Dreamwalker's Bride - Chapter 191

Chapter 191: Descent
Anaisa glanced down into the cave. In her rush, Emily had left without a lamp. There were one or two along the way, of course, for such contingencies, but stumbling along in the dark for a while would impede her progress.

Anaisa looked over her shoulder as the little crew prepared to obey the Count’s order. Sanders leaned to pick something up out of the rubble the soldier had ripped away from the cave entrance. Perhaps a shard of one of the fake jewels.

Or perhaps those jewels were gone. Emily could have told Deborah by now that there was no need to keep sustaining the fakes and wasting her power.

Regardless, Anaisa did not draw attention to Sanders’ behavior. Barnabas was still glaring at her, and she stuck her tongue out at him. It was incredibly childish and provoking, and it hurt her jaw, to boot.

Her face had been screaming in pain through her entire diatribe against the man who got her father killed, but adrenaline or spite drove her to ignore it and spew all the rage she had at him. He ignored her protruding tongue, gesturing for her to precede him down the hallway.

She turned slowly and began to limp along. Trace put an arm around her waist to help her, while Sanders picked up one of the lamps dropped by the quickly evacuating soldiers earlier.

“You walk ahead as well,” Barnabas sneered at the magic user. “I’ve never really trusted you.”

Sanders shrugged and walked forward, while the Count and his unwitting bodyguard brought up the rear of the little company.

Anaisa exaggerated her limp to slow the group down. If Barnabas had noticed Sanders’ sister before she ran down the tunnel, he didn’t say anything about it, but he repeatedly prodded them to move faster.

The injured woman had a wide variety of snarky retorts to offer about how she could walk far more quickly it he hadn’t thrown her to the ground and twisted her ankle, but every time she opened her mouth to offer one, her throat seemed devoid of air to carry the words.

It was far more frustrating than Anaisa had anticipated. She was a woman full of words! It was one thing to voluntarily contain them and promise herself she would tell someone later, but to have no ability to speak whatsoever when she wanted to keep railing at the murderer and usurper behind her… it was absolutely maddening!

Trace seemed to notice and squeezed her gently in sympathy, but her sharp inhale made him loosen his hold immediately. Had she hurt her ribs in one of her falls? She felt like a clumsy child, not even being able to take stock of all her injuries.

If she survived long enough, she would depend heavily on the doctor’s healing abilities. After all, little Ewan had been healed of much worse.

The further they walked, the more Anaisa ached, and the more tired she became. Sleeping in a cave had not been restful. She longed for a soft bed. A full night’s rest while she played with Trace in their dreams.

Would she be able to speak in her dreams right now, she wondered? She blinked and winced. Her black eye was swelling up badly enough to make it hard to see out that side, or was the cave just getting darker?

The tension mounted. Her steps dragged as Barnabas’s became lighter. They were coming closer and closer to the bottomless pit he intended to drop them into. Anaisa felt an angry tear leak from her uninjured eye.

If Emily didn’t make it in time, Anaisa didn’t want Trace’s last time looking at her face to look like… this. She was a beaten up, broken mess, and she could tell that looking at her pained him a great deal.

Not because he thought she was ugly, but because she could tell he blamed himself for letting her be hurt at all. His readable, amazing face was painted with self-recrimination and concern.

It was only one more turn in the cave, less than two hundred steps, until the place where they might very well die very shortly.

At least they would die together, she told herself. She would hold onto Trace until the very end, her very last breath. Maybe they would even lose consciousness before they died and get one last, brief, beautiful dream.

Another tear leaked out, and she looked at her husband, memorizing his face again. It was already burned into her memory, but she wanted it deeper still. She wanted every thought from now until the end, if it was the end, to be about him.

Her arm had come around his waist at some point as she leaned against him for support, and she brought the other to join it, hugging him as she limped along.

“Ugh. I would never have put you two together if I knew I would have to witness such distasteful displays of affection,” Barnabas snipped sarcastically.

“Shut up,” Trace glanced over his shoulder, stopping for a moment. “I was far too compliant for far too long. You’re a monster. My wife was right, no one will love you. You will die alone, and hated. Even if Anaisa and I die right now, our lives will have been better than yours.”

Barnabas laughed. “If you die right now? Look just there. Your death awaits. I’ll give you the choice to jump in willingly, keeping your free will until your last breath, or I can command my strong man here to throw you in. I’m feeling magnanimous to give you such a choice.”

“You don’t want to waste your power, you mean,” Trace shook his head. “Drop the stupid act, Barny, you’re not fooling anyone.”

Anaisa’s eyebrows shot to her hairline. Barny? The juvenile nickname was guaranteed to enrage the Count, and she watched him raise one hand to backhand Trace across the face as her husband grinned tauntingly.

Perhaps she’d been more of an influence on her husband than she’d thought!

But just before the Count swung his hand, he screamed.