“Do me a favor, and never be the one who gives our team a pep talk. You suck at it.”
“I’m only calling it like I see it.”
I glanced up the hill, relieved that it leveled out. “We better catch up.”
As we headed toward the incline, Christian fell back a step. “I need to water the flowers.”
I chortled. “Nice try, Vamp, but I don’t think I’ve seen you drink any water since we left the city.”
“Nature calls!” he said, hurrying into the woods.
“I hope you never find it!” I yelled back, tickled to death that he couldn’t let that tiny wrapper go.
Christian would walk by trash in the street and didn’t go around cleaning everything up. But it was a different story when he actually saw someone tossing litter on the ground. That was a button pusher for him.
I guess everyone has their thing.
Eve shrieked, and I hauled ass up the steep hill until I reached the top.
With my dagger in hand, I closed in on the group and scoured the area for the lion.
Claude stood by a large tree with Eve sandwiched between him and the trunk. Her eyes darted around, but Claude had her head in a protective grasp.
Viktor stood behind a mossy tree, his gun drawn and aimed at the woods on the left. When I spotted Shepherd dragging Adam’s unconscious body behind a thicket of bushes, I flashed to Viktor’s tree.
“What happened?” I peered back at Shepherd, wondering why the kid wasn’t bleeding.
Viktor fired his gun twice and shifted before the handgun even hit the ground. When his wolf took off, I picked up the gun and bolted toward the bushes to find Shepherd. There was a wall of earth on one side, and he had the kid tucked safely against it.
“What the hell’s going on?”
Shepherd’s hands were amazingly steady as he pulled a small bottle of liquid from his bag. “He has a motherfucking blowgun.”
I crawled over Adam and put my finger on his pulse. “He’s still alive.”
“Not for long. Not unless I can figure out what he used for poison.” Shepherd dropped a slim bamboo stick into the bottle and swirled it. The cotton-wrapped tip still had Adam’s blood on it, and it mixed with the liquid. Shepherd set down the bottle and unfolded a leather flap with numerous small instruments inside. He opened two separate pockets, each containing a test strip.
“What is that?”
“I need to find out if the poison is plant or animal based.”
“Why?”
“Because I only have two antidotes, and if I give him the wrong one, he’ll die.” He handed me two vials, one with a red label and the other a green. “Here, hold these.”
Shepherd pulled out the bamboo dart and dabbed the end onto each test strip. Then he glanced at his watch and wiped beads of sweat off his brow.
“Why don’t I suck out the poison?” I suggested.
“Be my guest, but I don’t have enough antidotes for everyone.” He stared at those test strips as if they were going to turn into unicorns. “Humans don’t have anything like this. When I worked in the hospital, they would run elaborate blood work to find toxins.”
“Where did you learn this?”
“Maggie. She knew everything about human genetics and biology. Breed Relics have unique antidotes similar to these, but they only work on Breed. Maggie developed something that would work on humans, but she didn’t have the capability to create a universal antidote. It’s based on animal and plant protein or something like that. You don’t have to add saline. All I need is a vein.”
“Don’t you need to tie off his arm?”
“I’ve got a tool.”
