Free Blood Warrior by H. D. Gordon Page B

another quick shower because I was unsure as to when I would be able to again. Jackson, Nelly and I were loading our things back into the SUV as we were getting ready to leave. Olivia and Akira stepped out onto the porch and we thanked them for their help. As I was heading back to the car, Akira jumped off the porch and ran toward me. I scooped her up in my arms and gave her a hug.
    “I’m going to miss you, Alexa,” she whispered.
    “I’m going to miss you too,” I replied, because I really would.
    She pulled back and looked at me with those big, brown eyes. “Remember what I said, okay?” I nodded. “Will you come back and visit us sometime?” She asked.
    Looking at her adorable little face, I wasn’t sure if I could refuse this child anything. At the same time, I didn’t want to lie to her.
    “I’ll try,” I told her truthfully.
    She kissed my cheek and I thanked her again, then, we hit the road. It would take us about nine hours to get to New Jersey from Ohio and once again, I was anxious to get there before the sun set. The location Olivia had given us could only be found by using coordinates of longitude and latitude. Thank goodness for the GPS.
    “Does anyone know what we’re walking into?” I asked, once we were on the highway.
    “I’ve only ever heard stories,” Jackson said. “But don’t worry, darling, I’ll protect you.”
    I laughed; I really was in a better mood. “Oh, good, now we have nothing to fear.”
    In hindsight, we may have been better off facing the Lamia.

Chapter 17
    We reached a point where we had to turn off of the main roads and follow a dirt path deep into the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. We had left Olivia’s at about nine am and it was now six in the evening. We followed the road for what seemed like forever and then, it just ended.
    I grabbed the GPS off of the dashboard. “I guess we go on foot from here,” I said.
    “By the way the sun is looking, I would say we have about an hour before nightfall.” My companions looked uneasy at this thought, but no one argued. We each filled a backpack with our essentials and headed into the trees. I kept my sword clutched in my hand, just in case.
    Walking through the forest was not as simple as it sounded. More like we stumbled through the forest; the trees were dense and the ground uneven. I found out just how sharp my sword was and used it as a make-shift machete.
    The terrain wasn’t the part that presented the issue, though. The greenhead flies were the problem. The little bastards seemed to swarm us like an angry family of bees. I’ve never seen so many flies in my life. They were relentless; just biting, and biting, and biting . If someone had told me yesterday that the most painful thing I would counter today would be fly bites, I would have laughed. Today it was not funny. Today it sucked.
    I kept getting the feeling that something was watching us, but I never spotted the source of it. These woods were completely foreign to me, and I couldn’t help but think that they hid more than just forest creatures. Something told me that this was a not great place to get lost.
    By the time the trees finally thinned out, we were all bleeding in various spots on our limbs from the fly bites. I would not be making that trip again without bug spray. We stopped to catch our breath, then the air in front of us shimmered, and something completely unexpected appeared in front of us.
    We stood staring at a high stone wall that seemed to stretch on forever in both directions. That wasn’t the problem, however, the problem was that the wall was flanked by a large river.
    We stood on the bank of the river and I blew out a heavy breath. “Seriously, a moat? Is there a trapped princess and a dragon on the other side?” I checked the GPS. “Well, it says we’re right here. How are we going to get across the river?” Jack and Nelly had no time to answer me, because seemingly out of nowhere, ten men had suddenly surrounded us. They were