If they catch me again… I don’t know if I’ll survive it. Not in this state.
Paws hit the frozen asphalt of the road and I push harder until there’s a flash of bright lights and a brutal impact knocks me on my ass in a blinding wave of crippling agony.
Every inhale sends a new lance of pain piercing through my chest, and I can’t draw in a full breath without my vision darkening at the edges.
The creak of a car door opening has me scraping up the last vestiges of adrenaline I haven’t burned through to get to shaky legs, snow crunching beneath me. I don’t give myself time to gain my bearings. I can’t.
They found me.
Peeling my aching body off the pavement, I sprint off at the sound of a man and woman’s voice as the huge shifter peels himself out of the now-dented SUV; wolf, if my senses aren’t as damaged as the rest of me. Forcing my broken wing to endure the agony, I glide far enough away and around a bend of trees, where it’ll be harder to pick up my tracks in the snow. Every extra second I can buy myself could mean the difference between freedom and being stuffed into a cage again.
Starved. Shocked. Hauled out only to endure another round of torture and interrogation.
Can’t go back. Gotta keep running.
Ignoring the blistering agony as my broken bones grind against each other, I pick up my pace, the trees turning into buildings as I run until my vision goes spotty. Sticking to the shadows, I eventually find a small crevice off the beaten path and wedge myself inside right before I collapse.
Chapter 5
Kiara
An incessant ringing has me groggily slapping my hand around my bedside table. It takes me a hot second to remember how to answer the infernal device, but I manage before the call ends, so I’m calling it amazing progress.
The culture shock of technology has been both the best and worst part of striking out on my own. Amazing and makes life ten times easier than the hidden supernatural village I grew up sheltered in, but the learning curve makes me feel embarrassingly stupid some days. Especially when people look at me like I’m crazy for not knowing the simplest of things, like I can’t cross the street until a certain color light allows it, or thateveryoneis allowed free access to the internet here, not just the elders and security team.
Naturally, my brother mastered it all within a matter of days.
“Let me guess, I woke you up?” Killian’s amused voice asks, and I pull the phone away to see the time and curse, fighting my way free of the blanket trapping my legs.
“No, of course not, I’ve been up for hours. Getting ready to walk out the door right now, actually,” I lie.
This stupid phone must be defective.I set three alarms every night, but they never actually go off in the morning.
He chuckles. “Right, of course. Lots of appointments today?”
As I yank on my fleece-lined leggings, I hesitate before taking off the shirt I slept in. It still smells likehim;smoky with a slight metallic undercurrent. Folding it up, I tuck it under my pillow before pulling on a clean, dark blue t-shirt. Not a super professional outfit, but that’s the benefit of being the boss; comfort trumps all.
“Oh definitely, business is booming.”Lie, lie, lie.
Killian goes quiet, and I realize my mistake a split-second before he says, “You shouldn’t push yourself so hard, Kia. Have you thought any more about my offer?”
Yeah, because stepping down from healing animals to be my brother’s assistant at the hospital wouldn’t make me want to jump off the nearest cliff. I get it, he wants to be able to keep an eye on my ‘condition’ and me to cut back on how much I’m using my abilities. To keep me close in a town full of horny supernatural men desperate for mates. But I’ve lived in my brother’s shadow my entire life; this place was supposed to be my fresh start.
If he had any idea how much worse it’s gotten, he’d probably set the clinic on fire himself so I’d have no other choice but to let him take care of me forever.
He doesn’t understand. The only way to fix my backlash problem is to never use my abilities again, or have them stripped from me completely, and I just… can’t. Even if it’ll be the thing that kills me one day, I can’t give up such a major part of myself.
And as a center, I can’t just go live a ‘normal’ human life, either. I’ll be a target for any desperate myst that finds me out there alone, and have no way to protect myself. I’d be perpetually surrounded by a world of magic I’m no longer a partof, but can’t leave, either. At least this is a level of pain I can endure.
“Right,” Kills mumbles, taking my silence as an answer and sighing heavily. “I’ll back off, but the offer stands.”
Putting on my coat and stuffing my keys in my pocket, I smile softly. He really is the best brother a girl could ask for, if a little overbearing sometimes. “Noted. Always good to have a fallback plan.”
He snorts. “Says the girl that ran away from home with a mimic and her band of psychos.”
“Ever’s my best friend, and she has great taste, thank you very much”
“You knew her for like two days before you left!” he argues.
