Mated to the Beast of the Wasteland (Gillian and Merrick) novel Chapter 262

Chapter 262 Is This Where It Ends for Us?

Chapter 262 Is This Where It Ends for Us?

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The data Freya sent back was nothing but static. She couldn’t make out a single thing, which meant something down there was jamming them-maybe even the cross-world wrist terminal itself.

Sylas decided he was going in, and Tristan’s joke about the fish on their first trip floated back to him.

“Tris, what’d you say back on the Griffin Warship?” Sylas asked.

Tristan remembered the giant fish Gillian had conjured and grabbed Sylas by the shoulder. “The fish down there aren’t small. Watch yourself.”

“Yeah. I will.”

Of the three of them, Sylas was built for water. He was Snakekin, made for rivers and seas and sky.

Elara stared at the still surface of the Naiad River, her brow tight. “Hold on. Let me pull the Cryolotus records.”

The day the three wrist terminals had synced, Gillian had scanned the river, and the data had been stored.

Sylas didn’t move. Something about the river tonight felt wrong.

“Gillian’s scan of the Naiad River came back completely clean. The only thing flagged was the fish-aggressive, but nothing else.” The more Elara read, the colder her blood ran.

Did something down there already know we were watching?

The three of them stood at the bank, waiting, and none of them felt the eyes fixed on them from the water and the shore.

Freya’s screen flickered, and her stomach dropped.

Why haven’t their coordinates moved?

She refreshed Blue Phoenix and checked the video feed. The three of them were standing frozen in strange positions, just waiting. She sent them a message and got nothing back.

A cold wave of dread hit her, and she fired up the warship to pull out-and the engine died. Her heart jumped into her throat.

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13:08 Tue, Jul 14

Chapter 262 Is This Where It Ends for Us?

70

+20 Free Coins

She triggered Blue Phoenix and sent the voice message to Merrick. “Elara and the others are missing. Naiad River compromised. Griffin Warship trapped. Requesting backup-”

The message was still transmitting when something massive slammed into the warship and shook it to its very core.

Freya’s eyes snapped to the Blue Phoenix display, and what she saw turned her blood to ice.

The ground around the Naiad River was churning like a giant invisible hand was stirring it, a massive black hole ripping open. The Griffin Warship fought against the pull and lost.

The darkness swallowed it whole, and in a blink, the ship was gone, like it had never been there at all.

From above, the calm shore of the Naiad River had become a black maw of churning mud. The warship had vanished into it.

Then the real nightmare began. Thousands of scale parasites poured out of the black earth like a tide, their bodies covered in hard, gleaming scales that flashed cold in the last light.

They blanketed the swamp and filled every inch of it. Fresh dirt churned up and sealed the surface, and within moments there was nothing left-no sign the Griffin Warship had ever been there.

*****

The taint pool was quiet, the surface rippling under a soft breeze. High-wattage searchlights cut through the black night and lit the area like day.

Lily sat at Gillian’s feet, and from her spot, she could see everyone below. Her thin legs dangled off the aircraft like she might catch the wind and take off at any second.

“Mom, every last one of these blood masses deserves to die.” The words came out of her mouth, and they didn’t sound like they belonged to a child.

Adrian had taken over the aircraft once night fell. Merrick was out patrolling the taint pool, so he’d stepped in to fly Gillian around.

The whole area reeked of rot, thick enough that everyone had sealed their bio-armor masks just to keep from gagging.

But the flower beasts stretched their bodies wide and drank the gray rain, blooming beneath it.

The rain finally stopped, and Lily stared at the corroded remains of the blood masses with the same cold edge still on her face. “They got off easy,” she said.

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