Read Online Pine Needles (Veil Realms Series) by Karli Rush - Free Book Online

into a dead run. Flinging a glimpse to my distancing background, the hellhound beast roars an explosion of rage, shifting its sinewy body in my direction and vaults over the residual tree. A much needed rush quickens my pace, as blood pumps my neck-breaking adrenaline I thrash wildly past the brimming anomalistic jungle’s canopy.
    Again the sounds of the scourging talons and feet plunder after me while I try and steer my way to the water. Praying the mauling, trampling being can’t swim, closer I feel the thick dewiness weighing down the air. 
    Flailing my arms constantly at the underbrush and vines making my passage, as the clashing of the water becomes deafening. I hurdle over a mass of bosky ferns and twisting roots when I see the death-defying drop off. In my next blind impulse of movement , I jump.
    Just as my bare foot leaves the steep cliff, a slight sting grazes my heel from the flaying beast’s fleeting hold. Extending my arms out, I plunge down with the scornful wind whipping by me. I realize the possibility that I may not survive this hundred foot descent, torpedoing towards the blue bottomless basin.
    Bracing myself as I hit, splashing in the up shooting waves. Submerging deeper my breath bottles inside my crushing lungs and the slew of ambient underwater sounds drown my ears. I barely can f ocus on the clusters of bubbles as they escape from my nose and mouth. My head harshly thumps against the rocky bottom.
    The concentration of noise fades while my body floats back up, alerting concern rises making me wonder if I hit my head too hard causing the numbing sensation in my arms and legs. With eyes wide-open I view the sparkle of white light above and silhouettes of red wisps when spirit-like images swirl in an unreal illusion of Rayden which forms out of the murkiness. The figure looks so real that I imagine myself reaching out and so does the ethereal being of Rayden.
    Our hands ghostly touch and somehow our bodies shift and I’m suddenly hovering above the clear blue water looking down at him. The entire ghostly scene alters again and I’m in his embracing arms suspended over the cursive waves.
    Grasping the thought that this can’t possibly be real, I reflexively cling to him cherishing the unswayable hold he has on me.  Dimming memorie s loiter around in my conscious of our once blissful life together. Our picturistic essences’ soon begin to airily flicker away, and I’m left with only desolating darkness.
     
     

Chapter Eight
     
    Broken
     
     
    Creeping with inertia my eyes pry open barely with sight. Randomly my eyes roam and I can tell I’m lying down on a pallet of wool of some type. The scratchy callousness chafes along my neck, and I try to direct my hand up to massage the icy-cold feeling from my shoulders. But it’s unresponsive, steadily and gruelingly I trail my eyes downward terrified that I may find my legs and arms detached.
    Puffing out a sigh of easement as I find I’m still all in one piece, but it doesn’t answer the perplexing question grating my mind. My coarse voice repeats his name, “Sirius… Sirius ?” Only silence sweeps an answer back to me. Twisting my head to the side, trying to get a grasp on where I am. I see a distinct darkened shadow dominate the doorway before me.
    “Selene, I have sent out a command for Nevaeh to come prepare for the conversion.”  His heavy footsteps edge closer to where I lay . Kneeling down, his molten gold irises scorch into my fearful eyes. “Your fortunate escape from the Carvi has left you broken, Selene. I never intended to do this so soon, I wanted to give you time… time to choose. Now, this has to be done in order for you to survive.”  
    He starts to rise when another shaded hulking figure approaches the doorway of the hemmed-in hut. Before he steps away I implore him, “Sirius, please…don’t do this.” Fighting inside myself, willing my hands to reach him, to beg, to reason with him that there must be another way