AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Nah, baby.” His slur is worse and sounds further away, but I know that can’t be right when I feel that brand up against my chest and then circling around me, covering my every inch. “Gonna be okay.” His voice turns into a growl and suddenly, I’m being dragged over the ground, further away from the river, higher up onto the embankment where the mud turns to grass. “Gotta be okay.”
I don’t know how he’s still awake with darts covering him. Nor do I know how he expects either of us to survive this. But he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t give up. And as he continues to drag himself up away from the water — and me with him — I recognize that if this stupid Berserker can keep going after dropping into the same river I did and getting shot a million times, I can, too. He’s not better than me in anything, least of all surviving, no matter what his Beta upbringing looked like.
Claws ripped out of his fingers. Fangs ripped out of his head.
I blink and see blood and wince. I open my eyes again and as my gaze slowly comes into focus, I realize I’m staring at the wall of his chest and the darts studding it. I glance up, my eyeballs straining, my neck, too. His strong neck is bulging and his face is bright red. He’s got his arm stretched up overhead and I watch, fucking flabbergasted, as he punches the claws of his right hand into the soil and climbs.
His left arm remains firmly coiled around me. He doesn’t let me go. He just drags us forward, ever forward, until we near the first of the trees and it’s here, finally, that he starts slowing down.
His jaw clenches and he looks down at me. Our eyes connect and his expression changes, becoming more neutral, as he looks at me trying to free my good arm from between us and reach up to employ the same tactic he has by jamming my fingers into the ground and dragging us to drier ground.
I rip out a fistful of grass and chuck it aside, and when I try again, I rip out another, even bigger tuft of grass. The Berserker makes a sound, but when I look up at his face, he’s not watching me anymore. Instead, he’s back to dragging.He’s smiling though.
I start clawing at the ground with renewed determination and find that the exertion helps warm me up and bring me back to life.
“Berr-berr-serker?” I whisper, rolling to face him as we hit the first copse of trees. He’s not pulling anymore and I can’t pull the both of us together. I try kicking with my feet, but my legs are two meat popsicles and he’s a goddamn ton. We don’t move at all.
We. I saidwe.Fuck.
“Berrrrrrsssserk-k-k-ker.” His eyes are closed, his mouth is relaxed in sleep. I glance over his chest, intending to pound on it, but there are too many darts still sticking out of him and nowhere that isn't bloody.
My too-many-layers of soaking wet clothing are heavy as shit and I struggle to move in them. “B-b-berserker.” I whack instead on an unaffected part of his arm.
In a move that startles me, that arm snakes out and catches my wrist. “Omega.”
I jolt. “D-d-d-don’t fall asleep. And d-d-d-d-don’t c-c-call me Oh-oh-ohmeggga.”
“Can’t call you Echo. Havena earned it, Omega,” he sighs in a rumbling breath. I hate it. I hate how it moves me. It moves me to action.
His eyelids twitch, but he stays asleep as I manage to roll onto my injured shoulder and use my right arm to pluck the darts out of his chest, neck, shoulder and the bits of his back that I can reach. I need him alive. I need his heat.
“Ber-ber-serker? Berser-k-ker, hey! D-d-don’t sleep. If you don’t ssssssleep…if you st-stay awake, you c-c-c-can call me Eck-eck-eck…” I can’t even choke the word out. “Echo. Berserker?”
I yank a dart out of his neck and he groans and rolls onto his back, wincing in pain when he does. I shiver uncontrollably, out from under the umbrella of his warmth and somehow, some way, I manage to shove my good arm under his enormous, heavy-as-shit body and search for darts. I pluck out the remaining three.
When I look up at his face, his eyes are slitted, but he sees me. He’s got a drunk little smile strung between his lips that I don’t like at all. “Good Omega.”
“F-f-f-fuck you,” I whisper, but my heart picks up its pace and I feel stronger than I did just a second before. “Are yyyyyou on d-d-d-drugs?”
He snickers at that and he’s so lazy and docile he almost looks…sweet. It’s revolting. What the fuck is going on? What the hell is in those darts and can I get some? And what happened to my savage Berserker? I liked the monster. I understand monsters.
“Still cold?” I nod emphatically and he chuckles. “Come.” He opens up his arms and I don’t have any other choice but to roll into his chest.
Well, I might have had choices, but somewhere in between him opening his arms and telling me how good I did, I lost the list.
He hisses the moment I get in close and starts to pull and push at the strap of the pack still slicing through my shoulder. “Naked,” he says, but his hands are big and clumsy and he’s not making any progress.
“N-n-n-n-n-nnnoooo. I’m not g-g-getting naked.”
“Cold,” he breathes, voice tight, but nowhere near as choppy as mine, which only pisses me off more. “Not gonna make it like this, Echo.”
A shiver breaks through my restraint at the absolute worst moment.
“Naked,” he says again, only this time, his arms are both in motion, pulling my sweatshirt off.
“Not-not ev-ev-ev-ev-everythi…” Cold air caresses my bare back and I lose consciousness for a critical second.
“Echo.” My eyes open and I’m instantly aware that all of the layers that once covered my torso are gone. “Pants,” he says next and I hiss when I realize where I am and what’s happening and the warmth…dear fuck, the warmth…it feels heavenly.
