Chapter 8
DIANA
We’ve been on this dirt trail for two days, and the more we move, the more I feel like it’s right into a trap.
God, he’s close, but it’s like he never progresses closer.
“You’re in luck,” the guide, named Benny, calls over his shoulder, his voice cutting through the rhythm of hoofbeats. “The Mirage is actually pretty close, right now.”
I lean forward in the saddle, my heart kicking hard against my ribs. “What?”
“We got signs that the Mirage lends out. They say what city it’s hitting next.
The town we’re heading to is its next destination,” he continues, adjusting his grip on the reins as his horse navigates a rocky patch, pulling out a thick device he looks at.
“Got a tracker here, as an official guide, too. The massive thing doesn’t move very fast. It makes a big circle, and when it’s at the top, it’s closest to us and can save up to three days of horse riding.
Which is great so we don’t have to venture into the dirt parts of Texas. Nothing but flat country out there.”
Relief floods through me, so sudden and overwhelming that I almost laugh.
It’s warm out here, the sun beating down on us.
As I glance around at the others, our attention goes to Rebecca, who gives out a whine—a low, pained sound.
She’s been hunched over her horse for the last few hours, just claiming to be tired.
But as I pull my horse back to get a better view of her, her face is slick with sweat.
“Rebecca!” Jess shouts, who is on the other side of her, while Rebecca slumps over and falls off her horse. I squeeze my horse with my legs, kicking it to get it to move forward so it doesn’t back up and step on her. Our horses whine as we all dismount, hers shaking its head.
“Hold on, Benny!” Selene shouts to our guide, and we both move to Rebecca.
We get her on her back, shadowed by all of us hovering over her.
She’s as pale as a woman who’s just given birth and is bleeding out.
“Oh my god,” Jess cries, touching her sister’s face.
Selene and I are on it, checking her pulse and trying to give her a wet rag to put on her forehead.
It doesn’t help it’s warm out here, and thick with humidity.
“He’s dead,” she whispers, her eyes lulling in her head. “They killed him.”
Jess looks frantically between the two of us nurses, her forehead lined with ridges. “Help her!”
“What’s going on?” Benny asks, moving toward us on foot.
Selene leans down and rubs Rebecca’s sternum. “I don’t have a protocol for this,” she says. “Do you, Diana?”
I look at Benny, overwhelmed with a sudden urge to distrust him, and without any fucking permission, my tether cries out for Judge.
What if Benny doesn’t take well to knowing he has omegas among him? Or thinks this is dark magic of some kind, even though I have no idea how any of that works?
A warning growl spreads in my chest, but it doesn’t come out. I get this odd distinction that… it’s from Judge? I do everything I can to push him back down and away, because there are four of us, well, three, and one of him. I don’t need a damn alpha!
“The hell you staring at?” Benny asks, his wiry whiskers moving about as he sucks his lips to his teeth. “You gonna answer? What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s dealing with trauma,” I reply. “You okay with that?”
“No refunds if she dies,” he says, looking back around at the wastes.
Jess lets out a small, shaky sound. “No, Rebecca…”
My gaze falls back to Selene. I don’t know what to do, other than stabilize Rebecca with what little resources we have. We try to give her water, but she can barely take any, but she also doesn’t seem to be worsening.
“We need to get to the Black Mirage,” I say, like it’s clicking. I look at the handler. “We need the Black Mirage.”
His eyes narrow underneath bushy, black eyebrows as he seems like he’s ready to ditch us.
“Then maybe tie her hands to the horn, and we can ride faster. I’d appreciate getting y’all out of my hair.
I don’t know what dark shit you got following you, but I definitely want that extra payment when we get close enough. ”
We do what he recommended, and Rebecca's eyes flutter open in an attempt to focus. Her gaze is glassy, unfocused, like she's looking at something the rest of us can't see.
"I can do this,” she says, her lips dry and cracked, voice barely more than a rasp. "Torch water. It will help me."
Oh yes.
I'm already moving as she finishes the sentence, muscle memory kicking in as I dig through the supplies. With a racing heart, I gently unscrew the small vial as Selene and Jess lift her head, so I can bring it to her lips.
After she drains it the yellow colored liquid, we lie her flat and watch her like we’re waiting to hear a baby’s cry. Without much announcement, color seeps back into her cheeks, her breathing steadies, and some of that awful gray pallor recedes.
Once she confirms she can be upright, we tie her hands to the saddle horn for stability, looping the leather straps loose enough that she can free herself if she needs to, but tight enough to keep her upright if she fades again.
Jess positions her horse so close to Rebecca's that their flanks nearly touch, ready to grab the reins if things go sideways.
We push the horses harder than we probably should. The path narrows in places as we climb, and every now and again we hit some dry terrain that kicks dirt up and I swear I can taste it. There’s so many bugs that we swat at, and I swear I have twenty new mosquito bites by the hour.
We ride in tense silence after that, as if talking might somehow make Rebecca collapse again. My thighs ache so bad from gripping the horse that I worry I’ll fall off next.
And then, as we crest a hill, I can see a station of sorts down below us. Maybe a small village.
“We could reach that by sunset, but if we sleep a little, we can make it by tomorrow afternoon, I think. That’s a station right there, and the Mirage is slow as hell… be here by tomorrow evening—” The guide’s head snaps to the side, eyes widening, and then he screams.
We all jerk our attention upward, following his line of sight.
A massive beast barrels toward us from the east—it’s something I’ve only seen a drawing of, and I swear it’s a fucking warrog… There’s a fucking man in a cowboy hat clinging to its back?
What the fuck?
The creature moves with terrifying speed, closing the distance between us in seconds, and my heart stops.
But then the warrog screeches, its massive head swinging wildly.
The man on the back starts yelling at it, asking what’s wrong.
The warrog veers sharply, peeling off from our path with a bone-rattling roar that makes the horses scream in panic as the cowboy glances back at us with an intensity in his eyes that makes me nervous as hell.
The guide scrambles for the gun at his hip, his movements jerky with adrenaline. “The hell you all do?” he asks, pulling out his firearm. “I ain’t taking you if you have a fucking warrog after me. Fuck that—”
Selene is faster. She draws a tranquilizer gun from her bag and fires it at him, and I let out a sound of shock as I watch him slump over.
“What was—” Rebecca tries, her eyes a little more alert from no doubt what was a massive adrenaline dump.
Jess motions us forward with a sharp, urgent gesture. “I think Judge sent a bounty hunter... and uh, I don’t know about Benny. Let’s just leave him with his horse.”
My heart races as I process what just happened. But as I realize what Judge has done, and how close that man got just now… I become enraged that those with me feel like they’re in sudden danger. Where is he, anyway? Judge can’t be far behind, right?
“Let’s go,” I reply. “If that warrog thing comes back, I’ll go with the bounty hunter. Get Rebecca to the Black Mirage. That’s the goal!”
I can tell I’m all instincts and adrenaline, because it’s so hard to fully understand the decision we just made in the spur of the moment. I can’t even think about the bounty hunter, or why in the hell its warrog... “Why did the warrog take off like that?” I shout over the pounding of hooves.
“It’s something with me,” Rebecca calls back, her voice strained.
I glance at her, and she seems better. “When I looked at him, the warrog was all distorted. I don’t know—something with the echo shit.
” She’s gripping the reins so hard her knuckles have gone white, her face twisted in pained concentration.
Well, fine by me. Those animals are absolutely terrifying and so hard to kill or maim. That’s scary as hell to realize someone can ride them.
We barrel forward as fast as we can, the horses’ breathing growing labored, their sides heaving.
I swear at some point I hear a hawk in the distance, but I can’t spot it above us.
The sun is sinking fast now, painting the sky in violent shades of orange and red.
And then, finally, we see it—a main road cutting through the landscape, and beyond it, that small town huddled against the horizon.
I can feel Judge through the bond.
And his anger. He’s pissed.
The town is small but seems well-tended, honestly.
And there’s no sign of that bounty hunter anywhere.
We pass by someone making pottery on the wheel of an old car, and I can’t tell if I’m concerned or honestly really impressed with the ingenuity.
We dismount with shaky legs, our bodies screaming from hours in the saddle, and Rebecca grimaces as she leans against Jess, holding her fractured wrist up.
That gives me pause as I close my eyes and deeply exhale. I need to re-center myself.
We’re all moving the horses to a stable where a woman approaches, wiping clay from her hands. “Where’s your lead?” she asks, glancing between us with mild curiosity. “You can drop them off here.”