Branches of Life

I lost any sense of calm and tried backing away from the shadowed figures, but my feet were rooted in place. My hands groped my thighs, looking for my dagger and somehow came up empty.

What the fuck?

The figures kept moving closer, and yet I was still unable to make out any details. No matter how deeply I breathed, my lungs were still starved for air. A dizzying light sensation filled my head as my legs buckled and I crashed to unforgiving concrete. All rational thought was gone, my fight or flight instincts no longer existed. I froze, plain and simple. All I could do was squeeze my eyes shut and curl into a ball, praying they wouldn't see me down here.

A muffled and familiar voice called out my name. Followed by warm hands cupping my face, chasing away the chill that had settled over my body. "Come on baby, open your eyes."

My eyes snapped open and met the churning amber eyes of Koa. Blinking furiously, I whipped my head around looking for the distorted shadows but was unable to find them. They were gone.

Everyone was circled around me, faces showcasing a myriad of emotions, mainly concern. It was then that I realized I wasn't laying on the ground, curled into a ball, but standing on unsteady legs.

Koa turned my head back toward him, and I met his steady gaze. "What happened? Where did those things go? Why did you leave me?" I asked in a rush, the last question slipping out before I could stop it. To make matters worse, my voice broke.

His expression softened as he gently stoked my cheeks. "I was here the entire time, I will never leave you. None of what you saw was real." Dropping his forehead to mine, he took a few seconds before continuing. "It must've been the mist that made you see an illusion, leaving you vulnerable." Lifting his head, his intense eyes were aimed solely on me, watching every microexpression that crossed my face.

"We need to find that damn sorcerer," Ander all but growled, breaking the moment between us.

Not wanting to be in this hallucinogenic mist any longer than I had to be, I laced my fingers through Koa's and was practically glued to his side as we continued our search for Wyatt.

It was near impossible to tell how far we walked, or if we were actually going anywhere. For all I knew we could've been going in circles. A large tower seemingly appeared out of nowhere, almost like this region wanted to prove me wrong.

"How the fuck did we not notice this before?" Ari marveled, craning her head back to take in the tower. The windowless building was at least a couple hundred feet high, with demonic symbols carved into the gray stone. A worn wooden door sat right in front of us, daring us to enter the sinister tower. Shivers of apprehension ran down my spine at the thought of entering this building. Even if it did get me out of this mist, I hadn't been able to relax in or stop constantly looking around for any more hallucinations. Something about this structure felt evil, like I was trading one bad situation for one equally as bad. Koa's hand squeezed mine in reassurance.

"You know what? I doubt Wyatt would ever go in there, we should look somewhere else," I said, turning away from the looming tower. Koa chuckled and pulled me to his chest, forcing me to raise my free hand to stop myself from crashing into him.

"Nice try, but we're not going to find any answers wandering around the mist." His thumbs lightly traced over my lips in a teasing touch. My body was practically vibrating with energy, no longer caring about the mist surrounding us, or the sinister tower looming over us. All I could think about was his heated gaze on my lips. Was he going to kiss me again?

Ander cleared his throat, reminding us of our audience, and essentially dumping ice water on our moment. Hoping some distance from Koa would help me think more clearly, I took a step back. His focus remained on me, and like the mature adult I was, I looked anywhere but him.

My attention drifted to Ander, noticing him staring at Koa, his expression closed off and giving nothing away. To anyone who didn't know him, they wouldn't know what he was thinking or feeling. However, I did know him and all of his ticks. When he spun his ring around his finger, he was pissed. An action he was doing now. Fuck.

"We can't just walk in there. Who knows what all these symbols mean? We could be walking into a trap," Ari called out louder than necessary. I knew she only did so to take Ander's attention off of Koa. When I shot her a grateful look, she winked at me, a smirk lifting her lips.

Ander was slow to look away, but finally turned his focus to the symbols on the wall. "I can only understand a couple of them," he murmured, making sure to keep a healthy distance from the tower.

"It doesn't matter if we can read them or not." Starling sighed not even looking at the tower, but into the mist.

"I can't wait to hear your thoughts."

Whirling around, Starling waved a hand impatiently at the tower. "They're demons. They'd be stupid not to ward the damn thing. It doesn't matter whether or not we can figure out the wards. None of us can break them. Not even you, with your special blood mage skills. Only a sorcerer or a sorceress would have a shot at breaking them without it backfiring. And I don't know if you've noticed, but we've seemed to have misplaced ours."

"Damn," Ari whispered under her breath, while I pressed my hand against my mouth, preventing myself from laughing. Nothing she said was funny, but there was something about her solemn demeanor disappearing—not to mention, Ander's shocked expression—that was just so funny to me.

"I guess it's a good thing I'm here," Wyatt drawled from behind us and I nearly screamed, having been so focused on Starling's rant to have heard him. Either that or the mist muffled the sounds of his approach.

"Where the hell have you been?" I demanded, attempting to regain some composure while Wyatt strolled toward the tower. His body remained loose, as if he didn't have a care in the world.

"I was following a trail." That's it, he offered nothing else.

Ari grabbed my shoulder as if she thought I might launch myself at him, and try and beat his ass. "Let him work."

Several minutes passed and he was still staring at that damn wall. I sighed and shifted my position. Ander just laughed at me and before he could make a comment about how I needed to learn patience, I flipped him off.

"Don't worry, I'm almost ready." After taking one last look at the wall, he reached into his bag and pulled out a vial of purple liquid. "I found another structure we should also search." Popping off the cork of the vial, he dipped his finger into the liquid, before drawing translucent runes onto the door. "We should split up and search both, it'll be faster that way."

I opened my mouth to bring up how we should avoid a horror movie cliché while standing in this horrifying mist, when he continued. "I'd prefer if the annoying one stayed here and searched this tower."

"He'd better not be talking about me," I grumbled crossing my arms as he began chanting.

"Honestly, he could be talking about any of us." Ari tilted her head back and stared up at the mist above us.

As Wyatt continued drawing runes, chanting, and making hand gestures, we debated on how we wanted to split up into groups. While I had some serious reservations about this tower, I decided to go with the devil I knew, so to speak. There was a strong chance the other structure sucked way worse than this one, and the thought of walking through this mist more than I had to made me cringe.

Harmony insisted on going where I went. She claimed it was because I couldn't seem to stop getting hurt. I started to protest until I realized how right she was. Each of us had our fair share of injuries, but many of mine took me out of the game for several hours. Damn, I really had some shitty luck on this mission. Maybe it was a sign I shouldn't be going on anymore anything soon.

By the time the glowing runes sank into the door and it swung open without a sound, we had our groups sorted. Koa, Starling, Harmony, and I would search the tower. While Wyatt, Ander, Ari, and Rowan searched the other place. I didn't love the idea of being separated from Rowan, but I knew it was the fastest way of knowing if something went wrong. When Ander had protested our groups, Ari pressed her hand to her chest in mock offense, saying she always knew he favored Harmony and me over her. His protests died down real quick after that.

"Now, I've removed the wards stopping you from entering the tower, but none of the security measures they may or may not have inside. Be wary of energy barriers when you enter a room. And for once, don't touch anything," Wyatt said, looking my way at the last part.

Scoffing, I rolled my eyes and before I could come up with a witty retort, he turned on his heel and led the others through the mist to our left. As the mist swallowed them up, I could no longer hear their footsteps.

A circular room nearly sixty feet in diameter awaited us. The dark ominous space was void of any personality or personal touches. In fact, the only thing in here was a spiral staircase at the back of the room. At least this place wasn't musty or grimy. There was the lingering stench of demonic magic hanging in the air; a mixture of burnt herbs and death.

With nowhere to go but up, we followed the spiral staircase to the next level, where another open room sat. This time shelves and tables were lining the walls. Having no clue what I was supposed to be looking for, I wandered over toward a shelf filled with vials. Next to it sat a shelf with various animal skulls and bones. A shiver ran down my spine and I quickly moved on to the next.

It wasn't hard to deduce these were ingredients used in their spells. Even without Wyatt's warning, I wouldn't have touched a single thing in this room. Dark magic coated everything, leaving behind an oily energy.

For the next couple of hours, we went from floor to floor, scanning over everything as we watched out for traps that never came. Maybe they thought the warding on the door was enough. More likely, was that there was nothing of true value here. There wasn't a diary outlining their evil plans. No convenient photographs of them and the traitor. What a shame. Koa's laughter at this comment—that I hadn't meant to say out loud—had warmth filling my chest as I just stared at him in awe.

I was in deep, way too fucking deep.

One floor was a study with a couple of desks and shelves full of large tomes—all of which were written in their demonic language. The floor above it, had yellowing papers plastered on the walls and covering every surface. Rough sketches and writings were scribbled on the pages. I couldn't make heads or tails of it. To me, it looked like the ravings of a madman. Starling took a video of it all, just in case.

Koa told her to send it to Seth and that he'd be able to translate. Apparently, Seth was a blood mage and close confidant of their alpha. How that relationship came to be? I had no clue, Koa wasn't in the mood to elaborate. Which was annoying as hell, because we had nothing but time right now.

The entire time I kept nervously glancing at the staircase, waiting for a demon to either storm up or down the stairs. Neither of these happened, and instead of being relieved by this, I was unsettled. We were in the demon's land but had yet to come across any demons. And Wyatt had used magic several times. There's no way they wouldn't have sensed it. So where the hell were they?

We were on the top floor of the tower, which they used as storage, when Rowan spoke. 'We found something.'