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When she finally bobs to the surface, she cuts through the water without a rest.
She doesn’t stop until she hits the opposite shore.
Lilah wobbles, taking a few rubber-legged steps before she catches her balance and starts running again. Only now she’s barefoot in a swimsuit.
The drone keeps following, and with every step, as she penetrates deeper into the endless woods, it becomes clearer and clearer that the girl has no plot. There’s no rendezvous with her lovers. No clandestine meetup or dark web information trade.
She’s just running.
Maybe running for her life.
I keep staring at the screen, needing to see where this ends, if it does.
Or does she run forever?
Before I have an answer, the drone flashes a low-battery alert and sets an automatic course for home.
She outran the drone.
“What the hell is she doing?” Orion scowls, looking as torn as I feel, stretched between soul-deep hatred and the helpless worry of watching my first doomed love destroy herself.
“I don’t know.” I keep staring, mesmerized by the image of her slight figure sprinting as the drone retreats, her body growing smaller and smaller in the distance.
***
Eleven
LILAH
I run and run and run.
I run until I literally can’t anymore, and my body finally gives out. I land in soft grass.
Better that than a pricker bush, because I have no control over where I fall. I manage to throw my hands out, stopping myself from face planting, but that’s it.
I lie like a stepped-on slug, panting and gasping.
After a while, I realize it’s not my vision that’s dark.
It’s twilight.
And I’m wearing nothing but a bathing suit, surrounded by trees in a strange wilderness with no idea how to get back to the house where the demons live.
Stupid.
It’s not like I have a phone or anyone to call for help. I doubt Evgenia even packed my cracked tablet—those are OCC-issue. My pack should be in charge of outfitting me now, but we all know they’re not going to give me shit.
They don’t want me.
Which shouldn’t hurt, because I also don’t want them, but no one ever said omega instincts make sense.
I manage the energy to sniff my pits.
Thank all the holies, all I smell is sweat. No pheromones. For now.
But my reaction to the Wyvern pack isn’t normal.
I’ve never sought out alphas, but when I bump into them, my first reaction is repulsion. Second, comes the fear.
