“Do you think anyone will remember us?”
Mordecai stops; he sighs heavily. “I think if we win, it won’t matter if they remember us or not, only that they’ll get to live.”
That answer rocks the grip that those memories have on me, and we continue on, crawling through the dark, trying to survive.
Chapter 31
Betrayal stings the worst
We break out of the tunnel from below just when I think I’m about to lose my mind and go completely and irrevocably insane. There’s no way I could have taken another minute down there. Darkness has a weight and a price that comes with it for me.
I slide up onto the street and duck behind a car, waiting for Mordecai to come up through the manhole.
He’s much more elegant than me when he comes up, but he doesn’t waste time talking or trying to discuss a plan. He shackles my wrist and drags me behind him.
I want to know where we are going. I want to know what Taryn said.
Everything in me wants to find Jarek and Cadel and make sure they are both okay, but this alpha in front of me isn’t giving me a choice, and I’m already suspicious of his motives.
“Mordecai, stop!” I snarl at him for the tenth time. When he ignores me, I kick the back of his knee, sending him crashing to the ground. He rolls, pulling me into his arms.
I swing at his face, but he catches my fist, and then I’m flipped, and I’m lying beneath a massive alpha that I have no way of overpowering. I’m not terrified at all. He growls, but I snarl back, refusing to even acknowledge the way my body is responding to this alpha lying on top of me.
“You—”
He cuts me off, slamming his mouth down on mine. I fight him, bite him until I can taste his blood, I shove and scream into his mouth, and when he pulls back, I grab his hair and lift myself up, pressing my lips back to his.
Our kiss is aggressive, tumultuous. It’s more than passion. This is life and death, its survival, its every horrible minute of everything we’ve ever missed and dreamed of having in one desire-laden exchange between an alpha and his omega.
What we want isn’t on the cards. May never be on the cards. There won’t be happy little bonding ceremonies. The heat that I may one day find myself in won’t trigger a mating heat but a rut that will rip one of us apart.
What-ifs go through my mind.
What if things were different?
What if I could have him?
What if, what if, what if?
When I let myself fall back, he doesn’t chase me but remains up on his forearms, staring down at me. His bottom lip oozes blood, but he doesn’t notice it.
After another few long seconds, where I see our lives exist in our minds and then burn to the ash that they are, he rolls off me. I lick my lips and almost groan at the taste of him that invades my senses. I get to my feet, wincing at the pain from the rock that I was lying on.
“How are we going to find the others?” I ask softly, but now the anger is gone.
He looks up, and I realise that Mordecai might seem like an older alpha with tons of experience and knowledge, but right now, he’s an alpha who is around the same age as I am and lost his parents when he wasa child. He raised a village and saved them. What kind of weight does that responsibility do to a person?
“We go to the next safe house and hope they are waiting and keep going until we find everyone.”
“Okay.”
He looks at me with a hint of distrust. “Not going to fight me?”
I shake my head. “No. I’m not.”
For some reason, that only upsets him more.
“Come on.”
