AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Tilda tenses up. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“I don’t know what the others will do right now, so it’s best if I keep you at my side for now,” I tell her, trying to be reassuring. “No one will touch you while you’re with me.”
“So I just need to stay with you twenty-four seven until you decide to let me go—ifyou decide to let me go,” she says. “Seems reasonable.”
I don’t miss the sarcasm in her voice. “I’m just going to need a day or two to figure out what the best course of action will be,” I mutter.
“Right,” she says. “I’ll just try not to get killed until then.”
I’m confident she didn’t come here last night intending on going into the belly of the beast, but now that she’s here, it’s presented me with quite the predicament. I’m dying to sit down with Mateo and hash this out, but I won’t be able to do that unless I can find some way to offload Tilda for now. Maybe if I could just get her in with some of the other omegas, they would help her.
And I’m going to have to figure that out, too—how a human ended up having the pheromones that drove me so feral. How ahumancould be a lycan omega.
Too much to figure out, not enough time or resources. And Istillhave to figure out our food shortage situation.
I’m reminded of it as I scent breakfast from up above, leading Tilda out into the sun and toward the old visitor center. We try to keep most of our food out of the den to avoid pests, saving an emergency supply of canned goods deep within the earth in case we needed to go underground. The visitor’s center is where we cook and keep our fresh food—thus, we’ve started calling it the mess hall. Tilda’s stomach growls loudly at the scent of tortillas and beans, even if they were frozen and canned.
“What did you say that was?” she says. “Tetalas oaxaca…?”
“Kind of like a black bean dumpling,” I say. “Mateo makes it work with what we have. Everyone else should be gone already, but they saved some for me.”
“Who’s Mateo?” she asks.
I wonder if I should tell her—if it’s really safe, or if all she’s doing right now is collecting information so she can hurt me later—and I decide there’s no harm if she already knows who I am anyway.
“My brother,” I tell her.
She bites her lip. “Older or younger?”
“Younger.” We walk through the front door of the mess, and the scent of breakfast slams into me. My stomach growls too. “Ten years.”
“Mine too,” Tilda says. “Sister, though—Enid.”
I’m trying to think of how to tell her that her sister will be fine when someone steps out of the kitchen, carrying a plate of leftovers. I realize a moment later that it’s Grant. He grins broadly at the sight of the two of us, a barely contained snicker in his throat. “Freaky,” he says. “Is the blindfold for practical reasons or—”
I let loose a warning growl, and Grant raises the hand not holding the leftovers in surrender. “Sorry,” he says. “I’ll, uh, just be going…”
“Are those the rest of the leftovers, or did you leave some for me?” I ask, my eyes flitting to the plate.
“Figured you’d just come up for lunch,” he says. “I can leave ‘em for you if you want.”
“That would be good,” I say, chastising him a little. “Remember that we’re running low on food.”
“Speaking of which,” Grant says. “I think you owe me your blackberry rations.”
He doesn’t let me argue; he puts the food down on one of the tables and steps out of the room, off to go on guard duty or perhaps to get stoned with one of the other alphas. I try not to judge their choices too harshly, when I know that things can get tense around the den, especially for an unmated lycan after the full moon.
I sit Tilda down at one of the folding tables, the metal chair creaking underneath her. “I’m going to take off your blindfold now,” I tell her.
“Oh—you’re not going to feed me by hand?”
“Not this time,” I chuckle.
I can’t tell if she’s trying to throw me off balance or if she’s just naturally snarky—either way, it’s working. I’m a little more cautious as I take her blindfold off, pocketing the black tie as she looks around. Her eyes aresogreen—like freshly cut grass and summer leaves.
Tilda blinks, looking around. I think she’s surprised by what she sees—the comfortable furniture lining the walls, the cleared wooden tables and kids’ drawings on the walls. She frowns in particular at the drawings, ignoring the food in front of her.
“There are children here,” she says shortly, like it had never occurred to her.
