The Hero Within (Burned Lands Book 3)

by Bec McMaster

  "That's two of her cubs down. Mama's not dead yet. You loaded?" Colton barked. "We've got mama and one cub left, and she's pissed."

  She steadied her shotgun. "Ready."

  Eden settled her back against his, searching the darkness for anything that moved. "CJ, are you okay?"

  The young warg rolled onto his side, clutching his abdomen. "It was trying to rip my throat open, but my gun was in the way, so its claws barely glanced me." He sounded breathless as he staggered to his feet and looked at his hand. "Sorry. I lost the gun. It was faster than I expected."

  Colton tossed him a shotgun and CJ snatched it out of the air.

  "We need to drive that bitch off," Colton said. "You two stay here and guard each other's backs. I've got this."

  Then he was gone, vanishing into the night like a wraith.

  "Damn it! Colton!"

  No sign of him. Shit. CJ's body trembled against hers. Eden swallowed. Without Colton they'd be sitting ducks out here.

  How were they supposed to drive off a pissed-off shadow cat and her one remaining cub? Eden's mind raced. She was Wastelander born and bred, so she knew the rules.

  To protect yourself against shadow cats you needed light.

  Fire.

  They didn't like the smell of gasoline either.

  "Stay here," she told CJ.

  Eden rested the shotgun on her knees and started rifling through Colton's pack for his flask. The handful of coals in the small pit smoldered pitifully. The second she doused them with his whiskey they spat and sizzled. Flames roared up. Eden kicked the rest of the kindling they'd gathered earlier onto the fire.

  Eyes gleamed out there in the darkness. A grunt sounded. And another feline yowl.

  "Colton?" she yelled.

  Please let him be alive.

  She had no idea what they'd do if he wasn't.

  Silence settled through the night like a heavy mantle. Slowly the flames started to die down, but there was nothing moving out there. No response from Colton either.

  Shit. The son of a bitch had a lot to make up to her, but at the same time.... She didn't want his life to end here. Nemesis or not, his death would still weigh on her conscience, and she didn't want him to be... hurt. Eden swallowed. The weight of the gun was starting to ache through her arms, and she raked the shadows for any sign of him, her ears pricking.

  "Hear anything?" she murmured to CJ, who was moving between the corpses and making sure both shadow cats on the ground were definitely dead.

  He looked up.

  Shadows moved at the corner of her vision. Eden jerked her shotgun toward them, her finger whispering over the trigger—

  "Just me," Colton called, materializing out of the night with his hands in the air. Silver warg-shine flashed across his pupils as if the lure of blood and violence brought the monster within him to the surface. She kept the gun on him a second longer—just in case—but she'd seen Adam in a worse state over the years.

  Colton paused and slowly lowered his hands with a questioning twitch of his brow.

  Definitely still human. A warg couldn't pull off that amount of arrogance.

  Eden released the breath she'd been holding, and lowered the shotgun. "You're alive."

  For a second there....

  She was surprised how much the thought bothered her.

  "Don't sound so disappointed."

  "I'm not." Her hands shook suddenly. "Did you kill them?"

  "They fled. I managed to sink my knife into mama cat, and the cub bolted." Colton's chest heaved, blood dripping from the end of his knife. He'd lost his hat in the scuffle, and dirt marred his cheek.

  "Will they be back?"

  "Hopefully not. But I don't want to risk it." Raking his hand through his close-cropped black hair, Colton took in the campsite. Striding toward his bag, he started stuffing his belongings back inside it. "Get moving, guys. Until the sun starts to rise, we're vulnerable. Shadow cats aren't the worst things out there, and there's enough blood here to rouse a warg from a few miles away."

  "Are you okay?" Eden asked CJ, noticing the blood on his hand in the firelight.

  "Fine," CJ muttered, but he didn't look at her and his voice sounded rougher than usual as he cleaned his blade on shadow cat fur.

  The unusual behavior made her frown. CJ sounded like he'd swallowed acid. "Any more bleeding? Light-headedness?"

  His nostrils flared and silver flashed through his pupils as he looked up, revealing how close to the edge he was. "Don't touch me."

  Eden held her hands up.

  With his amulet he could keep the warg trapped within him, but she didn't like how on edge he seemed.

  "It's the battle rush," Colton muttered, kneeling on her bedroll and tugging the leather straps through the loops. "Give him a few minutes to get his head clear."

  "And you?"

  Colton pushed to his feet, tossing her bedroll toward her. "It's nothing I can't handle. We've got to get moving. Killing half their pack is enough to drive them to retreat for the moment, but they'll start following us again soon. The mother's injured, but I daresay she's brewing some serious revenge theories. They're vindictive creatures. If we can make it out of their territory, then we might be safe. They won't leave their usual haunts. Too many other predators out there, and she took a beating tonight. Might make her wary."

  "That's not necessarily reassuring." She attached her bedroll to her backpack and slung the straps over her shoulders.

  "It's not meant to be."

  HOURS TRICKLED BY. Eden staggered forward, putting one foot after the other. She could vaguely remember falling asleep when they first set up camp, but now her body ached as if she'd only managed to snatch twenty minutes or so before the shadow cats attacked.

  And the second the sun started to rise, a thick oppressive heat began to make everything sticky.

  Going to be a scorcher by the feel of it. Eden paused at the top of the trail and tipped her water canteen to her lips. Ahead of her Colton looked like a dark blur on the landscape as he roved ahead, scouting the terrain. He'd found his hat somewhere, and his loose-hipped stride caught her eye, though she didn't know why.

  Eden's eyes narrowed as he paused at the bottom of the switchback. Colton rested a hand on his thigh, bending over for a moment as if to catch his breath. Maybe she wasn't the only one feeling the lack of sleep—and he'd had none.

  Something felt off.

  "Edie," CJ muttered, his limp long since faded as the warg within him healed his injuries. She'd checked them out back at the camp, but despite a few faint scratches across his hip and one narrow claw mark, CJ was fine.

  "Yeah?" It was so goddamn hot out here.

  "I can smell blood. Thought it was shadow cat for a while, but now I'm starting to feel better I realized it’s not."

  Eden's heart leapt. If it had been him, CJ would have admitted to it. Which left....

  Her head turned, tracking Colton. He rested a hand against a rock and tilted his water skin to his lips. The stark outline of him stood out against the rising red-gold of the sun, but she wasn't focusing on Colton's hard body.

  Eden's brows drew together. She'd known something was wrong. Sweat tracked marks down the dirt on his face. The side of his shirt was damp, but she hadn't noticed he was bleeding, thanks to the color of it and the darkness of the night.

  "Son of a bitch," she snapped, as Colton's knees wobbled. "Fetch some wood. We need a fire, and I need boiling water. Now."

  Ahead of her, Colton went down on one knee, splashing water from his canteen as he tried to catch it.

  CHAPTER NINE

  "JESUS CHRIST, let me look at it."

  Blood wet Eden's fingers, leaving them tacky as she knelt at his side. Not fresh, or at least, not all of it was—but Colton's shirt was still damp enough to concern her. He had to have lost at least a pint.

  "I'll heal." Colton tipped the whiskey flask up, the muscles in his throat working as Eden fussed over him. He lowered it, peering inside the mouth of the fl
ask. "Did you drink some of my whiskey? This was full this morning, and now there's barely half left."

  I threw it on the fire.

  "Why the hell didn't you tell me you were still bleeding?" she muttered under her breath, starting to undo his shirt.

  "Because we had to keep moving," Colton snapped. He looked away as he lowered the bottle. "And it's not as though I thought you'd care."

  Eden recoiled sharply. He couldn't have cut her deeper if he'd tried.

  All her life she'd been a healer, drawn to helping people.

  She'd never turned anyone away, because that wasn't who she was.

  But his claim wasn't as far-fetched as it sounded.

  When had she begun to turn into this person?

  Eden clearly startled him by taking the whiskey flask off him and wiping the rim of it with her sleeve.

  "Hey, I need that. It's good for my...." His protest died off when she tipped it to her own lips and swallowed heartily. "But you can share if you like. Just didn't think you'd be the type."

  Fire burned down her throat and Eden let it wash away the hate. If she wasn't careful, she'd tie herself in knots with it. It was already forging her into someone she didn't know—and didn't like.

  "Type?" she rasped, lowering the bottle. "Why? You don't think I like a good drink?"

  He bared his teeth in a pained smile. "You seem more the type who's all work and no play...."

  It wasn't the first time a man had told her that. Eden's eyes narrowed. Nothing wrong with having a sense of duty. She could have a good time.

  "You look like you want to say something bad," he said, grimacing. "Permission to swear at me, Miss McClain."

  "Strip." She ignored his suggestion.

  Colton shot her a somewhat dirty look as he tugged the hem of his shirt up, revealing the chiseled perfection of his abs. "You want to get me down to bare skin, angel, all you've got to do is say the word. But I don't need to take my shirt off."

  Normally those were fighting words—especially coming from this man—but Eden's breath caught as she saw the damage. Claw marks raked across his abdomen, slashing down to his hip. The top of them was dangerously close to his sternum. She'd seen enough of Adam's wounds in the past to know this should have healed by now but the edges were grayed, the raw flesh a paler pink than she'd have expected. Tiny threads of darker gray highlighted the faint capillaries under his olive skin, as if the poison from the wound worked its way slowly through him. Sepsis, perhaps. Or something else?

  "Jesus," she whispered, touching the puffy flesh lightly. Heat burned beneath her fingers, and suddenly she was moving, reaching for the medical kit she carried everywhere she went. "Hold still."

  If he were human, she'd have to clean that flesh out, perhaps even surgically remove some of it. She'd have given him as much antibiotics as she dared—before she ran through her entire supply when the plague hit—and she'd have put him on a drip and spent the next couple of days monitoring him.

  But he wasn't human, and she didn't have access to her surgery.

  And the last thing they had was time.

  "I'll live," he told her gruffly, clearly reading her expression. "Won't be the worst wound I've ever taken. Just bandage it up."

  "I know we were joking about it earlier, but shirt off." Her eyes met his. "And that is not a suggestion."

  "I'm fine."

  "Careful," CJ warned. "She'll wrestle you into submission if you're not careful and sit on you to get what she wants. She only looks like she's small and sweet-tempered, but she's like a trapped wolverine when she wants to play doctor."

  "Mierda." Colton tipped the bottle of whiskey to his lips again, and took another healthy swallow. Then he reached over his shoulder and hauled his shirt over his head, wincing a little as muscle flexed in his abdomen, pulling at his wound. "And I don't think I ever thought she was sweet-tempered."

  "She is right here," Eden growled, glaring at her comrade over Colton's shoulder. A folded piece of paper slid out of his pocket. Eden frowned and went to grab it, but Colton beat her to it.

  "That's private," he muttered.

  Behind him, CJ sucked in a sharp breath. Colton shot him a narrow-eyed look she couldn't quite decipher, but the claw marks swiftly had her full attention.

  Eden cleaned the ragged edges of the wound with a gauze pad soaked in the liquor, as Colton leaned back against the rock he was sitting on. She bit her lip when he hissed. "Normally I wouldn't bother stitching something like this—not with a warg anyway—but I don't like the look of it."

  "Heat my knife," he told her, tugging it out of the sheath at his hip and flipping it so he could hand her the hilt. "Burn the poison out and I'll heal. It will just be a little slower than I'd like."

  Eden turned toward the small fire CJ had made. It wouldn't have been her first choice. But Colton was right. Whatever had coated the shadow cat's claws, it was working its way through the wound. No point stitching it, and all of her herbal washes would cleanse the wound, but little else.

  Which left fire.

  Eden slowly heated the blade in the flames. "Are you ready?"

  Colton tugged his belt through the rasp of his jeans and folded it. He set it between his teeth, his fist flexing around the neck of the flask. "Rea-rry."

  Eden rested her hand on his shoulder and looked at CJ wordlessly. This would hurt and it didn't matter how conflicted she felt about Colton, she hated having to do this to him.

  To anyone.

  "Do it quickwy," Colton rasped, as CJ pinned his shoulders.

  Skin seared as she held the blade to his mottled flesh. She'd been expecting him to at least scream but all that left his mouth was a rasped groan, and he turned his head to the side, panting through it. The stink of burning flesh made her swallow.

  "Next one," she whispered, turning the flat of the blade and pressing it swiftly against the other claw mark. There were three in all, and a faint scratch where the fourth must have glanced his skin. Only two of them were deep and angry, but she swiftly cauterized the third shallow cut, just in case.

  The second she was done, Colton collapsed forward into her arms, pressing his forehead against her shoulder and shuddering. The belt fell from his mouth, along with a strand of saliva, and a swift course of groaned Spanish words she couldn't decipher. Eden couldn't help rubbing her hand through his close-cropped hair, though she knew there was nothing she could truly do to comfort him.

  And—

  The curve of his spine flexed as he bent his neck. Scars marked his back. Hundreds of them. Eden sucked in a sharp breath, her eyes flying to CJ's.

  She recognized burn marks when she saw them.

  Small round burns like the end of a cigarette—or cigar, most likely, from the size of them. Some were pressed over others, deep thickened welts that looked like they'd merely built upon the base layers of scarring.

  Holding the knife safely away from him, Eden stroked her free hand up his spine, cupping the back of his neck, her mind still shocked.

  This was why he hadn't wanted to take his shirt off. He'd made sure the light was quenched the other night too, before he undressed.

  His words from last night about how to break a warg flashed through her head: Torture. Sleep deprivation. Starvation. That kind of shit.

  There was nothing else she could call scars like these, except signs of long-ago torture. And they had either happened to him young, before he was infected with the warg curse, or the torture had been so extreme even his super-healing hadn't been able to heal it all.

  "Who did this to you?" she whispered.

  "Hijo de puta." Colton shuddered and clung to her arm. "Fuck." He slowly managed to lift his head, his chest still heaving. "Are we done here?"

  "Colton," she blurted, grabbing his forearm.

  He froze, his dark eyes dropping to her touch. Eden's first instinct was to withdraw her hand, but she tilted her chin stubbornly and let her thumb stroke, just once, over the smooth skin on the inside of his wrist.

/>   Their eyes met.

  "Don't go soft on me, angel," he said quietly. "I've lived a bad life, remember?"

  Right now she couldn't think of everything he'd done to her. All she could feel was horror. "Who?"

  He searched her gaze, as if he realized she wasn't going to leave this alone.

  "You think you were Bartholomew Cane's first victim?" Each word was crisp and cool, Colton locking down his emotions hard. He reached for his shirt and tugged it back over his head. A taunting smile twisted his lips as he pushed himself to his feet. "Sorry, angel. But you spent one night with him. I spent years."

  And then he stalked away into the sweltering morning, leaving her on her knees with his knife in her hand, her entire world turned upside down.

  IT CHANGED EVERYTHING.

  Eden could barely focus on anything else all day, as Colton pushed them hard. They had to move, he said, ignoring her attempts to question him about Cane when his burns healed well enough for her to bandage them.

  Which meant she had to form her own conclusions.

  Thinking about Bartholomew Cane made her skin crawl. As much as Eden didn't want to admit it, she'd never thought of Colton as a monster. He'd obeyed Cane's will, but when he'd finally locked her inside the hut where her brother was undergoing his first metamorphosis, he'd been almost apologetic, and there'd been a broken-down look in his dark eyes, as if he knew she'd never forgive him.

  Left to his own devices she didn't think Colton had it in him to be cruel or violent. He just wasn't the type to seek it out.

  Cane had been a different kettle of fish entirely. Even now the hairs along the back of her neck rose, and the man had been dead several years, killed by Colton's own hand apparently.

  Not once had she ever wondered what it would have been like to work for Cane.

  She hadn't understood why Colton even obeyed the psychopath.

  Hadn't given it a thought.

  Just assumed he'd been there for the hell of it.

  Do it often enough and you can twist even the most hard-core alpha to your will in a way he'll never be able to break....