Descendant

She skidded and bounced down a steep incline, and as she fell, she could feel arms and hands thrusting out from the rock face, fingers reaching to clasp at her hair and clothing, snatching at her limbs. It was horrifying, a nightmare, and yet Mason almost felt the urge to grab hold of those hands to keep herself from falling farther.

She could hear her own voice screaming; a sharp, shrill sound ricocheting off the side of the rocky crevasse, and—high above—she heard the frantic calls of the woman who’d called herself her mother.

Suddenly, the incline leveled sharply and Mason’s feet jarred painfully against what seemed to be the rocky floor of the cavern. Shock waves rippled up her shins, and she grunted in pain as she catapulted forward, instinctively tucking into a shoulder roll to protect her head and face as she tumbled through the darkness to come, finally, to a stop against what felt like the base of a jutting outcrop of jagged stone. She lay there, panting, for a long few minutes after the sounds of her own screams and the roaring of her pulse in her ears had faded to silence.

“You can’t go across the bridge. Bad things will happen. Do you understand?”

Fennrys.

He’d been the one who’d warned her with those words. Back in New York, on the train as it had thundered toward the Hell Gate Bridge. He had been trying to help her. Trying to save her—again— and all she’d been able to do was stand there, frozen in shock, as he’d gotten himself shot for his troubles. She’d just stood there, dumb. And her father’s train had crossed the bridge with her on it. She’d realized in that moment that it hadn’t been just any old bridge.

Bifrost.

The rainbow bridge of Norse myth. The causeway between the mortal world and the realm of the gods.

“Bad things will happen . . .”

Had she, then, crossed over to somewhere where just her very existence spelled disaster? Squinting in the almost total darkness, Mason looked down at the ruined fencing jacket she wore. The once-bright white fabric was stained with her own blood and striped with grease from when she’d forced her way out of the trunk of her brother’s Aston Martin, trying to escape both from it and from the train that had carried the sports car over the bridge. Her hands were a red disaster and her leggings were torn, more blood trickling down from a deep gash in her calf, pooling in her sneaker.

She ignored it and struggled to stretch out with her senses. At first, she thought the red-tinged glow that seemed to diffuse in the gloom was just the afterimage of blood vessels in her own eyes. But the harder she peered into the dark, the brighter the ruddy light grew until she could make out the jagged contours of the cave in which she’d found herself. Slowly, steadily, her eyes began to adjust, and the glow resolved itself into flickering torchlight. Mason could smell the thick, smoky burn of pitch, and she could hear the whisper-quiet crackle of flames. She thought she heard the rustle of movement from somewhere, and she held her breath. But the only other sound that she could positively identify was a slow, steady drip—like water from a leaky tap.

Feeling her way in the darkness, Mason stood and made tentative progress across the uneven rock floor in the direction of the sound. Water might mean a stream or a river—the possibility of a way out. But as she rounded a striated pillar of red and gray rock, she drew a breath in horror. It wasn’t the dripping of water she’d heard.

Flanked by guttering torches set in heavy iron sconces bolted to the rock walls, Mason saw a serpent, massive and coiled on a wide ledge, its muscled body undulating like a wave, scales rustling and shimmering with the movement. Its tail flicked restlessly back and forth as it slithered forward on the rock shelf, its evil-looking mouth opening wide. Sickly yellow venom dripped from its fangs, each droplet shattering the black-glassy surface of a dark pool below.

That was the sound Mason had heard.

What was worse . . . the next sound she heard was a soft, anguished groan.

Half-hidden by rocks that thrust up out of the ground like stout prison bars, Mason could just make out the shape of a man, lying on a bed of stone beneath the serpent’s ledge, surrounded by the pool. The snake’s body convulsed and propelled it forward until its head hovered directly over the place where the man lay. A single, viscous drop of poison gathered at the needle tip of one of the great snake’s fangs—the one positioned above the man’s face—and clung there for an infinite, torturous moment . . . before dropping, glittering like a tiny shard of broken yellow crystal, through the blood-dark air.

Mason couldn’t see the man’s face from where she stood, but she could certainly hear his cry of pure, piercing agony as the poison hit what was probably his cheek or forehead and he writhed and bucked, straining at the chains that bound him, wrists and ankles, to the slab. The howl of agony turned to a roaring bellow of rage, and the entire cavern shook. Yawning cracks shot up the walls on all sides, and bits of rock and dust rattled down all around Mason. It must have been the same ear-shattering cries that had caused the ground to open up beneath her feet moments earlier, sending her plunging into this horrible place.

After what seemed like forever, the wails faded once again to low moans. A last rattle of rocks cascaded down, landing right beside Mason, and she yelped and covered her head. At the noise she made, the man’s groans stopped abruptly, and she could almost sense him straining to hear if there was someone there. She held her breath.

“You’d think I would have grown used to it by now.” The man sighed raggedly, the breath panting in and out of his lungs.

Mason wasn’t sure if he was talking to her, but then it became apparent he was.

“Here,” he murmured gently, as if coaxing a frightened animal out of hiding. “Come here, child. I won’t hurt you.”

Mason froze.

“I promise.” His hand twitched weakly, indicating the chains. “I couldn’t, in any case. Even if I wanted to . . . and I assure you, I don’t.”

That much was obvious. The chains gave him just enough mobility to arch painfully when the poison hit his flesh. Still, Mason hesitated.

“Please.” There was a note of quiet desperation in the word.

Mason frowned. He was chained. Hurt. There was nothing he could do to her in the state he was in. If he even existed at all, which she sincerely doubted.

Well . . . what the hell.

Nothing about this could possibly be real, anyway. Since the moment Rory had stuffed her into the trunk of his car, nothing Mason had experienced had made sense. It sure as hell didn’t now. So either she was drugged, or dreaming—it was entirely possible she was just experiencing the most vivid night terrors she’d ever had, or she was deep in the throes of a profound psychotic episode—the kind the therapists had warned her father she might experience someday if she didn’t continue on with the treatments that she’d summarily rejected at the age of ten —and it had most likely been triggered by Rory’s act of unfathomable cruelty.

Or maybe, she thought, trying to muster charitable feelings toward her brother, he hadn’t really meant to hurt her like that. Maybe it had all been some kind of joke that had just gotten out of hand. A stupid frat-boy stunt the jocks he’d been hanging out with lately had put him up to. She remembered that Taggert Overlea, star quarterback and egregious meathead, had been with Rory. She remembered hearing Tag make lewd comments about Heather Palmerston—Heather, who’d shown up out of nowhere to warn Mason that something bad was about to go down. Mason hoped Heather was okay.

She’s probably fine, you know. None of this is actually happening.

Sure. You just keep telling yourself that.

In truth, Mason really was hard-pressed to delineate where reality had ended for her and unreality had swallowed her whole. Maybe the last few weeks had just finally gotten to her and she’d snapped. Maybe the whole damn day was really all one long, lavish nightmare and she hadn’t even entered the fencing competition yet—and failed miserably. For a moment, she felt a bright spark of hope flare in her chest. Was it possible that there was still hope for her fencing career? Hope for her and Fennrys? Hope for her in the real world?

That’s assuming he’s even real . . .

The bright spark sputtered and threatened to go out. Mason shook her head sharply. Either way, there was