Chapter Twenty-Five
ABBY
I HOLD MY breath. The silence from the ground stretches, and the unknown has my heart practically beating out of my chest.
What the fuck is happening down there? I stare at the ground, waiting for a naked shifter to climb up and drag me down. He’ll probably throw me straight to the ground, breaking my leg and fracturing my skull. Then his friends will lunge, ripping me apart limb by limb.
I hope they do it quickly.
“Abby?”
I sag.
“Climb down,” Kie orders, his voice low. “We need to get moving before more shifters show up.”
More? That haunting thought gets me moving, and I pray I don’t lose my grip as I begin scrambling down. If I have to choose between Kie and the other shifters, I’ll choose Kie. He doesn’t intend to tear and rip me apart into a million little pieces. He only intends to gift me to Zaha—not that that’s much of an improvement.
“Hurry up,” Kie says after a few seconds. He sounds frustrated.
“I’m going as fast as I can.”
I’m not trying to fall.
I wince, scraping my forearm against the bark of the branch I’m climbing down. It pales in comparison to my other injuries, and I take only a brief second to recover before continuing my descent.
My gloved hands touch something wet as I reach the bottom branch, something wet that most definitely wasn’t there on my way up. I bet it’s blood, and I swallow past the lump in my throat as I ignore it and continue moving.
Kie grabs my waist, helping soften the transition between the last branch and the ground.
I’m so fucking glad it’s dark out.
There are several large, animal-shaped lumps on the ground. Unmoving lumps . Being surrounded by so many dead bodies would have very likely thrown me into a panicked spiral several days ago, but now I feel only mild disgust.
I’m keeping it together. Only a few tears have been shed, but I think most people would cry when they’re being held down and stripped. I was so sure Kie and Mason were going to rape me, and I’m still not entirely convinced it’s not what they had in mind.
For all I know, the shifters’ arrival is the only thing that stopped them.
The back of my neck is covered in a cold sweat, and I shove my hair out of my face as I look for Mason. The woods surrounding Kie and me are suspiciously still, empty even of the tiny critters and bugs that typically linger around.
It’s unnerving.
“Where is he?” I ask. I hope the answer is dead . “Your shifter?”
Kie takes his and Mason’s bags from me, throwing one over his shoulder before ripping open the other. The two are identical, so I’m not sure whose is whose—not that it matters. Kie carries them both most of the time, anyway.
“ Mason’s hurt,” Kie explains, over-enunciating Mason’s full first name. I press my lips together, and Kie clears his throat before continuing. “He’s left to spread his scent and throw other shifters off our trail. He’ll catch up with us later.”
I nod, trying to contain my excitement.
He’s hurt, and he’s alone. There’s a good chance he’ll stumble upon some more shifters, and I hope that, with him being injured, he won’t be as successful defending himself. Sneaking away from Kie will be challenging, but it’ll be monumentally easier if Mason is murdered.
The odds of successfully navigating out of this forest by myself are low, but the odds of becoming a slave to Zaha should I remain with Kie are higher. I’ll take the opportunity of freedom over slavery any day.
Kie steps forward, navigating around one of the large bodies on the ground.
I remain where I am.
“I can’t see,” I say.
It’s gotten too dark, and the moonlight isn’t providing enough illumination. If I try to walk, I’ll trip over absolutely everything in my path.
Kie’s shadow stops moving, and I press my lips together before reaching for my flashlight.
“No,” he says. “It’ll draw too much attention.”
Will it, though? The shifters were able to find us from scent alone, and I assume if they’re close enough to see my flashlight, they’re close enough to smell us.
“Well, then I can’t walk,” I argue. “And you’re not carrying me.”
I add the second part as an afterthought, scared that it’ll be Kie’s first suggestion. I might’ve been open to it before he took it upon himself to hold me down while his friend removed my clothing, but now I won’t consider it.
The thought of his hands on me makes me want to scratch off my skin, and even if Kie and Mason didn’t take advantage, the already limited amount of trust I had in them is gone. They’ve proven they have no problem forcing me, and I’d be dumb not to be wary of where their comfort with force ends.
Kie makes his way toward me.
“Grab my waist,” he says, giving me his back.
What? I stare at his form, debating what to do. I doubt I can convince him to let me use my flashlight, and I’m scared he’ll do something dramatic, like break it or take it away, if I try to use it, anyway.
I realistically can’t stop him from doing either.
This is a better solution than him knocking me out and carrying me, though, which he and Mason have already done once before. They may not care about my brain health, but I sure do.
Especially if I want to maintain my hope of escaping and returning to the human realm. I need to stay sharp if I intend to find another job, and I’ll be damned if I let my overpriced degree go to waste.
I didn’t spend hours upon hours drinking cheap, sludge-textured black coffee in the musty school library for nothing. Plus, if I don’t manage to get delysum and save Lill, I’ll need a steady income to support the copious amount of alcohol I’ll be drinking in my grief.
“Come on,” Kie urges.
I suck my cheeks into my mouth and grab his waist, hating how he has me voluntarily touching him. I wouldn’t if I could think of any alternatives.
Kie’s shirt is still damp, and even through the fabric of my gloves, I can feel how muscular his abdomen is. If he were skinnier, I’d try digging my fingers between his ribs and inflicting pain, but I doubt it would do much to him.
He probably wouldn’t even notice.
Kie begins walking, leading the way. He moves slowly as we navigate over the dead shifters, and I count. We step over three, but I’m sure several more are scattered about.
How did Kie and Mason manage to kill so many shifters? Kie may be muscular, but I doubt he’s as strong as they are. They’re easily twice his size in their animal forms, and all it takes is one good chomp to break his neck or tear off a limb.
Maybe that’ll happen to Mason while he’s out and about.
I sure wouldn’t mind him becoming one of the motionless lumps on the ground. In fact, I’d say I highly encourage it.
Kie and I continue forward, speeding up once we pass the bodies. He digs around in his backpack, rummaging through it before pulling out some of the supplies Mason used on my knees earlier.
I didn’t realize he was injured, and I wish I could see how bad it is. That must be why he didn’t insist on carrying me. He probably can’t.
We walk for almost an hour without any sign of Mason, and my excitement grows with every passing minute. I consider asking Kie about it, but I don’t want to initiate a conversation. He hasn’t said anything to me, excluding the occasional warning to watch my step.
We walk, continuing even as the sun begins to rise. My adrenaline quickly wears off, and I hate how I find myself leaning against Kie’s back, using him for stability. I’m exhausted, and my joints are stiff.
Despite that, though, I release his waist the second the sun has risen enough that I can make out what’s in front of me. Kie hurries ahead a few steps as I let go, acting as if he couldn’t be more relieved to have my hands off him.
I resist the urge to roll my eyes.
If anybody should be disgusted by our touching, it’s me.
Kie breathes, the sudden noise drawing my attention. “Mason…” His shoulders drop in visible relief, and I frown as he turns to the left and a giant, familiar shifter appears.
Mason? I thought he was dead. It’s been hours. I cross my arms over my chest as the giant shifter approaches, his green eyes flickering over me and Kie.
He’s favoring his left side with a noticeable limp, and his fur is wet. It looks like he jumped into a lake before returning to us, maybe to remove his smell. If the whole point of him running around was to spread his injured scent, it’s not a very good idea to then lead it directly to us.
Mason makes his way over, and once he’s only a few steps away from Kie, his muscles quiver and his body twitches until his animal form is replaced with a very naked man. In this state, I can see just how badly he’s hurt.
Blood pours out of a deep wound on the right side of his abdomen, and a decent chunk of muscle is torn out of his left bicep. It’s the wound on his abdomen that holds my attention, though. It’s deep, and I’m pretty sure the intestines threatening to fall out aren’t supposed to be there.
I cringe, uneasy at the sight of another person’s internal bits.
“Fuck,” Kie says, rushing forward.
Mason collapses in a sad heap of blood and limbs, and Kie drops to his knees beside him. I remain where I am, silently watching as Kie rips open his backpack and dumps out all the medical supplies.
He’s distracted, and Mason is unconscious.
This is my opportunity.