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I can’t lose her.
I will not accept losing her.
Pulling my arms closer to my body, I keep walking and ignoring the laugh that echoes through my head. How the hell do I get him out of it?
“I’m impossible to get rid of. You just have to learn to like me.”
I ignore him. It’s best not to feed the devil.
I walk farther until my legs are sore and the sun is down and I have to rest. My legs start to shake, and as I look around, I see no signs of life.
Will I die here?
Will the last conversation I had with my sister be about fighting?
I miss her already and it’s not even been a full day. It’s the longest I have ever spent away from her. Hugging my legs as I sit, I stay near the river and stare off into the water.
I will NOT die here.
This is not my destiny.
No matter how much my teeth chatter or how much my hands shake.
I will not die here.
Chapter Fourteen
“Talia.”
I hear my name, but I’m too cold to move, too cold to even open my eyes. I can hear the river flowing from where I’m lying, when I feel a hand touching my shoulder. It’s warm, unlike me. My teeth won’t stop chattering, but my hands have stopped shaking now, seeing as I can’t even feel them.
“Oh my gosh, Talia, you’re freezing.” Warm hands move me, and soon I’m surrounded by warmth. I close my eyes, and I’m not sure how long they stay closed for, but when I manage to reopen them, the sun is setting. Moving my hands between me, Tatiana is in front of me, while Patrick is behind me hugging my back. When I look at her, she smiles and tightens her grip on me.
“Did we lose time?” I ask her, worried.
“It doesn’t matter. You’re okay, that’s all that matters. We didn’t know what happened.” She strokes my face, and I realize most of my clothes have been removed and all I am left with is my singlet and underwear.
That’s awkward as fuck.
“I need to stand.” Both move from where they have been lying and I get up as Tatiana hands me my pants, which I slide on, glad to see they aren’t wet any longer. “I wish I could shower… a hot, steamy shower and not leave for hours.”
“We’re almost there. I think if we can walk most of the night, we’ll make up our lost time.”
I turn to look at Patrick—his eyes are downcast, his cheeks flushed.
“Thank you for doing that,” I say to him, and that’s when his warm eyes meet mine.
“Cold doesn’t affect me as it does you.”
I nod at his words and turn to my sister. “We don’t even know if we’re going the right way,” I say to her, frustration building.
“You know the rules of the forest. It takes you the way it wants to. You don’t get a choice. When the Viper wants to meet with us, it will be on his time and terms. Stories have said you need to survive a few days before he shows himself.”
“Four days, the angel said,” Patrick grumbles.
“How many days has it been?”
“Today is the third,” my sister says grimly. “We need to get through today and hopefully… hopefully, he will show himself.”
“He’s probably watching us now,” Patrick growls.
“He probably is. It is his forest after all,” I say as we continue to walk.
So much of the forest looks exactly the same that it’s hard to know if we are simply going in circles. We eat as we move, snacking on what we brought with us and trying to keep our energy levels up. Tatiana gives me another protein bar because I didn’t eat last night. I eat it without complaint. The silence is deafening, so much so that all I want to do is somehow stop it.
Turning to my sister, I smile. “How about you tell us about your first kiss,” I ask Tatiana. She ignores me and keeps on walking, looking straight ahead.
I turn to look at Patrick. “What about you? Who was your first kiss?”
His lip turns up at my words, but he does answer me and it makes me smile.
“My mate was the first woman to ever kiss me.”
I try to hide my shock at his words because that means…
“She’s dead, before you ask.”
My smile drops from my face. “I’m sorry,” I say, and I mean it. I hear when a wolf loses their mate, their soul is never the same. It’s split in two and it never fully recovers, as their mate is meant to be with them for life.
“It was a long time ago, I’ve learned to live…” Patrick pauses, as if he is lost in thought.
“My first kiss was to a warlock,” Tatiana says, making both of us turn to look at her. “I was sixteen, and he was…” she pauses and looks up to the sky, “…dreamy.”
