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Chapter Nineteen
Oz
I woke with a sharp gasp. My body was flat and lifeless, a slug stuck to the floor of wherever I was. Sounds of dripping came from somewhere far away but echoed through the hollow space around me. I would not open my eyes until I’d gotten a good lay of the land, so to speak. There was someone walking toward me, but I dared not flinch in case they assumed I was dead.
“Do not touch me!” I yelled as loud as I could muster. I tried to sit up but ended up rolling to the side, hitting my face on the wall of rocks beside me.
“It’s a little late for that notion. You’re going to hurt yourself. I brought food for you.”
Her voice carried itself into my ears, and never in my life had I heard a sweeter sound. I turned slightly, feeling the pull and tug at muscles that had endured high temperatures and low nutrition for far too long. “Who are you?”
In the darkness of the cave, I could only see the outline of her, but her voice was kind.
“I’m the person taking care of you. They thought you were going to die but I couldn’t just let you perish here in this cave…alone. How awful.”
There was no lie on her tongue. As she bustled about the cave, I managed to get to a sitting position, using the hard wall as my leverage. When I had finally gotten comfortable, I let out a long sigh. Sitting up was harder than the entire journey here, wherever here was.
“What is your name?” I asked, hoping to at least thank her for helping me.
She rushed out of the cave and came back with an armful of mismatched wood. Maybe she hadn’t heard me? She hummed a tune I didn’t recognize, but whatever it was lulled me to a calmness I hadn’t experienced before.
“This fire should warm you, and I’m going to heat your soup as well. It’s not the best soup in the world, but you need something in your belly after four days of not eating. I was afraid you would be skin and bones by the time you woke up.”
Fear and panic gripped me. Four days. I had been here, unconscious, for four days. The Cursor had probably disappeared, and now I would have an ever harder time finding…
The dry wood she had brought in ignited as soon as she brought the steel and flint close to them and began to strike one rock against the other. The cave walls danced with shadows and light as warmth crept back into my bones.
The female crouched in front of the fire, still humming, and put a clay pot of food off to the side to warm. She looked at me over the glow of the low flames, and I gasped, attempting to take every molecule of oxygen from the vicinity, whatever it took to regain my composure.
This was no ordinary female charged with keeping me well or nursing me back to health.
She was my mate. I knew it. My wolf knew it.
“My name is Eris, by the way. What’s yours? I asked around but no one would tell me.”
I guess she hadn’t heard when I asked. At least she hadn’t been dismissing my question. Eris. Her name was Eris. The sound of her name burst in my chest and brushed away all doubts and loss of hope. She was here. And somehow, by the grace of the stars, I had made it to her, albeit in a different way than I’d planned.
Fate surely had fingers in the lives of everyone.
“Oh, um, my name is Oz. Your name is Eris.”
She laughed, taking a stick and stirring the translucent-looking broth in the pot. “Yes. Eris.”
Gods alive and buried, she was gorgeous. Her long black hair flowed down her back, and some strands hung over her shoulder. It shone in the light coming from the fire, and in the sunshine, it probably sparkled. She nailed me with a stare while biting on her bottom lip as my body warmed up completely and was shocked back to life in her presence, the presence of the one I’d searched for—for what seemed like years on end. Those eyes were brilliant emerald balls of fire all on their own, and maybe it was the dehydration or hunger giving me delusions, but there were tiny specks of gold in them
“You’re staring,” she said and stuck her finger into the clay pot. “There. It’s warmed. Do you feel up to feeding yourself?”
I almost lied and said I wasn’t, to get her to feed me, but the truth was, I hadn’t felt this good in ages, maybe ever. My wolf and my human side knew our mate was right there. If I only extended my arm, I could touch her skin, feel her warmth, but it was clear this female wasn’t feeling what I was.
If she were, there wouldn’t be a fire between us, only the ones we’d made ourselves.
“I can feed myself. Thank you. So, what did you do to earn taking care of me?”
She was wearing a long dress that had seen better days. Its straps were worn, and one good yank would break them, I was sure. It pained me to see her so thin. How could they hold food from this goddess in her own right?
“Well, everyone else has their mates and families to take care of.”
I cleared my throat to cover the fact that I’d just choked on the soup which was bland, nearly flavorless. “And you don’t…have a mate?”
