by Keri Lake
Wearing a smug grin, Remus twists toward Tom. “I have to commend you for honesty. However reluctant you were to be so.”
I have no doubt that Remus probably threatened something as horrific as melting his fingers off, so I can’t blame the guard entirely.
With a quick nod toward Titus, Remus turns to face me again.
“No!” I lurch forward, and before I can stop him, Titus takes hold of the old man’s head, snapping his neck as effortlessly as if he were halving a dried twig.
As Remus steps toward me, I back up a step, tugging the knife from my side. The excitement that flares in his eyes sends dread sinking to my stomach. “And there’s the knife you told me about.”
My gaze flicks to Titus, whose stoic expression hasn’t once changed throughout this entire exchange. The bastard probably told Remus about the knife and my plan for escape, however he might’ve become privy to the information. If I thought I could nail the shot, I’d throw my blade square into one of his eyeballs.
“If you’d be so kind as to disarm our little dove, Titus?”
The moment the command is issued, Titus sets into motion, like a robot.
I back myself away from him, toward the edge of the cliff, keeping the blade outstretched. “Come near me, and so help me God, I will fucking jump!”
He pauses for a moment, his eyes seeming to gauge my proximity, maybe hoping to call my bluff. The Alpha has no idea how serious I am. How quickly I’d choose death on the rocks below over whatever punishment Remus has in mind.
Hand unsteady, I keep the blade on him, catching the dip of his gaze toward it and back to me. In one swift motion, no more than a breath, he snatches my arm and twists me around, my back to his chest, with the blade at my throat. The wounds on my back flare in protest, the pain quickly fizzling for the cold, numb fear creeping over me.
“Let me go!” Squirming against him is futile. His massive arms are locked around me like a steel cage.
“What are you doing, Titus? Let her go.” A twinge of panic clings to Remus’s voice as he frowns.
Dirt scrapes against my heels. The beast drags me closer to the edge of the cliff. The blade sits precariously at my throat, held with too-steady and firm a hand.
“Let me go,” I manage to grit out, and when I swallow, I can feel the steel’s sharp and unforgiving edge against my throat.
Guards approach Remus from behind, all of them holding guns aimed at Titus.
Air saws in and out of my lungs, each breath heavier than the last.
Remus raises the dart gun. If he shoots and Titus stumbles backwards, over the edge, I’m falling with him.
A creeping paralysis snakes beneath my skin, and in the next breath, my feet are swept from beneath me, my body hoisted into the Alpha’s arms. He issues a powerful blow square to Remus’s chest that knocks the blond back into the soldiers behind him like a stack of dominoes.
“Hold onto me,” is all he says, before he sets off running toward the edge of the cliff.
“No! No, wait!” I dig my nails into his flesh, and the moment he leaps from the precipice, my stomach rises to my throat. The surrounding darkness cloaks the treacherous fall, but I feel the wind whipping past my body and the Alpha’s arms tightening against my back, sending a sharp sting across the cuts there. Only a minor distraction to the horror digging its hooks into my gut. With my breasts pressed firmly against Titus’s chest, a scream lies trapped inside my ribs, the pressure in my throat on the verge of exploding.
Faster and faster we descend.
A hard surface smacks against the soles of my feet and I gasp only seconds before the cold liquid pulls me under.
Down, down, I shoot like a bullet, slicing through the water, my legs numb and thick.
Fire burns inside my lungs, and with a desperate tug for air, I claw at flesh and climb the liquid wall that surrounds me.
I need air!
Nothing moves, or gives way, and I open my eyes in the murky darkness, find only a harrowing blackness, like floating off into outer space with no tether.
Something about it is peaceful. Calming.
Death?
I tilt my head back to surrender, eyes closed, and when I open my mouth, the crisp air fills my lungs. Opening my eyes shows the moon and the first few stars. I’m alive! Thank God, I’m alive!
The sound of shouts overhead have me spinning to see the lights scanning over the water, but they’re too far away to see me. It seems I’ve drifted away from the cliff.
“Find them!” Remus calls out, his voice echoing against the surrounding rock.
It’s then I realize I’m alone.
Over the sounds of distant shouts, I hear the struggle of gurgling and coughing, and I turn just in time to see Titus slip below the surface.
Leave him.
I set to swim in the opposite direction, managing no more than two strokes, before my body is yanked hard beneath the surface. Flailing my arms, I manage to breach the water for a single breath, and another tug pulls me under. In a desperate bid for escape, I kick Titus’s hand from my ankle and swim for another breath. I suck in a gulp of oxygen and peer down into the depths of the water below, only catching a massive shadow beneath me, sinking lower and lower.
My head tells me to let him drown.
Instead, I take one more breath and dive below the surface, blindly searching the waters. I bump into something hard, and hook my arm beneath his. Even in the water, his mass is no easy upward haul, but once the cool air hits my face, I tuck his chin into the crook of my elbow and swim for the bank just a few feet away. The sheer size of him exhausts my muscles, and by the time my feet hit the shallow sand, my lungs wheeze for breath.
Still dragging Titus behind me, I take advantage of his weightlessness in water, with one hard tug on a wave that carries him up onto the shore. I collapse at his side, coughing and sputtering small bits of water. Titus lies motionless beside me, and it’s then I notice the dart lodged into his shoulder.
The poison.
I dislodge the needle from his flesh and roll him onto his back. His throat pulses, as if he’s trying to breathe, but can’t. Tipping his head back, I open his mouth and press my lips to his to force air down into his lungs. His arms and legs remain still, but he coughs and opens his eyes.
Lobelia.
He needs the antidote, but finding it in darkness will be nearly impossible.
I should leave him. He’ll die of asphyxiation, I have no doubt about that.
“P … p … an … t.” His words are broken whispers, and I frown to focus on his lips. “P … pa … n … t.”
“Pant. Panting or pants?”
He blinks his eyes in response, and I look down his body to his low slung pants, noticing a small bulge in his pocket. Fishing my hands down inside, I dig around, fingers folding around something that, when I pull it out, appears to be a satchel. I open it and find a small bottle and syringe inside.
Lifting the dropper gives off a slight tobacco scent.
Lobelia.
At home, we’d steam it for Grant to breathe in, but Titus doesn’t have the ability to contract his lungs. I stuff the syringe into the bottle and draw up a small bit of it. Too much and it’s toxic. After pushing a small bit of fluid out of the tip, I hold the needle up for him to see. “I do this for you … you swear you won’t harm me?”
His eyes widen, as he continues to struggle for breath.
“Blink once for yes, twice for no.” The urgency heightens, but I don’t need to be ravaged, or hunted by an Alpha out here.
He gives one long blink.
“You’ll help me get back to Szolen?”
On his second blink, I slam the needle into his thigh, which doesn’t so much as twitch at the assault. Seconds tick.
His throat continues to bob in a relentless bid for air.
More seconds.
He closes his eyes, and for a brief moment, the prickling sensation of vulnerability and fear creeps over my skin. I glance around the dar
k forest, feeling as if something is watching me. Hairs bristle on the back of my neck, and I stare back down at Titus.
“C’mon, Titus. Wake up.” I give him a rough shake that doesn’t rouse him. “Wake up!”
A hard smack against his cheek, and his eyes flip open again. Back arching, he gasps, the sound of his breaths reminding me of air being sucked through a pinhole. The terror in his eyes is like nothing I’ve ever seen in him before.
“C’mon, breathe.” The desperation in my voice comes as a surprise, and it occurs to me, I have no interest in navigating this forest alone. I need him, even if that thought grates on me.
His hand grips mine, squeezing as he attempts to fill his lungs. The crushing pain shoots up into my wrists, and I claw at his fingers to release me. Once free of his grasp, I shake off the ache and gently tilt his head back to open his airways. Bending over him, I look into his eyes, as Nan taught me to do when trying to calm a patient. “Relax, Titus. Just breathe. In and out. In and out.” Pressing my lips to his, I force a small bit of air into his lungs.
A fluttery sensation in my stomach has me backing off from him, frowning at whatever that was just now. Some kind of strange, jolty feeling, and the lingering buzz sends a shiver down my spine.
Probably the aftereffects of adrenaline. Gotta be.
His body trembles, his inhales grow slower. Easier. His muscles relax as the plant does its job. Eyes fluttering shut, he lets out a long, easy exhale.
For a moment, he looks like any other man, rather than the ruthless Alpha who murdered the guard and my best friend. Vulnerable, if such a brute could be humbled that way.
Another minute passes, and he’s breathing relatively normal again.
I crawl toward the water's edge and scoop up some of the cool fluids, which I carry back to him in my cupped palms. The fact that he’s able to lift his head tells me he’s gained control of his muscles again, and he accepts what little I pour into his mouth, sputtering a cough, before his head falls back to the dirt again.
“You could’ve left me to die,” he says, his voice hoarse.
“I should’ve.”
“So, why didn’t you?”
I refuse to tell him that I need him, that I have no clue how to survive out in these woods, let alone this world. “Stop asking questions, Alpha. Remus probably sent out a search party, so we need to get out of here.”
“Give me a second, will ya? Dying is a little hard on the muscles.”
Chapter 24
With his arm wrapped around my neck, Titus seems to bear most of his weight himself, as he hobbles beside me, pausing every few minutes to suck in deep breaths. His lungs will eventually go back to normal, assuming he expels the poison quickly.
“We could’ve both died back there, you know.” Gnarled branches catch on my legs, as I step over the forest bed, the broken limbs cracking beneath my feet.
“Probably.”
“You’ve no regard for life. Not even your own.”
“Says the beloved Daughter of Szolen. Do you have any idea how many have been killed for your kind?
I snort a laugh and stumble forward, catching myself before I fall. “This, coming from an Alpha?”
“At least I’m honest about what I am.”
“And I’m not? Tell me, oh, wise one--”
He slaps a hand over my mouth.
“Hey!” My shout is muffled by his meaty palm, as he comes to a halt.
Muscles in his shoulders bunching, he scans the surroundings, then tugs me down behind a fallen tree trunk just before a light sweeps over the ground.
The distant sounds of chatter could easily be Remus’s men searching the forest for us.
“We’ll walk through the night,” he whispers. “They’ll give up the search soon, until daylight.”
“Walk through the night? What if there’s a horde? Or coyotes?”
“I doubt there are many coyotes around here. Lions probably eat them.”
“Lions? Are you kidding me right now?”
“No.”
Pushing to his feet, he reaches down for me, but I bat his hand away. No sense giving him the impression that I’m some useless damsel.
For the next hour, I follow behind him, as he leads me through the dark forest, and I swear, if I could shoot laser beams out of my eyes, he’d be dead.
Except, I probably shouldn’t wish him dead, because every time something howls or crackles, I find myself all the more grateful he’s with me. Titus seems to have a natural sense of direction in these woods that, no matter the many times I explored the little forest back in Szolen, I just don’t seem to have picked up. At times, he stops to listen to something I failed to hear, and only keeps on when he senses it’s safe.
I don’t know why I thought I’d be the one to exact revenge, anyway. It isn’t in me to kill. Never has been. From the time I was small and saved a colony of ants from the neighborhood boys, I’ve always known I was born to heal and protect. I can’t protect Will now. All I can do is mourn him. Killing Titus won’t bring him back, but man, I’d have loved to watch him suffer a little more back at the water’s edge.
“It’s a wonder every predator in this forest isn’t after us, with you clomping like a newborn calf,” he says from in front.
“No worse than you smelling like you just crawled out of a swamp.” I catch the flex of his shoulders as he rolls them back, and smile at what must be an urge to throttle me, but it quickly fades under the unreconciled anger still simmering inside of me. “Why’d you do it?”
“Do what?” The air of boredom in his words grates on my nerves.
“Kill my friend.”
“You claimed you didn’t know him.”
“Don’t play stupid. You know I had to lie.”
“Then, you know why I had to kill him.”
“And Tom? I suppose he was just a bonus kill before you decided on an evening cliff jump.”
“You put far too much trust in a man who spilled all your secrets.”
“He also gave me the knife that you held to my throat.”
“I know.” When he glances over his shoulder, the unsurprised expression matches his words. “Who do you think told him to give it to you?”
“How did you know I was planning to escape? Did Tom tell you?”
“No. And I didn’t.” He hangs a right toward a tree, but when I cut over a fallen branch to follow, he throws out a hand to stop me. “Piss break.”
With a huff, I back up a few steps. “Incontinence, is it?”
“You’re welcome to act as my target again, if you’d like.”
“Go to hell.” Crossing my arms, I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from picking up one of the rocks on the ground and nailing him square in the head with it. Or try to, anyway. “You’re a real gentleman.”
Minutes later, he emerges from behind the tree, fastening his pants. “About a half dozen Ragers are trailing us.”
On a zap of panic, I look around the forest, unable to see anything past the small halo of light painted by the moon. “Where?”
“Few hundred feet back.”
“How … how do you see them?”
“I can’t. I can smell them. And now they smell me.”
“What does that mean?”
“They’ll know to stay away.”
Realization clicks inside my head. “That’s why the Rager stayed away from me, isn’t it? That’s why you pissed on me?”
“Would you’ve preferred to be raped, instead?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Yes. That’s why I pissed on you.”
“What is that? Some kind of Alpha power?”
“They don’t like the smell of us. They think we’re a bigger predator.”
Alphas are a bigger predator, when compared to an emaciated looking Rager.
“So … that Rager they put me in with …. He thought I was a bigger threat?”
“Probably confused the shit out of him.” The thought of that has me stifling a
chuckle.
We continue to walk for what seems like hours in silence, through valleys and along mountains, and when the first rays of light peek over the horizon, I stumble forward. Absent of water, and weighted by exhaustion, every step I take feels like a chore. Like each leg weighs a hundred pounds, and the panting breaths are making my head light.
“Titus … I’m so … tired.” My knees give out on me, and the gravely ground knocks against my chin. A jolt of pain, followed by the ensuing coppery flavor, tells me I bit my tongue.
Blackness.
I feel weightless, and my stomach lurches at the sensation of movement. The hard planes pressed against me are warm and damp, and I open my eyes to find my fingers pressed against bronze skin. Double-blinking, I push up from Titus’s chest.
“How long did I sleep?”
“Half the day.”
Squirming in his arms, I urge him to set me down as I try to shake off the embarrassment that he’s carried me for hours, while taking in our surroundings, of abandoned rubble. “What is this place?”
“Used to be a hive, from the looks of it. We need to find water and something to eat.”
Glancing around shows torn tents and dilapidated, half-burned buildings. “I don’t think we’re going to find water here.”
“Where there’s a hive, there’s a nearby water source.”
“It looks abandoned.”
“Probably raided.”
“Marauders?”
He kneels down, rifles through a box of what looks to be primitive kitchen utensils--spoons and spatulas carved from now-weathered wood—before picking up a canteen from inside. “Marauders would’ve stripped all the supplies.”
I follow him into one of the buildings, where debris and grit crunch beneath my feet. “Who did this, then?”
Behind a tipped table, he comes to a stop, staring down at something.
Curiosity compels me toward him, and I’m greeted by two skeletal figures lying on the floor, their bony arms clutching each other in a morbid display. The ratted hair scattered about their decaying skulls, and tattered, frayed dresses, tell me it might’ve been two females. A mother and daughter, given the difference in sizes. Or sisters. A black hole in their skulls mark the path of a bullet.