The Protect Her Box Set: Parts 7-9 by Ivy Sinclair

backward into the darkness. A hard thud and a sharp snap erupted into the air followed by a small shriek.
    Riley’s hand was on my back and pushed me further into the caves. “We need to cross the boundary,” he said. I could hear the pain in his voice. “He won’t follow us beyond the boundary.”
    I felt him stumble and caught his arm to drag him with me even as he pushed me forward again. Moments later, I felt the shift in the air. It was as if the air had turned into a kind of jelly. Every movement forward required ten times more effort than it had just a few steps ago.
    “PAIGE!”
    I felt the rippled vibrations of the sound of Benjamin’s voice behind me, and then suddenly it was as if I was free again. Riley’s hand was on my back, so I knew that he was right behind me and had crossed over as well. We stopped, and he leaned against the hard stone of the cave wall. His breath came in hard gulps. I played my flashlight beam up to his chest. His shirt front was stained with blood, but he gave me a wan smile and a thumbs up signal.
    We both turned, and I saw a beam of light directed toward us. I couldn’t see the archangel beyond the beam, but I felt his presence nonetheless.
    “You forgot to remove your protection spell, didn’t you, jackass?” Riley called out at the beam of light. “Thanks for that, by the way, but I think you still need to work on it.” He pointed at the blood on his shirt with a frown.
    I wanted to laugh, but the joke of it all really wasn’t that funny. Then I looked down at my hand. The relic was still in my fist. I felt the anger starting to build in my chest as I considered what had just happened. I held it up so that I knew Benjamin could see it.
    “You were never planning to give it to me, were you?” I said. “You didn’t know where it was. You were telling me the truth that you didn’t know that I was the vessel. Once you realized your mistake, you knew that you had to find the relic before I did so that you could hide it again from me. You needed my help to do it, so you lied to me.”
    His answer was nothing but silence. Then the beam of light clicked off. I felt the feelings of hurt and betrayal running through my whole body. I wasn’t sure whether to cry or scream.
    “We need to go,” Riley said as he pushed away from the wall. “We’re sitting ducks here.”
    “You’re hurt,” I said. “But I don’t want to risk trying to heal you here so close to the gate.”
    “I’m okay,” Riley said. He couldn’t keep the wince off his face though as he took his first step. “See? It’s nothing but a flesh wound.” He drew his knife and winked at me. We both knew it was more than a flesh wound, but the only place we could go was forward. We had an archangel at our back that wanted to kill me, and demons in front of us that would kill us without a second thought. Talk about a rock and a hard place.
    “The odds seem stacked against us,” I said. I slid the relic gently into the front pocket of my jeans, and then I pulled the small gun at my waist out of its holster. It wasn’t much, but it made me feel better. “I don’t think I have enough ammo for a horde of demons.”
    “They’re better odds than some situations I’ve been in,” Riley said.
    “Really?” I was looking forward to the point in time where we’d be able to sit down and talk like two normal people in a relationship, and I’d finally get to hear Riley’s full life story.
    Riley chuckled and shook his head. “I’ve been in some pretty bad messes. This might take the cake though.”
    “We’re never bored,” I said.
    Riley looked back at the darkness behind us. I wondered if he could see something I couldn’t see. Benjamin might not still be there, but I didn’t think that he would go far.
    “I know the whole point of coming back to the island was to get that relic. I’m sorry that we have to take this little side adventure. Are you sure you are still up for this before we go find