He starts running, and I find myself struggling to keep up.
“Mordecai! Cai!”
He looks up, frustrated and distracted. He turns in a circle. “We haven’t got much time until dark.”
“What?” I’m not sure what to do with this version of him. The alpha who kissed me has disappeared, and I’ve got this almost panicked alpha who can barely keep his thoughts straight. Was the kiss that bad? I thought he was into it, but maybe he wasn’t, or I’m misreading things. My unease is growing with each passing minute.
“We need to find Taryn!” he hisses. He slams his hand through his hair, messing it up.
“I’m not sure how we’ll find her.” I look around helplessly, but I’m a bit annoyed because we’re in Foreen. Did he think we’d just miraculously run into her? “Do you want to go into the temple and rest?” I suggest with a snarl of sarcasm.
He whips his head towards me so fast I’m surprised his neck didn’t snap. “What did you say?”
Why is he even more scared? Why is his panic rubbing off on me?
“No, this can’t be right. She’s wrong.”
I don’t think I was supposed to hear those last two sentences, so I pretend I didn’t.
“I asked if you want to go into the temple and discuss the plan?” I point to the temple hidden between two buildings. It’s impossible to miss it once you see it, but I’m sure hundreds if not thousands of people have walked past it and never noticed the circle with the three wavy lines through them. The small grey building is set back between two glass buildings. The door is hidden, but now that I know what to look for, I can see it clear as day.
His mouth opens and closes, and his face gets really pale. “You should go in and stay there.”
I shake my head. “We go together.”
“No, seriously. It would be easier and faster if I were on my own.”
“I don’t think so,” I say with an eerie chill. I don’t know why, but I know absolutely that I have to stay with him. Being left alone would be catastrophic.
“Kaida, for the love of all the omegas who ever existed, please, would you go into the temple and stay where you are safe?”
He’s sweating and leaning over me. I’m not afraid, though. I lay my fingers lightly on his wrist.
“No, we have to stay together.”
He slumps, his shoulders rolling, and lets out a wounded sound.
“Cai? What’s wrong?”
He covers his face with his hand and holds itthere.
“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. No matter what happens, I’m going to fix it. I promise. I will.”
“I don’t understand.”
He shakes his head, his pale blue eyes darker than usual, full of pain.
“This way, come on.”
We race away from the temple, but Mordecai just gets steadily more agitated. No matter how much I pry, he won’t tell me what’s going on; he just says that ‘it’s not fair’ and then goes silent.
The air is colder, and the street is paved in cobblestones. The grass grows out among them, but I can still walk in patches where there is no vegetation.
I take a step into the grass, and something tightens around my ankle. Before I can do anything, I’m hanging upside down, my body aching in a dozen different spots. The back of my head is the worst, and when I pull my hand away, it’s bloody.
“Oh, gods,” Mordecai breathes, his eyes huge with horror.
He’s swaying, his face ghastly white. He pulls his sword out and lunges towards the rope. I bounce and swing and try to get my bearings. Mordecai swings a sword down on it, but it bounces off, and he stares at it in horror before attacking it three more times. Each time, it bounces off without doing anything more than jostling me around.
