Vengeance (The Prince's Games Book 1) by Rebecca Grey (electric book reader TXT) 📕

I want to kiss him. The thought is like a shock to my system and I remember my regret as I fell. Blood rushes to my head as I sit up, pushing my hands into the ground beside me to hold myself steady. Hedda is already sitting, but her eyes are closed as mine had been.

"Watching your life flash before your eyes, Hedda?" I cough.

"Yes. I'm too young to die," she whines. One eye cracks open and she looks back at me.

"Me too,” I glance at Marcello. His hands have come to rest on his stomach. He lays still, blinking up at the lights overhead. "You good?"

"Better than ever." He offers a smile.

"Juilliard?" I try to lean around Hedda. "I think I popped a suture."

Juilliard sucks in a sharp breath. Hedda twists to look at him and I can finally see him around her curvy figure. He's curled into himself, holding his leg tightly. Somethings wrong. I look closer. He breathes heavily through his clenched teeth as he rotates his foot with his hands. That's when I see the bone, that's when I see the blood.

"You broke something," I say.

Marcello bolts up, two feet on the ground and standing. He searches the shadows, moving instantly to his friend. I pull my feet in to stay out of his way as he passes.

"I'm fine. I'll be fine." Juilliard waves his hand in the air in dismissal. "I broke my leg. Help me shove the bone back in place so that way it can start to set on its own while we're down in this mess."

"But you won't be healed enough to walk on it," I say it though we all know it. I look up. “Or to climb.”

"No." Bitterness is like poison in his voice. "I won't."

"Is anyone else broken?" I ask, looking around.

Finnegan shakes his head. "Sloane and I are fine."

"I'm fine too. Just a massive, massive headache. I think I might have landed on Juilliard's leg." Hedda sighs, though she doesn't sound sorry at all.

"You did," Juilliard growls.

Marcello grips Juilliard's foot with one hand and holds the broken bone with the other. "One, two..." Without the count of three, the bone slips back through the break of flesh with a wet sound until it grinds against its other half.

Juilliard's head falls back as he shouts. The roar of his pain drowns out the buzzing of a camera as it lowers into our pit. I watch it as it floats down to us.

With sweat trickling down his forehead, Juilliard looks at me. His cheeks are pink and his forehead wrinkles as his brows pinch tightly together.

"How. Are. You. Not. Broken?" he asks as if he expected it to be me, not him in this situation.

My throat bobs. "Marcello broke my fall."

"Of all the times I had your back, friend." He flicks his brown eyes up to Marcello, who sits next to him with bloody hands. "You'd think that one time you could have had mine. It would have been nice to have you catch me instead."

I think he means it as a joke, but there is little humor in his voice. Marcello still chuckles and clasps his friend on the shoulder. "I appreciate you more than you know." Then he leans down and whispers something that's lost to me in Juilliard’s ear.

What does he say? Why do I want to know what he's saying so badly?

"What do we do now?" Hedda picks her gun up from the dirt. Her cheeks puff and shrink as she huffs a large breath out onto her gun to blow off the dust. She looks down the barrel and into the sights, aiming her gun at the camera. Maybe she'll shoot it. I hope she does.

She lowers the barrel to the ground and looks at me, offering a hand. My palm in hers looks small. My fingers squeeze together as she wraps hers around mine and tugs me to standing.

Reaching out, small rocks and mud walls create a crumbling texture under my touch. My gaze follows the steep walls up and up and up. Every so often, pale rocks jut out and break up the dark brown muck. The chill of the smooth stone in front of me makes a shiver travel over my skin. Goosebumps form as I touch each rock I see, taking note of the distance between this one and the next.

Finnegan plucks an arrow from his quiver, fitting it into his bow. He aims for the top of the hole but does not shoot. His bow whines as he slowly releases the tension and spins toward Marcello. "You still got that rope?"

"Obviously." The rope at his side is coated, nearly plastered to his thigh with mud, but Marcello unties it from his belt and offers it to Finnegan. "I knew this would come in handy."

"What are you doing?" I ask.

"Getting us out of here before something worse happens. I'd hate to find out that we're meant to be a meal for some sort of wormy creature."

His fingers work quickly, wrapping and tying the rope to the end of his arrow. He gives it a good tug, fitting the arrow once more and taking aim. Marcello sets his hand on his shoulder. "Once you lose or break an arrow, that's all you have for the remainder of the events. How many arrows do you have?"

Finnegan's lips flatten into a thin line. Sloane steps closer. The Vampire sighs loudly and answers, "I have six arrows."

"Do you think your arrow will sink deep enough? Do you think it'll hold our weight to allow us to climb?" I push. I don't believe that's true. I don't think it'll hold.

"What else are we going to do?" Sloane steps between me and her husband.

"Well." Marcello walks around the couple