Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Adeline
I make my way back to the house. I change out of the dressing gown and into a jumper, knowing it will be cold while running.
Emery, I notice, has been gone all day, making me wonder where she went.
Slipping my joggers on, I walk back outside.
Cyrus and Eli are waiting out the front, and both turn to face me when they hear the door open.
I walk over to Cyrus, and he opens his arms before wrapping them around me and rubbing my back.
I lean against him, waiting for Eli to finish talking to one of the pack members.
“Ready?” Cyrus asks, making me look up at him.
I nod, and I feel him grab my hips, lifting me.
I wrap my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck before resting my chin on his shoulder.
His grip tightens as he starts running behind the house toward the tree line.
They both stop, and Eli removes his pants, placing them on a rock before shifting.
Cyrus runs with him for a little bit before he takes me to the waterfall, where we wait for Eli.
He runs for around an hour until the wind starts to pick up.
Heading home, Eli runs ahead of us, and Cyrus slows down as my hips start to ache, and I become nauseous. We are roughly halfway back when we notice Eli has stopped up ahead. We watch as he sniffs the air for a second.
“What is it?” Cyrus asks him. Eli suddenly shifts to standing and taking on his Lycan form.
“Do you smell that?” Eli asks him.
Cyrus sniffs the air before looking in the direction the wind is coming from.
I feel my heart rate skip a beat when Eli starts walking in that direction, Cyrus following him.
He pulls me higher and closer to him, his grip tightening.
I don’t know how long we have been walking when we come to a small clearing hidden among the trees; it has obviously been cleared by man.
I can see men from the village in the clearing, all wearing gloves and thick rubber overalls.
Eli growls loudly, and a few look in our direction as Eli steps into the clearing.
“Careful, Eli,” Cyrus says to him.
“What’s wrong?” I ask him, confused at what is going on.
“Wolfsbane and a heap of other plants that shouldn’t be here,” Cyrus says.
I look around, seeing the crops of purple flowering plants, along with other plants that kind of resemble cotton. Now that I am close, the smell is quite pungent and overwhelming. I hear Eli hiss in pain, making me look at him.
“Eli, get out of there now,” Cyrus tells him, and I can feel his worry through the bond, making me nervous for Eli.
Eli suddenly shifts back into his human form, and I see burns covering his skin, making me wonder if he is actually forced to shift back.
“Eli, come take Addie. I will check it out,” Cyrus snaps at him.
Eli growls before walking over to me. I try to stand, but Eli hoists me higher.
“You’re hurt. Let me stand,” I tell him.
“No, these plants aren’t just poisonous to me, Addie, but to humans as well,” he says.
Cyrus walks around, looking at the different plants, and even he hisses a few times. Seeing a man with gloves trimming one of the plants, Eli calls him over.
The man appears younger than me, with dark curly hair pulled into a ponytail and tied up with a piece of ribbon.
“Yes, Eli?” the man says.
“What is all this?” Eli asks him.
“Our crops,” he answers simply, clearly not seeing anything wrong with it.
“These plants are illegal to grow,” Eli says, and the man shakes his head just as Cyrus calls him over.
Eli walks around the crop and over to Cyrus, who is holding a plant in his hand that has little orange balls on it, yet the smell of it is familiar to me. Eli growls before whistling and waving his hand over to the man. He jogs over with a pair of trimming scissors in his hand.
“What are the crops for?” Eli demands to know, his voice terribly cold.
The man bares his neck to him, and Eli growls.
“Answer me,” Eli snaps.
“We grow them for the hunters’ organization. We have a deal with them. They provide things we need in return for the herbs.”
“Provide what?” Eli asks.
“The solar panels, the plumbing… The hunters’ organization had all that dropped in. They also stay off our lands as long as we keep supplying them.”
“You know what this does, right?” Eli says, snatching the plant from Cyrus and shaking it in his hand in front of the man’s face.
“Yeah, can dilute mate bonds. It’s also poisonous to demons,” the man answers, and I finally realize why it smells familiar.
“That’s the stuff Sam used,” I gasp, and Eli growls but nods.
“Take her,” Eli says, passing me to Cyrus, who quickly grabs me.
Eli sticks his fingers in his mouth, whistling loudly, the men in the fields looking in his direction before they start jogging over to him.
“What’s up?” one of them asks.
“Who has a lighter?”
Three of the men produce boxes of matches.
“Now, leave. All of you,” Eli tells them.
“We can’t. We have to have the harvest ready for next week. We have only trimmed half,” the young man says.
“I said, leave,” Eli snaps at them, and they dart off.
“I’m going to kill him,” Eli growls before stalking off into the trees. He returns with a stick before coming over to me.
He grips the hem of my shirt before tearing a piece off. I watch as he wraps it around the stick before pulling a few matches out and striking them on the cardboard box, lighting them.
He then uses them to set the pieces of fabric attached to the stick on fire.
I don’t have to wait long to figure out what he is doing.
Cyrus walks off before placing me on a log.
Cyrus then tugs his shirt off before tearing it in half.
He wraps it around my face making a mask, before using the other half and walking over to Eli.
Eli stops, letting him wrap it around his nose and mouth before Cyrus comes back to me.
“What about you?” I ask him.
“It’s toxic to me but won’t kill me. You two, however, it will.”
Eli walks around the entire perimeter, setting it on fire before coming back to us. He then grabs me and starts walking back into the trees.
“Won’t it set the forest on fire?” I ask, a little worried.
“Forest is too moist for it to do any real damage. It will put itself out,” Eli says.
“Now what?” I ask him.
Cyrus, walking behind us, looks deep in thought.
“Now, I confront my father. We know how Sam got the herbs. But I want to know who asked him to grow these crops, though I have a funny feeling I already know,” Eli says with a growl. “But that’s the least of our worries. I am willing to bet Sam has been here and knows my father.”
“I don’t think your father would be working for the hunters, Eli. He hates them,” I tell him as he walks through the forest toward the village.
“You don’t know him like I do, Addie. My father would do anything to gain an advantage.”
I shake my head, not agreeing. I haven’t known Maverick long, but one thing I have seen is that he isn’t the man Eli hates anymore.
I can tell he is trying. For someone who is supposed to be cruel and merciless, he has been standing down to Eli, letting him have his way.
He has shown me nothing but kindness since being here and has saved my life back in the city.
I just can’t picture him betraying his family when he’s only just got them back; he seems to genuinely want to fix his relationship with his kids.
We are just stepping into the clearing surrounding the village as people start running toward the fire with buckets of water. Eli growls at them, and I see his father marching toward us in a rage. Eli places me on my feet, and Cyrus comes over, tugging me against him just as Eli shifts.
“Do you have any idea what you have done? You just killed us all!” Maverick yells at Eli, but Eli punches him instead of answering.
Maverick’s head snaps back while Eli continues to rain blow after blow down on him.
That does not register with Eli as he continues to hit his father, who is now on the ground.
I escape Cyrus, who is too busy watching Eli before he yells, realizing I have escaped him and am rushing toward Eli.
I shove him, making him fall to his side, before checking Maverick.
I need to know what he means. I barely know Maverick, but I don’t believe he is working for Sam, like Eli seems to think.
He said I would be safe here, and I now believe he meant it.
But what did he mean that Eli had just killed us all?
Eli gets up, blinded by anger, before raising his fist, his clenched hand stopping just centimeters off my face, making me shriek, when Maverick’s hand grips his wrist before Eli accidentally punches me.
My hands frantically clutch the front of Maverick’s shirt.
Everything happens so quickly; I hear Cyrus gasp before feeling his fear and Eli’s that he’s nearly hit me, not recognizing me in his anger.
Eli falls back on his butt in shock when Maverick lets his hand go.
“You okay?” I ask Maverick, looking down at his bleeding face, his wounds already healing.
“I’m fine,” he says, coughing before sitting up.
“Grab her,” Eli growls at Cyrus.
Cyrus goes to reach for me, but I grab Maverick’s shirt, refusing to let go.
“Addie, no. Now, move,” Eli growls at me.
“No, let him finish what he was saying, Eli. He was trying to tell you something,” I scream back at him.
Praying to god I am right because if I am not, he deserves the beating his son is giving him, but something is telling me Maverick wouldn’t be working for hunters voluntarily; it has been nagging me the entire way back to the village.
He hates the hunters, so why would he help them?
“Maverick, please tell him.” I like his father. I am not going to watch his son beat him to a bloody pulp.
“Take her!” Eli screams at Cyrus, who rips me away, my fingers being forced to let go.