Page 93 of Evan and the Alpha

I am ashamed to admit I cannot keep up with the crowd. Yafir and I end up shuffling along an almost-empty street, the crowd disappearing ahead of us, Vince at their helm.

I glance at Yafir. “Where’s Rex?” I ask.

“I left him with a neighbor,” Yafir says. “This is no place for a hatchling.”

“Wise,” I murmur. We fall silent for a moment. Then I say, “Vince is a good alpha.”

It’s dark, but I know Yafir turns bright purple with embarrassment. “Let’s not talk of that now,” he says, but there’s something pleased in his voice.

“I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know,” I persist.

Yafir shakes his head. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he murmurs. “It’s nothing like that.”

I snort, and Yafir glares. “Save your breath,” he tells me sharply, suddenly irritated with me speculating on his love life, apparently. “We need to focus on getting Evan out alive.”

My heart skips a beat at my mate’s name. Yes, I need to focus on finding and rescuing my beloved mate. I amdelighted that he’s returned to me, that we once again breathe the same air and tread the same soil. But my heart pounds in fear as the wreck looms above us—what if it ignites, like Vince suggested it could? What if Evan is injured or trapped?

What if my mate is so soon stolen from me again, this time by Death himself?

***

We spend hours tearing the wreck apart. Vince is right; many parts of the ship are on fire or completely destroyed. It will not fly any time soon. And many of the sun spirits aboard are injured.

Some have cuts and bruises. Others have broken limbs. Some have, unfortunately, already succumbed to their injuries. We work on bringing out the living first, so that they may be tended to. We may not be able to save the dead.

The scent of fire is everything, mixed with that heavy stench of fuel.

The sun rises slowly over the horizon, the sky turning blood red, as though it has been painted by the dead and injured sun spirits. Perhaps Enochtra bleeds for his children.

The smoke gets worse. Vince grabs my arm, and I look down into his worried eyes, his face smeared with soot and dirt, bits of blood. “We have to go,” he says, his voice rising.

I bat his hand away. “What do you mean?”

He shakes his head. “The fire’s too close to the fuel tanks,” he says. “Fuel’s spilling everywhere—if we don’t go now…”

There’s a pop, followed by another, almost deafening. I stare at him. “What was that?”

“Air tanks,” he says finally, blinking. “They must be exploding—they’ll give the fire more fuel.” He grabs my wrist. “We have to go, now.”

“I haven’t found Evan!”

Vince shakes his head, then yanks on my arm again. “We have to go!”

“But!”

Yafir takes my arm. “Brother,” he says softly. “Come with us.”

“My mate,” I protest. I cannot believe this. I will not believe this.

Yafir’s grip on my arm tightens; his claws bite against my scales. “Evan may be out already,” he says. “Perhaps we did not find him, but someone else did. Come with me. Let’s see if Evan is among the injured.”

My heart sinks. My breath comes short. We both know Yafir is lying to me; we did not find Evan. Evan was not found by anyone else; they would have told us. Someone would have come running to get me, pulled me aside, and said, “Sobek, here is your mate. He is hurt, but he is here, he is alive.”

That did not happen. Evan must still be in the wreck. The wreck that Yafir is pushing me away from now.

I twist back to stare. Yafir keeps pushing me. We catch up to Vince, who grabs my other arm. The two of them practically lift me off the ground; my feet catch sand, then metal and wire here and there, but then there are points when I’m almost floating as I struggle between them.

I can’t take my eyes off the wreck, plumes of billowing black smoke getting thicker and thicker. “No,” I hear myself say, the word whisked away on the wind. The smoke stings my eyes, burns my lungs. “No!”