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12 | Adam
Paradise Hole
We move through the woods at a pace I set.It’s hard for her, but she doesn’t complain and she doesn’t fall back. I’m worried. The scent of fever on her skin got worse overnight. Came back after the fire was out to find her passed out like a damn brick. Not even lying down next to her on top of the sleeping bag was enough to wake her. I’d have thought it peaceful, had the sight of her arm not scared the piss outta me.She’s running out of time. I did this to her.
“Did you see the fox last night? It was white.” Her voice startles me and I glance over my shoulder to see her face lookin’ at me without a worry in the world and I know that she’s only got no worries because her eyes are kinda glazed and her stare’s a little dazed and her typically brown skin is now paler than a damn ghost’s.
I did see the white fox, I saw three of ‘em and I thought it was strange, but I hadn’t done anything about it or thought to mention it out loud. I glance at her over my shoulder and watch her push her way through some thorny brambles. She’s gettin’ all tangled in a way that’s dumb for a woman who can literally manipulate the earth.
I turn around, stomp toward her and rip them out by the root. “Saw it. Let’s move. Only a day away from a shower.” And medical care. “Maybe less.” Maybe more, if she gets worse.
“Dry sheets, too?” She smiles like she’s on fuckin’ drugs and it freaks the fuck outta me. She’s lookin’ at me like I’m a friend and it alarms me far more than the scent of fever on her skin.
“Course.” I pull out another thorny bush, but she lifts her hand.
“Leave it,” she says.
“Why?”
She shrugs and stares at the thing, the leaves glossy and dark, each as small as the claws on my pinky fingers. She drags her hand over them and is looking up at me, so she doesn’t see it — the way they bloom so suddenly. Yellow flowers blossom amid the thorns. I damn near fall into rut right then but, like last night, I force myself to stay strong and fucking’ brace through it.
That peach tree isn’t so far away.But to get there, she’s got to fuckin’live.
“Echo,” I grunt, needin’ her to stop. My voice is too loud — I fuckin’ hear it — and she jumps, staggers, and falls into me. I catch her by the back of the neck, bracing one hand against her stomach. I inhale deeply. She smells good under all that filth, yeah, but she also smells like she’s enterin’ delirium and she sure as fuck’s talkin’ like she is. Not used to hearin’ her talk like this. So freely. Like I’m somebody she actually wants to talk to.
Can’t mean nothin’ good.
“Echo, you needa ride me again.”
She makes a sharp squeaking sound that I don’t understand until the blush rises in her cheeks, stainin’ the space underneath so many damn freckles. How’d she get so many? I’m startin’ to like the look of ‘em. Wanna count ‘em. Wanna lick ‘em.
“Fuck. Not like that.” I shake my head to avoid grinnin’ at her. Ain’t the time for that. She’s hurt and slow and we’re so fuckin’ close to Dark City I can breathe in the power that fills the air. Where my Berserker beast is home, even if all that power makes me feel unsettled. “Get on my back and strap in. Gonna carry you in my beast form the rest of the way.”
“I can walk,” she pouts.
“Can’t.”
“I’m walking right now, Adam.” Adam. Fuck. I didn’t do anything to deserve hearin’ my name in her voice now. I open my mouth to answer her, but she speaks first. “Adam. If you added an M to the front then it would be a palindrome. You know, spelled forward and backwards the same.”
The fuck is she talking about? Ramblin’ the way she is almost makes me feel cheated out of hearing my name, knowing she didn’t mean anything by it. Sorta wish she had, though. “Echo, you’re sick. Need to carry you.”
“I don’t want to ride you. I mean — on your back.” She resists, trying to pull her arms away, but I drag her against me carefully and this time, I can’t help but chuckle at her rising heat.
“Gonna ride me any way I want you to, but I promise you, Echo, it’s gonna feel good.”
Her breath against my chin tastes sweet when it tickles my mouth. I lean in closer, likin’ the smell of her lips, rememberin’ what they taste like. Girl’s clumsy, clearly inexperienced, and if that doesn’t just please the shit outta me, bein’ the one to teach her how to kiss. Fuck if I don’t want more of it. Disorientation grips me fast and hard and disappears just as quick. Suddenly feel like a different Alpha than the Berserker I was when I first saw her in the woods, lookin’ down at a very different Omega. It’s the fever, at least that’s what I tell myself, the glaze to her eyes givin’ her that hint of vulnerability that makes my Berserker instincts kick.
“Promise, baby,” I whisper, leaning in close so that the back of my neck starts to pinch with how low I’m tiltin’ it, but she’s a nasty fucker and won’t cross the little bit of space I left between us.
I can feel her leanin’ in, though, that subtle pressure in the balls of her feet. She wants to. But then she has to go and stab me in the fuckin’ throat with her words, which nearly decapitate me clean. “Do you talk like that to your wife?”
What the… I belt out a laugh so loud it hurts my sides. My head tosses back. I ruffle her hair and, probably a little harder than I should, scoop her legs and crush her against my chest. Jealousy. It’s a raw fuckin’ emotion and it makes my stiff cock ache hearin’ it from her now.
“Yeah, that’s how I talk to my wife,” I tell her, just to fuck with ‘er. What she doesn’t seem to realize is that the only wife I’ll ever have is the Omega in my arms. And fuck yeah, this is how I’ll talk to her now and forever.
Wearin’ boots a size too small, my feet plod through twigs that snap and leaves that crunch. Everythin’ here is kinda dry, which is a welcome relief compared to the swamps behind us remindin’ me way, way too much a Bog City.Adam.I jerk to a stop.
“You say somethin’?” I ask, knowin’ she didn’t. The Fates’ warning whispers in my ears and, distracted, I look over my shoulder. Nobody there though. Start to walk faster.
