Chapter 13 #2
“Can’t sleep either?” Kraath’s voice stayed low, pitched not to wake the others.
He kept his voice soft. “Michelle’s pissed at me.”
“I noticed.” A ghost of a smile touched Kraath’s lips. “Don’t worry. All couples fight.”
Zeke frowned. “What would you know about it?”
The question came out sharper than he’d meant, surprise overriding caution.
Kraath’s gaze stayed fixed on the embers, but something shifted. The fire popped, sending sparks spiraling into the cool night air.
“I was mated once.” The words hung between them, heavy with old pain. “Feels like lifetimes ago.”
What the draanth?
Shock tightened every muscle, though Zeke kept his body still to avoid disturbing his female’s sleep.
Her warmth seeped through his shirt where she pressed against him.
Kraath having a mate meant things that didn’t add up.
It meant he was old enough to have been an adult when the Lathar still had females, before the plague wiped them out.
It meant he’d been a late presentation… no one who’d manifested blood rage young would’ve been allowed to claim a mate.
Holy draanth. How old was Kraath?
“We had furious arguments,” Kraath continued, his voice taking on a warmth Zeke had never heard before. “She had opinions about everything. Never backed down when she thought she was right. And she was always right. Stubborn as stone and twice as unmovable.”
The embers popped, sending up sparks that danced like fireflies before dying. Kraath tracked them as they rose and disappeared into the darkness.
“But we always made up.” His lips curved. “Often in bed. Nothing like passion to burn through anger. She’d rage at me for hours, then drag me to the bedchamber and...” He trailed off, lost in memory.
The wistfulness in his voice made Zeke’s chest tight. This wasn’t the stone-faced commander who ran the garrison with iron discipline. This was someone else entirely… someone who’d loved and been loved, and who carried that loss like a wound that never quite healed.
“What happened to her?”
The question slipped out before he could stop it. When Kraath had presented, he would’ve been exiled, left her behind to grow old alone while he—
“She died.”
Two words. Flat. Final.
The firelight in Kraath’s eyes seemed to die, leaving behind something so hollow that sympathy stuck in Zeke’s throat. This was old grief, a wound that had scarred over but never stopped bleeding.
The forest sounds, rustling creatures in the underbrush, the soft hoot of a night predator, cut off like someone had thrown a switch. Silence pressed against his ears, unnatural and wrong and they both went still. Even the wind had stilled, leaving only the faint crackle of dying embers.
Then he heard it. Movement in the undergrowth, too deliberate to be wind, too coordinated to be random wildlife. The soft brush of careful footsteps on wet leaves, and the controlled breathing of hunters trying to stay quiet.
Ferals. Lots of them. Coming for their camp.
Trall. Trall. Trall.
Kraath’s hand moved to his weapon, leather creaking softly against metal. All trace of vulnerability vanished behind the warrior’s mask.
“They must be jamming the sensor net,” he breathed, barely audible.
Trall. That was bad. Really bad.
The metallic taste of adrenaline flooded his mouth and his arms tightened around Michelle as his legion flooded his system with combat readiness.
Heat raced through his veins, his body temperature spiking as the symbiont prepared for violence.
The ferals were maybe fifty meters out. His hearing tracked at least a dozen distinct heartbeats, their rhythm too fast, too aggressive. Maybe more.
They’d waited for the fire to die, for their targets to fall into deep sleep.
Smart draanthic.
Michelle stirred against his chest, some part of her sensing the sudden tension in his body even in sleep. Her fingers flexed against his ribs, nails catching on the fabric of his shirt. He shook her shoulder gently.
“Wake up,” he whispered against her ear, her skin warm and soft beneath his lips. “We’ve got company.”
But there was nowhere to run. Canyon walls boxed them in, cold stone trapping them, and the ferals had spread out to cut off the only exit. The only way out was through.
Kraath nudged Raaze with his boot. The tracker’s eyes snapped open instantly, already alert. No confusion, no disorientation. Pure predator awakening.
Michelle’s eyes opened, meeting Zeke’s in the dim firelight. Fear flickered there, pupils wide in the darkness, but she didn’t panic, didn’t make a sound. Just nodded once to show she understood. Her breath was warm against his throat.
A branch snapped, closer than before. The sound echoed off the canyon walls like a gunshot. The ferals had given up stealth for speed, closing distance while they still thought they had surprise.
Wrong. Three Izaean warriors had already detected them.
Zeke’s legion pulsed with eager violence, ready for the fight. His claws itched beneath his skin, desperate to drop. But underneath that battle-readiness was a cold knot in his gut, something new since Michelle had come into his life.
It was fear.
But not fear for himself… he’d faced death too many times to count. But fear for her. For the small, stubborn, brilliant female who’d somehow become everything to him in just a few days.
Whatever happened next, he’d keep her safe, even if it meant proving Raaze right about her needing protection… even if she hated him for it.
Then the ferals burst from the treeline, eyes glowing like hot coals in the darkness.