she’d even know what to do with a spear. Like she stood a frickin’ chance if those things got by Demetrius. She’d only just learned how to use a blade—thanks to Orpheus’s help—and only when she thought methodically about how and where to strike. But a spear? A spear?
Oh, gods.
A fresh wave of panic consumed her when she reached the base of the cliff. Up close it was much higher than she’d thought. The ladder wouldn’t even come close to reaching the top. Fear closed her lungs, made it hard to breathe. Her heart pounded hard in her ears, drowning out the sounds of clashes and grunts and screams and roars behind her, where Demetrius still battled the two monsters.
She swallowed hard and pulled the ladder up so she could maneuver it against the cliff. It rose at least fifteen feet, not to the small lip that jutted out a good distance up but—yes!—close enough. Maybe if she could get high enough, she could pull herself the rest of the way up.
Her eyes flicked from the tree-trunk poles to the green woven-vine rope. Would it hold her weight? He’d lashed it together quickly. Would it splinter as soon as she was high enough to fall and break her neck?
A roar shook the ground. Isadora grasped the rung above her head and climbed.
The muscles in her arms quivered and ached as she tried to use her strength to pull herself up instead of putting weight on her bad leg. Fear stabbed into her chest like a hot, sharp knife. When she was three-quarters of the way up, breathing heavily from exertion and trying not to look down, the ladder shook.
Both hands clamped on to the rung in front of her. A scream tore from her mouth. Below she heard Demetrius yell, “Climb faster!”
A high-pitched shriek sounded from somewhere close. She didn’t look, knew she couldn’t. Instead she grabbed the rungs faster and climbed higher.
When she made it to the top of the ladder she reached for the closest rock sticking out of the cliff. She perched her bare foot on the uppermost rung, grabbed on, and hauled herself up. Her free hand reached the four-foot ledge. Her fingers dug into rock and dirt, and pain shot through her joints and muscles as she pulled with all her strength.
The creature screamed again at the base of the ladder.
“Go!” Demetrius yelled below her.
Her arms ached in protest, but somehow she managed to pull herself up and over the ledge. She fell onto her back, sucked air into her burning lungs. Demetrius appeared at the ledge before she’d taken three good breaths.
He didn’t even look winded as he hauled himself onto the ledge and jerked the ladder up with him. He placed it against the cliff again, reached for her hand, and yanked her to her feet. “This isn’t a pit stop, Princess. Move!”
Sweat covered every inch of Isadora’s skin. She was so tired she could barely move, but when that thing below screamed again, she realized he was right. This was no place to rest. He might have injured the beast, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t fly anymore, or—oh, gods—climb. She grabbed the ladder when he pushed her toward it, hooked the foot of her bad leg on the first rung, and pushed herself up.
Blinding pain shot from her leg to her skull, and she screamed out as she felt something crack. Her vision swirled and she nearly let go of the ladder, but the horrific cry of the thing below reminded her that if she gave up, she was going to be lunch. Gritting her teeth, she paused, drew in deep breaths. Then with Demetrius’s urging she kept climbing, letting her arms and good leg do as much of the work as they could.
She tried not to think about how high they were, about how unstable the ledge their ladder was perched on could be, about how close Demetrius was, right below her feet, or how much weight rested precariously on the rungs of this makeshift ladder. The next ledge was below the end of the ladder so she didn’t have to struggle so hard to make it to the top. She fell off the ladder onto her side on the hard rocky surface and just tried to breathe. Demetrius stepped off after her, pulled the ladder up again, and grabbed her by the arm, hauling her with him and pushing her toward the ladder again for the last climb.
“I can’t.” Her determination wavered. She leaned into him. The pain in her leg was so great she couldn’t put even an ounce of weight on it. Exhausted, she tried to push him away so she could sink back to the ground, but he was like a solid stone presence, preventing her from doing anything but what he wanted.
He picked her up at the waist, shifted her around, and placed her hands on the rungs in front of them. “You can do it. C’mon. We’re almost there.”
Tears burned the backs of her eyes. Gripping the rungs, she tried to pull herself up with the sheer weight of her arms, but her good leg slipped, and a scream tore out of her when she realized she was going down. Strong arms caught her and she felt Demetrius move in right behind her and place his hands over hers on the crossbeams. “Just a little farther, kardia.”
It took every ounce of strength she had to keep going. That and Demetrius pushing her up from behind. When they finally reached the top of the cliff, she collapsed onto the ground on her back and sucked in as much air as she could to stop the world from the crazy spin cycle it seemed to be on.
He yanked the ladder up from the last ledge, tossed it to the ground at her side. Wind whipped his dark hair back from his face as he held out his hands in front of him, closed his eyes, and chanted in a language that was oddly familiar.
Pain momentarily forgotten, Isadora watched, unable to tear her gaze away. With the waves crashing far below, the wind picking up speed to lift the hair away from his face, and blood and dirt staining his weathered skin, he looked like a god. Like Poseidon calling forth the seas, or Zeus preparing to unleash his wrath on the world. But when the language he was speaking finally registered, she knew the male in front of her was no god at all.
Run!
Instinct kicked in, drowned out the fear she’d felt earlier. She scooted back on her hands, winced when pain lanced up her leg and prevented her from moving.