AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The question was… what she did about herself.
TWENTY
UP UPON THEsummit of the mountain called Deer, Blade stepped out of the hidden cave. Breathing in deeply, he smelled only pine trees, fresh earth, and a frigid humidity in the air that suggested snow would be coming. The cold was biting, his robing protecting him not by much, and as the gusts coming up the elevation pushed at him, his hair waved back from his visage and his core body temperature was drained.
Not that he minded.
Off in the distance, a howl crested through the night, and after a moment, a reply came from across the valley. Behind him, an animal—likely a deer, given the mountain’s assigned nomenclature—was being quiet about its movements. He tracked the thing nonetheless out of habit. Out of his own nature.
As he considered what he had done on behalf of the wolven, a rare moment of peacefulness settled upon his shoulders and he told himself to enjoyit. The sense of easing would not last, and heeding that truism, he drank the calm in and tried to hold it in his soul. Soon enough his mental torment would return.
Ah, brain chemistry.
The self was the most dangerous deceptor. This was something thatsymphathsknew to their core, and most others were willfully blind to, and that disconnect was why his kind were so dangerous. Thoughts and feelings were levers to be pulled by words and deeds, and the output was a product of design.
Thus why he had moved out of his quarters at the Colony.
And taken his most precious possessions with him.
Glancing back to the fissure in the rocks, he knew his kind would never find him here. For all the timesymphathsspent under the ground, they detested nature. Living here? Out in the wilderness? They could not fathom why anybody of their constitution would volunteer for such a thing, even one who existed on the fringes of their bloodline.
Thus he had packed what mattered upon his body and dematerialized out from one of the Colony’s disguised entrances. The cave, with its natural spring-fed basin, had been the only place he had considered. He was well aware that it was someone’s abode, but the abandonment of the space had been clear the previous time he hadbeen in it, the scent of its wolven occupier faded, dust accumulated on the storage trunks and the bedding platform alike.
Concerning matters of housekeeping, he thought of the finger he had drawn across the bureau in Kurling’s quarters—
Another howl sounded out to the west. And… yes, there was the other answer.
Closing his eyes, he thought of Lydia, and pictured her human-ish incarnation, with her tall, strong body, and her hair with its streaks of blond, and her eyes, those beautiful golden eyes, which were lycan-like even when she was not in that form.
Her nature was dispositive, no matter the skin that clothed her.
As he thought of the ways she had stared at him, over the short course of their vivid association, he reflected that even when she hated him, he relished any moment that her gaze was upon him. And as he considered the way she had looked at him the night before when he had returned her missing friend to her? Yes, he preferred that best, even if shock had tempered her positive regard.
In light of this, he resolved that it would probably be best not to fool himself. For all the valid, survival reasons that this remote location could be chosen by him, the truth behind his decision to camp out here was about her, not him.
He knew in his gut she would find him here. Just as she had done before.
The cognitive dissonance she would be struggling with the now—why had he returned Gus? what had happened during the evacuation? did Blade know who was behind the abduction?—would drive her to him, and she would come here because it was the only lead on his whereabouts that she had. And he would take the audience eagerly, even if it was answers she sought, rather than he himself.
In this fashion, Xhex still could not argue that Blade was seeking the female out. Free will, after all, was the engine that drove everything that was subject to choice. What fault of it was his if the wolven came unto him—
A sudden rustling close upon him spun his attention around—and Blade palmed his gun and pointed it in the direction of the branches that had moved.
This time, it was not a deer.
Given the lack of scent, but the very clear presence, he instantly condemned his reverie. If it was one of those cyborgs—
All around him, as if some cue had gone off, wolves began howling. Not a volley any longer, now it was a chorus of many positions, the calls mixing and harmonizing, the rising and falling of each individual throat getting lost in the music of the clans.
Blocking out the beautiful calls, he trained hisears on a crackling of dry sticks. “Be of care,” he called forth. “I am armed.”
With narrowed eyes, he searched the pine trees, sifting through the fluffy boughs and stout trunks. It was only the sound of an approach, however. No form—which made no sense.
“Halt,” he ordered. “Lest… I…”
Blade’s voice drifted off, his words consumed by the howling that was amplified by the valley’s acoustics.
And then he was no longer alone.
