A Soul For Atonement (The Soulbearer Series Book 4) by Crista McHugh Page B

The fire danced along his fur, but he sat there with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth as though he were waiting for her to throw him a bone.
    She came as close as she dared and held her hands above him. Heat flooded her pale skin as it flowed through her insides.
    Callix joined her and did the same. “I’d forgotten he could do that.”
    “He has his uses.” She gave the wolf a smile and made a mental note to give him an extra treat once her fingers were nimble enough to fetch it from her pack.
    Sazi strolled past them, searching the remote corners of the cave. Her brow furrowed with worry as she pressed her hand against the walls. “It is deep, but there does not appear to be any occupants other than us.”
    “Good, because I have no desire to wrestle a bear in order to keep from freezing to death,” Callix said, sarcasm dripping from his voice.
    “It is not the bears you should worry about here, Callix.” Sazi came closer, her dark eyes dancing with amusement. “It is the dragons.”
    He rolled his eyes. “There are no dragons. They were driven out centuries ago by my ancestors.”
    “So you think.”
    “Have you actually seen one?”
    Sazi shook her head. “We do not bother them, and they do not bother us, but I have seen evidence of their hunts.”
    His eyes widened a little at Sazi’s response, but his arrogant smirk returned. “You shouldn’t scare the Soulbearer like that.”
    “The Soulbearer is wise enough not to dismiss the possibility so easily.” Although her words seemed light, she cast another worried glance into the dark shadows behind her. She looked like she’d rather brave the storm than linger here.
    “At this point, I don’t care if there are a dozen dragons in this cave.” Arden’s legs buckled, no longer supported by the stiff cold, and she pulled a blanket from her pack along with a strip of dried meat for Cinder. “I just want to stay warm long enough to take a nap.”
    “That is the first reasonable thing I’ve ever heard from you.” Callix settled down on the other side of Cinder and wrapped his cloak around himself. “Maybe you haven’t succumbed to the madness after all.”
    A retaliatory spell sizzled in her aching fingers, but she diverted her energy to reach out for Dev. With the pendant in her hand, she called out his name in her mind, sensing the connection to him almost instantly.
    “ Dev, are you keeping warm in the storm?”
    “ How did you know about the storm?” There was a weariness to his words that tore at her heart and made her miss him all the more.
    “ We’re in the Ornathian lands, not too far from where Syd was found.”
    “‘We?’ Who’s with you? ”
    “ Sazi, Cinder .” She paused to gauge how he would respond when she added, “ and Callix .”
    A stretch of anxiety-provoking silence followed, but at last, Dev said, “ Stay with them, Arden. They will protect you. ”
    Part of her wanted to scream that he was her Protector, the only one she wanted, but she pushed that thought aside to say, “ I will find it, Dev. I promise .”
    The connection then fizzled as sleep claimed her.

Chapter 11
     
    “ Wake up, my little Soulbearer, before they keep you from finding what you seek .”
    Arden bolted up, her chest heaving from the remnants of her dream. She couldn’t remember the details, only Loku’s warning that kept playing over and over again in her mind.
    From the deepest recesses of her consciousness, the chaos god rattled against his cage, far more intrusive than the other times he’d been contained. She glanced around the cave. Cinder slept beside her, his fur glowing like hot coals and casting deep shadows from the dim light it produced. Sazi slept sitting up with one wing covering her face, while Callix slept on the hard ground across from her.
    No one to catch her releasing Loku. No one to stop her from trying to pry a little more information from him.
    She summoned enough magic to reconfine him, if necessary, and