The Secret of Spellshadow Manor 6 by Bella Forrest (books for men to read .TXT) 📕

the ground, panting, keeping one eye on the entrance in case anyone who shouldn’t tried to enter. Thinking back on what had just happened, he realized how close they’d come to succeeding. Julius had been willing to negotiate, and it had failed because he’d brought his friends along, knowing he shouldn’t. A simple error, and it had all gone wrong.

After tearing through the forest with bands of soldiers in hot pursuit, he had managed to lose them by clambering up one of the tall oaks and waiting there in the shadows until the danger had passed. He’d lost the others in the chaos, though he’d caught glimpses of Helena and Aamir through the trees, running and hiding, just as he was. The others, he wasn’t so sure about.

All he could do was sit and wait, and hope that Julius wouldn’t discover the secret cave.

Time went by with agonizing slowness, but still no one appeared at the doorway. Glancing down at his leg, he saw a tear in his trousers, the fabric colored a rusty red where the shard of glass had caught him unawares, but the wound beneath was only minor, the blood already drying. Satisfied he hadn’t gouged a hole in his flesh, Alex began to run through every possible scenario in his head, knowing how badly this could play out. Just as he was picturing everyone dead at Julius’s hand, a figure crept in through the entrance, peering around with furtive eyes.

“Jari?” Alex whispered from his hidden vantage point.

“Alex, is that you?” Jari replied.

“Yeah. Is anyone else with you?”

“No, it’s just me,” said Jari, shaking his head.

The blond-haired boy walked over to where Alex sat and sank down beside him, holding his head in his hands.

“Did you see anyone else?”

“No,” Jari muttered miserably. “Ellabell was running near me for a while, but then she disappeared. I haven’t seen anyone else—I hid under a pile of branches, and just closed my eyes until all the soldiers had run past me.”

“I was up a tree,” said Alex.

Jari shook his head. “What happened?”

“Julius suspected I wasn’t alone, and he just went mad,” Alex explained, not wanting to lay blame at anyone else’s door.

“We should have known he’d go psycho! What did we think we were doing, going there in the first place?” Jari grunted in annoyance, punching the wall. “We should’ve listened to Natalie and Aamir.”

Alex was about to reach out and comfort his friend when another scuffle by the entrance distracted them. They waited with bated breath as a figure emerged. The gleam of her silver hair gave her away instantly, and though Alex was pleased to see Helena safe and sound, part of him wished there were another girl standing there.

“We’re over here!” said Jari, his eyes wide with delight at the sight of the beautiful young woman.

Helena peered into the darkness. “Who?”

“Alex and Jari,” Jari replied, looking a little crestfallen that she hadn’t known him by the sound of his voice. In any other circumstance, Alex would have been amused by Jari’s puppy love, but now wasn’t the time for levity. Not with half their party still missing.

“Just you two?” Helena asked, her voice heavy with sadness.

Alex nodded. “For now.”

She joined them against the wall, where the trio sat in somber silence, their eyes fixed on the entrance, hoping for another of their number to come rushing through it.

Their hopes were answered twenty minutes later, when Aamir and Natalie stumbled through, looking flustered and pretty beaten up. The older boy was holding Natalie up, her arm around his neck, her knee bent as though it hurt to put weight on it. Aamir himself had a bruise appearing around his eye, and his still-healing hand was bleeding afresh, with a few new cuts and scrapes appearing in livid gashes all the way up his arm. The rest of Natalie’s appearance wasn’t much better, her shirt torn, the bleeding wounds beneath saturating the fabric. Her lip had swollen, and a trail of blood meandered down her chin. Whatever had happened to them, it hadn’t been pretty.

“We’re over here,” said Alex, getting up to help them. Natalie winced when Alex put his arm beneath hers. She moved with a definite limp, her forehead creasing in agony as she settled down on the floor, stretching out her damaged leg.

“What happened to you guys?” asked Jari, coming to the aid of Aamir, who could barely hold his hand up.

“Soldiers,” explained Natalie, with a sharp intake of breath.

Aamir nodded. “They ambushed us, but we put up a good fight. We managed to get away and hide in a hollow, but not before they got a few good blows in,” he said, clearly trying to make light of it.

“Is Ellabell not here?” Natalie asked, looking around for the missing girl.

Alex shook his head, feeling anxiety swell inside him. “No, she’s not back yet.”

“I’m sure she’ll be along soon,” Aamir said reassuringly, though there was uncertainty in his dark brown eyes.

Alex couldn’t rest, pacing up and down, one eye constantly on the entrance. He had seen Ellabell from his spot in the tree. She had been running, and the soldiers had been far enough behind her that she should have been okay. But, if that was the case, where was she? Was she hiding out, like he had done, just waiting for an opportune moment to sneak out and head for the cave? Or was she out there, injured and alone, needing their help? One particularly nightmarish thought crept into his head—all he could think about was Julius getting his paws on her, holding her hostage the same way he was holding Venus hostage. He hoped more than anything that wasn’t the case.

“If she’s not back in the next half hour, we have to go looking for her,” Alex said suddenly, unable to bear the weight of his own poisonous thoughts anymore. No matter which way he tried to envisage things, they were always the worst-case scenario.

“Aamir and Natalie can’t go anywhere like this, Alex,” Helena