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Lucien steps over a body to reach me. “Goddamn fucking infected.” His expression twists with hatred as he takes in the massacre.
“We won. That’s what counts,” I say. “Arrange for all able wolves to take stock of how many we lost, and make sure they are really dead before families take them for burial. Take the rest of the infected down the mountain and as far from here as possible before their rotting bodies reek the air.”
He nods, his attention sweeping over the fallen, his face splattered with blood.
“Bardhyl,” I call out to the Viking wolf. “We need the wall mended immediately. See to it.”
He taps his chest twice with his fist and turns abruptly to the wall. I have faith in my men to get things done. I swing to the dead, and Lucien and I start searching for wolves. They will be reunited with their families before receiving a proper farewell.
I spot a familiar face several feet away. It’s a younger Alpha whose brain has been smashed in, meaning this brave soldier won’t morph into a creature.
Bang.
The sound from behind me makes me flinch, and I lift my head, hating how fucking jumpy I feel. The guards are making sure all dead wolves stay that way.
We begin collecting the bodies and clearing out the mess. I don’t keep track of how long we’ve been at this, but night starts to stain the sky and my muscles strain.
“We rest now.” Lucien is behind me, his body covered in dirt and blood. Getting infected blood into our system doesn’t turn us until we die. In truth, we’re probably all infected already; many believe it spread through the air so long ago. And now it just lingers inside us until we perish and reawaken.
Around us, only the blood-soaked ground remains. The infected have been piled into trucks for disposing of tomorrow, and wolves are laid in the great hall for family ceremonies.
My head spins with so much to do, except this isn’t even close to being over.
Meira comes to mind, and I look up to where the wall at the side of my yard lays smashed open. I keep picturing her running away, pushing past the infected, her gaze meeting mine with utter shock.
The look in her eyes screamed regret, guilt, and heartbreak—but still, she left. Except she never understood the pack rules of mating and marking. Now that she’s been marked, she will feel the apprehension and a deep pain in her chest the farther she is from her mates. The problem is that because her wolf hasn’t come out, hasn’t accepted me or Lucien as her true Alphas, she’s susceptible to other wolf attacks. Her slick heat will drive other Alphas to madness to claim her… and she’s run out there alone.
“We need to find her.” Lucien voices my thoughts. “The leukemia will claim her human body in a week or two.”
A deep growl rumbles in my chest. I fucking hate this constant battle. If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. “We’ll go after her tonight,” I bark.
He doesn’t protest because, like me, he feels the lacerating ache tightening around his chest from being away from his marked mate. I can barely acknowledge that he mated with my Omega, except it’s not unheard of for females to pick more than one mate. But I shove those thoughts out of my head for now.
“Help Bardhyl and get ready. We leave in an hour and pray to the moon we’re not too late.”
“There’s something you need to know,” Lucien starts, but I shake my head, not ready to hear anything else right now. I’m tired of smelling like blood from the dead and need to get my head straight to work out how the fuck this happened before I take on any more shit.
Meira
Ascream bleeds through the night, ripping me from my sleep. My breaths stutter in my lungs.
I rock sideways, my eyes flipping open, and my heart lurches to the back of my throat as I start falling out of the tree. Frantically, my gaze sweeps over the edge of the branch, and I lash out to snatch onto the limb overhead and steady myself. It takes a few moments for my heart to calm down and to make sense of where I am and why. Memories steamroll over me, crashing with incredible speed as I remember the insanity of what I’ve been through. But what I hate most of all is how easily my heart clenches at the thought of Dušan and Lucien. I’m not stupid—I know their marking me has done something to me, bound us somehow—but I don’t understand the rules of how this works. Will the burrowing ache in my chest eventually fade, or will it drive me so mad I’ll run back to them? So much for pretending I’ll be fine alone. Even here they affect me.
Another scream rings out in the air, this time clearly coming from near the river. It’s female, that much I can tell. I stiffen, a sliver of my survival instinct returning.
Is the girl facing a rogue Alpha or a small group of them? What if it’s a trick by Mad to find me? Or is it a decoy sound Dušan is using to lure me out of my hiding spot? I can’t stop thinking about the last words Mad said to me before I fled.
“I know what’s in your blood, why the infected don’t touch you.”
His words stay with me. They cling to my mind like thorns, reminding me that to wolves, I’ll always be one thing: a lab experiment.
All fantastic reasons for me not to move from my tree. This is how I survived so many years—by butting out of everyone’s business. Maybe that makes me gutless, but I prefer to think it’s smart.
Another scream, and this time, I chew on my lower lip, my mind starting to think things it shouldn’t. Like contemplating ways to sneak down undetected to just see what’s going on. But I wait a bit longer…
When the next ear-splitting scream comes, I start moving, climbing down the tree.
I remind myself helping a bitwillreduce the guilt chewing on my insides at doing nothing.
