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Ugh. Fuck my life.
Now I sort of felt bad. He was still acting like a miserable jerk, and I’d taken a shot below the belt. I just didn’t think it would landthathard.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said quietly. “I didn’t mean to ...”
“Hurt me?” he suggested.
“No, I meant to jab hard enough to hurt you,” I admitted. “Just not like that.”
Pan leaned his head back and laughed. It was genuine. Natural. I tilted my head as I watched him, feeling an odd sense of happiness that I couldn’t explain. Like it made me feel content to hear his laughter and to see him like this. But I’d known him for all of twenty-four hours, so the logical part of me was confused.
I stood up, brushing my legs off, but that was like sweeping sand in the desert. I was coated, and nothing I could do would make it better. As I looked up at Pan, a soft whistling sound gave me pause.
Weapon, my brain screamed.
I lunged at Pan while he simultaneously wrapped me in his arms, sending us both to the ground right before a spear landed between where we’d been standing. Buzzing all over my body attempted to distract me as I laid on top of him. My breasts pressed into his chest as he held me tight, but adrenaline quickly took over and it was all I felt.
Screaming in the jungle gave away which direction the spear was thrown from.
“Hope it was good for you,” I ground out, shoving away from Pan. “We need to get out of here.” I had no desire to kill anyone else.
We scrambled to get up, and I felt for my dagger at my boot, pulling it from its sheath. While it wasn’t in my nature to run, I was fine doing it if it meant I wouldn’t kill another kid.
“Too late,” he muttered, scanning the trees. “They’re here.”
“The same from yesterday? The ... creatures?”
“Worse.”
“What? What do you mean,worse?” I whisper-yelled, dagger up and ready. “I haven’t gotten a rabbis shot. What’s worse than mutant rabid raccoon shifters?”
A crowd of four burst through the trees. Like the day before, some of the shifters were stuck grotesquely mid-shift. In complete contrast, they didn’t look happy to see me before things got weird. These shifters looked enraged from the start, like they had a personal vendetta to settle. Like I’d eaten their family dog and used the bones to pick my teeth right in front of them. They looked at me with wild hatred.
And I was ninety-nine percent certain they wanted me dead.
“I come in peace,” I shouted, holding my hands out in the universal sign for “stop.” Pan snorted.
“Well, they don’t,” Pan said, in a fighting stance beside me.
“What the hell did I do?” I asked as the first shifter arrived at our clearing, yelling in a language I didn’t understand.
They wasted no time lunging straight for us. Pan intercepted two and deflected, tossing one to the side before blocking another attack from a half-shifted puma that appeared to be in charge. The remaining two came at me, and it didn’t take long for us to be separated.
Another volley of commands came from the half-puma after Pan managed to toss him, but this time something changed. I didn’t know how, but some of the words translated in my thoughts, making sense as if I spoke the language.
Murderer. The One. Attack.
Hearing it tripped me up. A vision flashed in my mind of standing in a forest not unlike the current jungle, speaking to a tribe.
I shook my head, clearing the false memory as a half-wolf turned and lunged for me. I rotated my body, tucking the dagger against my forearm and slashed in an arc, hitting its neck while I ducked and rolled. It landed with a thud, blood pooling around its prone form. I glanced up, seeing Pan cut through a half-bear.
I stayed in my crouched position, frozen, as another scene played out in my mind. Something like another life.
A life where I knew a family of bear shifters, but they weren’t stuck in some monstrous in-between. I watched as their cubs changed easily from human to bear with ease while they splashed in a river. A tribe leader handed me a platter—an offering—and there was a look of uneasiness in his eyes. . .
“Adora, above you,” Pan yelled, breaking my trance. I looked up into the tree branches and saw the puma was about to get the drop on me. Panic coursed through my veins.
I sprinted to Pan as the giant cat landed where I’d been moments before. Someone here was playing with my head, but I didn’t know who. I’d almost gotten killed because of it, and now I was mad.
