by Jade White
She heard grunts and snorts, and she knew it was Ryker. He came back, adjusting the dirty pair of pants he had removed prior to shifting. Alexia didn’t look at him. Ryker sniffed the air.
“I smell human blood, and it isn’t mine,” he said in a quiet voice. “You didn’t tell me you were injured.”
“I wasn’t. It’s just the cold,” she told him. “It’s just a nosebleed.”
“How often do you have these?” he asked, sitting across from her, his head nearing the ceiling that was filled with roots.
“Only when the temperature changes too quickly…” she replied. She’d had those once a week at least in the lab.
“Well, you’d better learn to adjust. I don’t care how you do it, but try. The others can smell this a mile away,” Ryker told her dispassionately.
She nodded.
“You hungry?” he asked her. In his hand were a few wild mushrooms. “I cleaned these up.”
She looked at them questioningly. “Why does it look like a-?” she stopped, not quite sure how to describe it.
“It’s called lion’s mane in some parts. These are pretty good. I survived on these as a kid,” he told her.
“Survived?” Alexia began, taking it from him. She quickly put one in her mouth, tasting its meatiness and mild taste, with a rubbery texture. She didn’t care, she chewed on one quickly and swallowed it, feeling the hunger. Her stomach growled, as if it asked for more food.
Ryker let out a snort. “So, you really are hungry.”
She paid no attention to the comment. “I like these. Is this what a lion’s mane really looks like?”
Ryker shrugged. “I saw one once; there was a small zoo I went to. The lion looked sad, and its hair wasn’t as grand as I imagined it would be. Maybe because it was imprisoned.”
“Maybe that’s why I look like this…” Alexia said, pausing for a moment.
“Look like what?”
“I look sad, and my hair looks dead.”
“You were locked up for a while. I guess that’s what the lack of sunshine and fresh air does to you.”
“I have sunshine and fresh air now…”
“Let’s put it this way. We’re still trapped; we aren’t truly free. All this sunshine and fresh air is on loan. We don’t even have proper food; I can’t even give you good, human food unless we steal from houses or something.”
“You’ve done more than enough,” Alexia said, “and you don’t even know me.”
Ryker took in a deep breath. “Yeah, sure.”
He didn’t know her, and he didn’t see the need to get to know her better. But had he done more than enough? If he had, they wouldn’t be here. If he hadn’t taken her out of that lab, she would have had three square meals a day with a change of clothes and her own private quarters. He observed her as she ate her meal while she stared at the floor. She was thinner than she had been in the lab. Her pallor hadn’t improved much, but at least her cheeks were a bit flushed as opposed to last week. Had it only been seven days since they had escaped? It felt like months, and he felt helpless. He didn’t know where they were or what he was going to do. It was different now that he was in charge of another person’s welfare and life.
Back when he had been a recent orphan, it was easy to shift and digest meals fit for wild animals. He had been a smaller werebear back then, and he had looked every inch lovable, despite his maiming and killing tendencies. People took pity on him as a boy, but when he shifted, it was an altogether different story. Control was something that had taken years, and Ryker had all the isolation he had needed back then. This isolation was for survival, and it slimmed with Alexia in tow. She had no survival skills whatsoever, and any knowledge she had learned was gleaned from the adults that had performed tests on her.
“Ryker,” she began.
Ryker looked up, surprised that his name had come from her mouth. She barely called him by his name. A sudden draft of wind rushed into the small cave.
“I’m cold,” she told him.
Ryker swallowed. It had come across his mind, but he didn’t want to entertain it. She was shaking; he had seen it early on. What month had it been? He had won the games mere months ago… He took a deep breath and crawled for Alexia, sitting beside her.
She inched for him, now just millimeters away from his body. She could feel the heat emanating from Ryker, and she felt relief from the frigidness that had begun to envelop her body. Ryker rested his head against the dirt wall, closing his eyes. He felt Alexia’s arm brush against his own, and he held his breath momentarily. A discomfort rose in him at the fact that a stranger was so close to him. He could hear every breath she took, he could hear her heart beat, and slowly but surely, he could feel the cold in her body dissipate.
Alexia closed her eyes and leaned against Ryker this time.
Ryker’s jaw hardened, and he knew he didn’t need to move. She was too comfortable, so he let her be, swallowing the strange feeling coming over him. No one had been this close to him since his parents had died. Alexia was a complete stranger, and yet here she was, her head rested on his arm, her body snuggled close to his.
The whores in the capital couldn’t even hold his hand. The lab scientists had forcibly done so. But he could not find it in himself to push Alexia away. He looked down at her as she closed her eyes, falling into a deep sleep. He saw her thick eyelashes and saw the scars on her arms and even on her head. Her wrist was still healing; he could smell an infection growing where he had taken out her microchip.
He knew they had to find medications soon. No hospital would take them in without alerting authorities; no home would give them a roof over their heads, even just for a night. He was in too deep to leave Alexia alone…
Ryker saw her brows furrow in her sleep. She was probably dreaming. He had kept still for over an hour now, just staring at the small hole that gave their cave subdued daylight. The snow would thicken soon, and he would need to shift once in a while just to survive the cold. His plans to reach Washington in less than two weeks had become a dream. He felt his hopes for emancipation ebbing away…
Ryker closed his eyes once more, knowing that worrying wouldn’t get him anywhere close to Washington. Their scents would have strengthened by now, after staying in the same place for two days. Ryker remembered what his father had taught him. Follow the stars, Philip had said. And he would.
He would follow those stars to safety, or at least to a better direction. He needed Alexia alive and well. Dr. Delaney had told him she was as important as he was for the country’s future. Not everyone was a werebeing. Why, Dr. Delaney? he thought.
He moved a bit, trying to get some blood running back to his arm. Alexia stirred a little, but she continued to sleep. She was as exhausted as he was, only hers showed prominently. He looked back at her again, and he saw her lips move, as if she were murmuring someone’s name.
Ryker wondered who it was. He couldn’t make out the words. They both dreamed every night, and he didn’t want to ask her what it was about, but he could hear her crying in her sleep. It was not his business to ask her about what plagued her in her dreams. He had his own demons to face, and there were more coming for them.
“What’s going to become of us?” he wondered, looking at her face. The both of them were too young to go through what they had gone through, all the torture, the alienation, and the losses of loved ones. Both of them had numerous scars, physical and mental. They both had been alone, and now they were alone, together.
His heartbeat began to sync with hers, and he found himself closing his eyes, tired from his earlier hunt. He felt his muscles relax and his breathing deepen. He and Alexia were safe for now, something he wished would last for even just a couple of hours. He felt Alexia’s head burrow deep into his arm, and he gave a small smile as he closed his eyes, his first smile -- no matter how minute -- in many, many months.
To Be Continued.....
* * *
Ready for the next part of the story?
&nbs
p; Dear Reader,
I want to personally thank you for taking your time to read “The WereGames” I really hope you enjoyed it and you are hungry for the next part in the story.
This is the first book of a TRILOGY and you can get the final 2 books at the links below. Discover how it all ends!
The WereGames 2 – Salvation
The WereGames 3 – Game Over
See you in the next book :)
Jade x x
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