It shredded the skin from his body, stripped him to the muscle, and exposed his nerve endings. It worked its way into those endings until every one of them was covered and rubbed at by sand.
Then, from the endless sea of golden brown, a skeletal face emerged. Unlike the skeletons in the tunnel, this one was very much alive as its teeth nearly took off the tip of his nose before the sand tore them apart.
Cole strained to see anything beyond the endless brown, but it was impossible. When another wave crashed over him, he had to close his eyes or risk losing them.
Sand clogged his nostrils and choked his mouth until it shoved its way down his throat. Deprived of oxygen, his lungs burned, but he resisted inhaling until it became impossible to fight the instinct.
With an inhalation that he knew wouldn’t bring any relief but he was unable to stop, he drew sand into his lungs until they felt like balloons about to burst from being stuffed so full.
Despite his inability to breathe, he continued to claw his way toward the surface while the sand worked to bury him. He could only hope he was digging in the right direction and wasn’t working his way deeper into the earth.
Using his ability to manipulate the Earth, he pushed the sand away from his palms the best he could, but as he moved it away, more took its place. The relentless weight of it was close to crushing him beneath its punishing onslaught.
Something grabbed his ankle. He almost looked down to see it, but doing so would be completely useless. Until he was free of this mess, he wouldn’t see again.
Judging by the feel of it, one of those skeletal things held his ankle. The waves had caught those things up with him, and they would do everything they could to make sure he didn’t survive.
Cole kicked at the hand digging into his ankle and managed to knock it away as another set of fingers started clawing at his back. Those fingers entangled in his hair and drew his head back. Before he could stop it, teeth sank into his shoulder.
Clenching his jaw against his increasing agony and growing urge to pass out from lack of oxygen, Cole ignored the creature gnawing on him as he struggled toward the surface. He’d had enough of this place, these things, and all the fucking sand.
He refused to die in this place or to have one of these things bring him down. He would not fail here. Between Lexi and his determination to bring the Lord down, he had far too much to live for.
With renewed vigor, he clawed, kicked, and swam his way toward the surface as he continued to use his powers to shove the sand away from him. Just when he was sure he was digging his way deeper into the sand instead of out, his hand broke the surface.
For a second, he couldn’t believe it was real, but as his hand twisted above the sea of sand, the sun warmed his fingers. Cole shoved his other hand through and rested his palms on the surface.
With a mighty heave, he pulled himself free of the crushing sand. It poured off his head and fell around him as he collapsed onto the ground and tried to gasp in air. Though sand poured from his mouth, no air passed his lips.
As if he didn’t have enough things keeping him from breathing, bony arms encircled his neck and squeezed. The bones dug into his tendons, but there was no air to choke from him.
Another wave of sand smashed into him, and he toppled back onto the skeletal being. When its teeth clamped harder onto his shoulder, it released a strange, guttural cry that his muscles muffled. Lying on his back, Cole cracked an eye open to discover a wave of sand cresting over him again.
No!
He threw his palms up, and released a blast of power to take control of the Earth and keep the sand away. He would not be buried again.
Blinking against the particles caking his eyes, his vision finally cleared enough to reveal a ceiling of sand cascading over his head. In the unrelenting sun, the different grains and rocks sparkled and shone with a rainbow of colors. Cole sneered at those colors.
The creature tore a hunk of sinew from his shoulder as the wave ended. As the sun beat down on him once more, Cole expected another wave to follow, but it didn’t.
Twisting to the side, he managed to tear himself free of the creature’s hold. He rolled away from it as more skeletal hands erupted from the sand. They pawed at the air and patted the now calm earth as they searched for him.
Pushing himself to his feet, Cole staggered and nearly went down before catching himself. More sand spilled from his mouth, but he still couldn’t breathe. His vision blurred and went out again as lack of oxygen caused him to sway.
However, he couldn’t stop moving. Stopping meant death; it meant losing, and he would claim the dark fae throne.
He tried to cough the sand out of his lungs, but there was no air in him to do so. As he staggered forward, he clawed at his mouth and pulled handfuls of sand from it. He dug deeper until his fingers were pulling sand out of his throat.
When he couldn’t get any deeper, he clasped his hands together and placed them against his belly. He shoved upward to push more of the sand out of him. Eventually, he loosened enough earth from inside him to work some air into his lungs.
Once those first breaths entered him, a bone-wracking wave of coughing swept his frame. Bending over, he rested his hands on his knees as he hacked up clumps of bloody sand. The intensity of the coughing cracked a couple more ribs and caused a fiery, stabbing pain in his side and back.
It took some time, but he finally wheezed in air. His lungs felt like someone had taken a baseball bat to them, but they were functioning again.
With trembling fingers deprived of their skin, he wiped away the sand sticking to his eyes and blinked against the fiery sun. In the distance, skeletal creatures dragged themselves across the sand toward him. They were so far away he didn’t pay them any attention.
The barren wasteland spread out before him once more, but this time, a hundred feet away, the desert ended in a wall of dark. He couldn’t see what lay within that dark and didn’t care.
If it meant escaping this place, that shadowed land could lead straight to Hell, and he would be happy about it. Rising, he staggered into the darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The blessed cold air of the darkness enveloped him as he lurched forward like a zombie in pursuit of brains—and those creatures were ruthless when tracking a meal.
Except, he didn’t smell brains or food as he stumbled forward. Instead, the crisp scent of water filled his nostrils. If he’d possessed an ounce of moisture in his body, saliva would have flooded his mouth, but though he felt like drooling, he couldn’t.
His stressed heart beat so rapidly it pulsed in his eardrums as he tracked the scent. He became so focused on the smell of water and the prospect of drinking all of it that his vision tunneled.
He didn’t see the world around him and had no idea if an enemy loomed nearby as he searched for water. The cool rocks beneath his bare, skeletal feet were a welcome respite as he shuffled around a set of boulders that blocked his view of whatever lay beyond.
And then, he saw the water.
An unrecognizable sound issued from him, and his legs became so weak that he nearly went down. Somehow, he managed to stay on his feet as he staggered toward the pristine lake. Not a single ripple disturbed its glassy surface.
He was almost to the shore and could already taste the cool liquid slipping down his throat to eradicate what remained of the sand coating the insides of his cheeks and tongue when warning bells went off in his head.