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“Then act reasonable.”
“I am. The last time we were in Darkweald, flying snake monsters tried to kill us. If everything you guys have been telling me is true we need to get out of Tzanagoth’s sphere of influence before sunset.”
“I’m not dragging you back into the storm to hide for who-knows-how-long just to get out of Darkweald. It’s bad enough you’re bleeding and I can’t make a fire to warm you up. Darkweald is a big forest and isn’t all within Tzanagoth’s influence. And even if we are within his influence, we’ll be fine if we don’t do anything to draw attention to ourselves.”
“And you know this for a fact?” I demanded.
“I do.”
Silence. Again.
Jeez. And I’d thought Cyrus was stingy with sharing information.
But as much as I wanted to know more, I sure as hell wasn’t going to beg him for it. I couldn’t escape — his grip around me was too tight — and even if I could, I didn’t know where I was going and I could barely see. For all I knew, I’d stumble deeper into the forest.
We sat in a long, awkward silence until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer and I let them slide shut. I wasn’t completely recovered from my heat and I was exhausted, not to mention sore and my head was really starting to pound. The heat from Knox’s body along with his smoky scent and the warmth around my heart from our shifter connection was too much and I soon fell asleep.
I woke with Knox’s arms still wrapped around me and his warm breath gently caressing the side of my face. Sunlight streamed through a thin canopy of trees and that eerie stillness I’d felt the first time I’d stepped into Darkweald wrapped around me.
Knox hadn’t lied. We’d been swept all the way into the forest… well, from the wide open area that lay beyond a few tree trunks in front of me, it was clear we werejustinside the forest.
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but it didn’t look like it was close to sunset, and my gut told me the shadows were going in the wrong direction. Which meant it was the next day. Knox had let me sleep through the night despite what he’d told me about needing to stay awake, and there, about sixty feet away, were Bishop and Cyrus walking across the rocky ground toward us.
Relief flooded me. They were all right. Thank God they were all right.
“Thought you’d try to get ahead of us,” Bishop said as he knelt in front of me and flashed me his panty-melting smile.
I tore myself out of Knox’s grip and threw myself against Bishop’s chest despite my body complaining from having slept cramped against my mate and what I was sure was a stunning collection of bruises from my watery trip down the ravine. I wrapped my arms around him, and he chuckled as he hugged me back, the sound melting the last of the frozen fear sitting heavy in my stomach.
“You’re okay?” I asked, pressing my nose into the crook of his neck and inhaling his fresh-cut grass scent. Our shifter connection swelled around my heart and tears stung my eyes at how comforting it was. He was, and would always be, my soul’s home.
“We’re fine,” he murmured, holding me tight before placing his hands on my shoulders and leaning back to look at me. “Better than you.”
He brushed his fingers against my temple, sending pain spiking through my skull.
“It’s just a few bruises and scratches.” I shrugged, feeling every single bruise in that slight movement.
Cyrus huffed, drawing my attention to him. He was shirtless and his pants were ripped and bloody. Three red welts sliced across his chest, indicating just how deep the jackals’ claws had cut into him that they couldn’t be healed right away with a quick shift.
Bishop, on the other hand, looked fine. But then he’d destroyed his clothes when he’d shifted and had to put on new, clean ones that hid any remaining evidence of the fight.
“She has a nasty bump on her head, a deep cut on her shoulder, and a skinned knee,” Knox told him. “Little more than a few bruises and scratches.”
“Not enough for an elixir,” Cyrus replied. “Come on. We’re on the eastern-most side of Darkweald, about as far as we can get from the patrol shed and not the three-quarter day hike we would have had if we’d camped where we were supposed to.”
Aaaand somehow our change of camping location had become my fault.
Jeez. I couldn’t win with Cyrus. Not that it mattered. He wasn’t my mate and wasn’t interested in becoming my mate like Bishop was. He was just my brother-in-law and my pack alpha. Someone I was going to be connected to for the rest of my life.
