Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
“Guh!”
A dull, guttural sound escaped my throat as my knees hit the ground for the fourth time in the last five minutes. This time, though, I didn’t even bother trying to lift myself back up.
What was the point?
After hours of trudging over steep, rocky terrain, I was utterly exhausted. I didn’t think I could manage another step even if I wanted to.
My legs were rubber, and my arms felt like over-cooked spaghetti. My right foot had fallen asleep hours ago from the pressure of Sophia’s gun against my ankle, and my lungs burned with every breath.
I was toast.
“Get up,” Lash grumbled above me. When I didn’t immediately obey, he pulled on my arms, yanking me to the side like a marionette.
I barely had the energy to shake my head. “I can’t.”
“You have to,” he snapped before continuing on. But not even someone as powerful as him could force an empty tank to drive.
Of course, that didn’t stop him from trying. For a moment, he continued on, dragging my limp body over the ground behind him.
But he didn’t go far. After a couple of steps, he stopped, cursing under his breath. Something about the Fates punishing him.
With a low growl, he spun around and bent down, slipping his arms under my knees and shoulders. Cold night air rushed over my body as he effortlessly lifted me off the ground.
“Thank you,” I mumbled.
“Keep your thanks,” he snapped. “This isn’t mercy. My orders were to bring you in alive.”
At this point, I didn’t care what his motives were. I was just relieved I could rest for a moment.
My head fell against his chest as he walked. I’d lost the strength to hold it up. But the last thing I wanted was to drift off to sleep in his arms. Bound and exhausted, I’d already lost too much control. God only knew what this monster might do to me if I lost consciousness completely.
So started talking, hoping to keep my tired brain awake a little longer.
“Orders?” I asked, seizing onto what he’d said. “So, you’re a soldier?”
His dark gaze flashed down to meet mine. “You could say that.”
“Who are you at war with?”
“You,” he answered without hesitation.
“Me, personally?”
It was such a ridiculous idea, I couldn’t help but chuckle…but that turned out to be a mistake. My throat was so dry that my laughter quickly turned into a fit of dry hacks.
This time when Lash glanced down at me, I thought I spotted a spark of worry in his eyes. But whatever concern he had wasn’t for me, I reminded myself. His mission was to bring me in alive. That was all he cared about.
“I didn’t realize I was so dangerous,” I said once I was able to breathe again.
Exhausted, bruised, and too weak to walk, I certainly didn’t feel dangerous.
“You aren’t,” Lash said, his tone dismissive. “It’s what you represent.”
“Oh.” Understanding washed over me. “It’s that kind of war.”
“What kind?”
“The bullshit kind,” I answered. “The kind where power-hungry leaders stoke fear and violence against outsiders.”
“You’re wrong.” The lines around the alpha’s eyes and mouth deepened as his jaw tensed. “That’s not what’s happening here.”
Oh, really?
“Let me guess,” I said, feeling a little stronger now that I had a couple of minutes to rest. “This Nelissa lady tells you that my kind are an existential threat to your ‘way of life.’ That we’re somehow both inferior to you in every way, yet still so dangerous that we need to be wiped out.
She probably doesn’t even talk about us like we’re human. ”
Dark eyes flickered down at mine. “Are you trying to convince me that your kind is the superior one?”
“Absolutely not.” The idea was laughable. “We’re no different. Our history books are filled with the same kind of bullshit. So much blood, misery, and death, all so the small can feel a little bigger.”
His arms stiffened around me. His jaw clenched. “I am not small.”
“Of course not,” I mocked, going so far as to give him a contemptuous pat on the shoulder. “Everyone knows you’re a big, strong alpha. Who else would have the courage to kidnap, bully, and kill people half his size?”
His dark eyes snapped to mine. “Kill?”
He sounded genuinely confused.
“Hannah Carter,” I reminded him.
He blinked for a second before nodding. “Right.”
Was it really so easy for him to forget about her? How many people had he killed that one could slip his mind? Probably more than I could imagine.
And no doubt by sunrise, he’d be adding my name to that grisly list.
“Don’t blame me for your troubles,” he said defensively. “None of this would have happened if you’d stayed where you belonged.”
Laughter burst from my throat—followed by another painful bout of coughing. He had to be kidding.
“I didn’t come to the Wilds,” I shot back. “You brought me here. I was minding my own business on the civilized side of the Wall when you showed up.”
But he just shook his head. “You would have crossed over eventually. How else would you meet your mate?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Not this again. “When are you going to get it through that thick head that I didn’t come here to hook up with an alpha?”
His cheeks tightened as his lips curled up in a sneer. “You said the same thing about your friend.”
True. I did.
But who could have guessed that shy little Sophia was secretly dreaming about banging an alpha? Not me.
“He’s not going to hurt her, is he?” I asked.
“Kyre? No, he’s far too weak to fight against the will of the Fates.” Lash laughed at the idea. But I wasn’t so sure. The hulking alpha had looked plenty strong to me. “I’m sure by now he’s taken her to the village and is busy in bed, making her his mate.”
What?
“No!” Concern raced through me, filling me with enough strength to raise my head to get a better look at the alpha’s face to see if he was lying. “He said he was taking her back to the Wall.”
“Even if that is his intention, the Fates won’t let it happen,” Lash said, his cruel smile growing wider with every word. “Now that they’ve found each other, there’s no stopping what comes next.”
I didn’t believe that.
“Put me down,” I pleaded. “We have to go back.”
Lash arched one harsh black brow. “Why?”
“Because we have to stop them.”
“No, we don’t.” He kept marching, steady and straight, through the trees.
“But I thought you hated the idea of women like Sophia and me being in the Wilds.”
“I do,” he admitted. “But not as much as I love the thought of the Fates punishing that sanctimonious son of a bitch with a kirre mate.”
He thought Sophia was a punishment? Sophia? The kindest and most loyal person I’d ever known?
“But we have to do something!” I begged him to see reason. “You saw how big he was. That beast will crush her if he sleeps with her.”
“Beast?” Lash shot me a glare of mock disapproval. “I thought you were above calling men animals.”
“That was before one was about to fuck my best friend to death.”
He laughed again—except this time there was nothing contemptuous about the sound. Surprisingly, the alpha sounded honestly amused by the idea.
“Calm yourself,” he said. “That’s not going to happen.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because the Fates won’t allow it.”
Oh my God! The freaking Fates again? Was that his answer for everything?
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I cried. “The Fates aren’t real. They’re a myth. One the civilized world stopped believing in two thousand years ago.”
“That kind of blasphemy is the reason your kind is doomed.”
“This isn’t about religion.” I groaned in frustration. Trying to have any kind of intelligent conversation with this alpha was maddening. “It’s about your friend splitting mine in half.”
“Kyre is no friend of mine,” Lash shot back. “And for your friend, you’ll just have to trust that she’ll be fine. If she’s destined to be Kyre’s mate, then she has nothing to worry about. Her body will conform to accommodate him.”
Trust him? Yeah, that was never going to happen.
“And if she’s not his mate?”
“Then they wouldn’t have dreamed about each other,” he replied with a shrug.
He made it sound so simple. Like it was something that happened every day.
“Maybe that’s how it worked with you and your mate,” I started. “But?—“
“I don’t have a mate,” he interrupted me, the corners of his mouth pulling down hard.
“Really?” For some reason, that surprised me. Sure, Lash was cruel and vicious, but so were all alphas. I just figured that was how ferus women liked their men. And despite his earlier disparaging remarks about his scars, he wasn’t a bad-looking guy…for an alpha. “Why not?”
“Because the Fates never blessed me with one.” His voice was hard. Bordering on bitter.
“What about a girlfriend, then?” I probed a little further, not completely sure where this curiosity was coming from.
“What’s that?” he asked.
Did he really not know?
“Someone special you’re romantic with but not married—I mean, mated to,” I explained.
Lash shook his dark head. “We don’t have anything like that.”
That was hard to believe. “Why not?”
“The ferus population is overwhelmingly male,” he said. “Women are rare among our kind. So an alpha is either lucky enough to be blessed with dreams of a mate when they come of age, or they live and die alone.”
“Oh, shit.” I hissed in a sharp breath. That was...harsh. “I’m so sorry.”
Even though Lash had been nothing short of horrible to me, I couldn’t help but feel a tiny stab of empathy. In a way, this explained a lot. I might turn into a total asshole too if I knew there was no chance I’d ever get laid.
“Keep your sympathy,” he said. “It’s simply the way things are.”
“But that doesn’t mean you have to be happy about it.”
“What would be the point? Crying over things you can’t change is a kirre weakness.” He shook his head dismissively. “Not a ferus one.”
Maybe so, but his reply only sparked my curiosity. “Then, what is your weakness?”
Lash turned his face fully down to me, meeting my gaze straight on. “I don’t have any.”
“None at all?”
“Nope.”
Well, he certainly didn’t seem to struggle with self-confidence. “What about loneliness?”
A ripple of tension ran through his arms. “What about it?”
“Don’t you ever get tired of being alone?”
His jaw tightened. The cords running down his neck flexed. “I’ve never thought about it.”
“Not once.”
“Never,” he doubled down.
Though I didn’t believe that for a second, I wasn’t about to call him a liar. At least, not to his face.
“Then you’re stronger than I am,” I said. “I think about it all the time.”
Lash picked up the pace as he sprinted up a steep hillside. Pressed against his chest, I could feel the hammering of his heart deep within. His muscles pulled and stretched with every breath.
Even though deep down I knew he wasn’t doing me any favors, I couldn’t help but feel grateful that I was back in his arms. There was no way I would have ever made it up this slope on my own. He would have ended up dragging my corpse to the top.
Halfway up the incline, he broke his silence, asking, “So, you admit to being lonely?”
“Admit?” That was a funny way to put it. “Sure. There’s nothing shameful about it. Everyone gets lonely.”
Lash glanced down at me with a look that made it clear he didn’t agree.
“Is that why you came here then?” he asked. “If you’re really not searching for your mate, were you hoping to find an alpha to be one of those romantic friends you were talking about?”
“A boyfriend, you mean?” An involuntary shudder shook my spine. “Absolutely not. No offense, but you’re not exactly my type.”
“Your type?” He made it sound like I was speaking a foreign language—and given the differences between our cultures, maybe I was.
“The kind of man I’m attracted to,” I explained. “I like men who have a good sense of humor. Men who are kind. Men who don’t constantly threaten to kill me with their claws.”
He ignored my sarcasm. “And how many of these man-friends have you had?”
“A few,” I said, keeping my answer vague.
“How many is a few?”
That was none of his business. “More than none; less than a lot.”
Apparently, he didn’t like that answer. A growl rumbled deep within his chest. It was an intimidating sound, but I was too exhausted to react…and too damn tired to care anymore.
“Do you have one now?”
That also wasn’t any of his business, but for some reason, this time, I didn’t mind answering. “No.”
“So you’re alone, too.” His black eyes slipped down to mine.
“Not alone. Just single,” I corrected him. “My life is full of people I love. Friends and family. Plenty of people who are going to miss me when they find out I’ve been—“ I swallowed down the painful truth that blocked my throat. “—that I’m not coming home.”
“If they truly cared, they would have kept you from coming here,” Lash grumbled as we finally reached the top of the hill. “They would have protected you from your own recklessness.”
“Nah,” I said with a soft laugh. I didn’t believe that for a second.
“They know who I am. They know I was never the type to play it safe. They’ll be sad when they hear how it ended for me, but I doubt they’ll be surprised.
After all, it’s better to have a short, happy life than a long and miserable one. ”
Lash stilled, his head bent down toward mine, his feet frozen on the ground.
I did my best to read his expression, to get some clue as to what he was thinking, but the dark shadows draped over his features made it nearly impossible.
I held my breath as he slowly and gently lowered my feet back down on the ground.
Without asking if I was cold, he slipped his own jacket off his shoulders and wrapped it around mine. Warmth spread through me as the cozy fur lining brushed against my bare skin. At this point, I’d spent more than half the night nearly topless, and it was comforting to be finally covered up again.
For a moment, I dared to hope that something in our conversation had touched Lash’s last shred of humanity. That he’d changed his mind and decided to let me go.
I held my breath as he reached for the leather binding my hands, his touch noticeably lighter now as he lifted my wrists.
But then, instead of unraveling the strap, he simply wrapped his fingers around the leash, and with a softer tug, turned me around.
“Come on.” Even his tone was milder as he began pulling me behind him again. “There’s no putting off the inevitable. It’s time for you to meet Nelissa.”
Just over the rise, I could see the faint glow of lantern light.
Well, shit.
Wherever Lash was taking me, we’d finally arrived.