Crimson Wind by Diana Pharaoh Francis Read Free Book Online

longer had anything left. Part of her was willing. If he killed her, she won the battle. Or rather, if she died, he lost the prize, which amounted to a win for her. But no. She had things to do.
    “I’m dying.” She didn’t know if her mouth moved or if she’d simply spoken the words in her mind.
    For a seemingly endless time there was no answer. Then, suddenly, she was whole again and falling. She sprawled on the floor of the cave. She rolled over as copper-colored sand filled her eyes, nose, and mouth. She coughed, inhaling the fine grains. She doubled over, nearly puking as she hacked violently.
    Finally, the fit subsided, and she lay breathless. The sand was hot, like it had been in an oven, though not unpleasantly so. She sat up and looked around. The walls of the cave were made of faceted crystals of every color. They glittered in the soft blue light of Scooter’s magic. The door was gone, and Scooter himself was nowhere to be found.
    Max sat up. She was exhausted, and her body felt like taffy. She looked at her hands, loosely thatched together between her knees. They were little more than skin wrapped around bone sticks. Her wrists and arms were no better. She hadn’t lied when she told Scooter she was dying. He was draining the life right out of her. Maybe she should have dubbed him Dracula instead of Scooter.
    She looked around. “Well? I haven’t got all day,” she called.
    For a moment, nothing happened. Then the sand began to shift. It rippled as if blown by the wind. A couple of feet in front of her, it rose in a tall, round shape, the sands whirling in a tight spiral. Then the bottom and the top split and a bulb grew on top, turning into the semblance of a man. A moment later, the sand contracted and firmed into a solid shape. It smoothed, and Max found herself staring at a naked Scooter.
    He looked exactly as he had before. He had long blue-black hair that shone iridescent in the crystal light. His skin was the same color as the sand, and his features were hawklike. His body was muscular, and he looked like he might have been thirty years old, except that his onyx eyes were ancient. Flecks of blue magic swam in their depths, reminding Max that he was not human. As if she needed a reminder. She wasn’t even sure if he was a he . Except that he had the right parts between his legs, and they weren’t too shabby.
    He stared down at her, his expression oddly impassive, while she could feel his anger pounding against her like a club.
    “Can you tone that down a little?” she said, brushing away invisible cobwebs and propping her head on her hands. “I’m having a hard time staying upright as it is.” The pounding sensation eased, though it didn’t go away.
    “You promised to come to me.”
    “Yes, I did.”
    “But you did not.”
    “I’ve had some other things on my plate. More important.”
    He made a low rumbling sound almost out of hearing, and the walls quivered. The crystals made a thin chiming sound that made Max ache in the marrow of her bones.
    She was too tired for tact. “Look, Scooter, here’s how it is. I’m a Shadowblade, and I’m bound to serve and protect Giselle and Horngate. Right now, my compulsion spells don’t want me anywhere near you. So just walking in here costs me the equivalent of a stomach full of razor wire. On top of that, the Guardians are trying to kill off most of humanity, and I really want to go fetch my family and bring them to Horngate before they become casualties. So you come in third on my priority list.”
    “You are my gift,” he hissed, and it sounded disturbingly snakelike. But then, his father was Onniont, the Horned Serpent, who dug the rifts between mountains.
    “So you said. But I’m not ready to be unwrapped yet. I’ll make you a deal. You stop invading my dreams and don’t try to stop me from going to get my family, and I’ll come back and let you do whatever you want with me.”
    “You are mine. You will stay.”
    Max gave a slow