I didn’t ask it as a question, but Braxton nodded anyway.

Awesome, we were in the lands which had something so rotten in it there had been a mass exodus of a multitude of magical races.

No worries there. We should be just fine.

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Braxton and I were doing our best to ignore the fact that we were probably not on Earth. The jinn hadn’t been kidding when he said I had to prove I was supposed to live. He’d dropkicked my ass right into a pretty big challenge.

The fey were secretive old bastards about their lands, so I had next to no useful information to ensure the maintenance of our health and safety here. We could only keep moving and deal with whatever came our way. So far we’d managed to stay out of harm’s way. We just had to remain alive long enough for one of the other Compasses to realize we were missing. And hope they could trace us to Faerie land.

We could be here forever.

After hiking for about fifteen hours straight, we had to stop and try to get some sleep. We ended up slumping against a rather large tree trunk, covered in a soft moss.

“I was hoping we’d find somewhere with more space,” Braxton said. I raised my eyebrows wordlessly at him and he grinned. “I’d be able to protect you better if I was in my dragon form; no one gets the drop on him.”

He looked relaxed with his massive limbs spread out in front of him, but I knew the look in his eyes; he was alert and on guard. I was equally tense. Who knew what creatures still walked this world. But … I was also pretty tired, so I decided to be alert and comfortable at the same time. I let my head drift to the side and rest against his shoulder.

Which was not exactly the comfortable surface I was looking for.

Was it too much to ask that I have at least one best friend who was less muscle and more squishy. The quads were all hard planes, which made sleeping on them difficult. My eyes traversed the length of said hard planes and muscles … actually, scratch that last thought. Squishy wasn’t going to work for me after all, I’d just take the shitty sleep.

I picked at the sticks and rocks littering the ground beside me. “Why do you think the jinn sent us here? Despite these unknown Faerie creatures around us, we haven’t been attacked.”

Braxton laughed. “You mean yet, we haven’t been attacked yet.”

My head lifted as he raised his arm and draped it over my shoulders. Now I was more comfortable, able to snuggle into his side.

“I get the feeling the elemental wanted you out of the way,” he said.