I’ve seen images of what that used to be, too. One of the horses that’s been touched and changed by the Ravage Virus.
I stay until dusk just in case, and then I slip down from the tree. I have no idea where I am or what direction I need to go in to get back, but the horse won’t be around at night; its weakness is its eyesight.
I creep around in shadows, paying more attention to the world now that I’ve seen some of what is lurking here. But a block from the green sanctuary, I find Mordecai leaning on a wall waiting for me.
“That was dumb,” he snaps out.
I shrug. “You’re all alive.”
He explodes into action, catching me with a hand in the middle of my back, towing me up against him. My heart slams against my ribs as I draw in that delicious scent of him, drowning in it, until I don’t know up from down. A whine slips from between my teeth, one we both ignore.
He bends until our noses are almost touching.
“I can’t decide if I’m impressed or enraged.”
“Because I saved you?” I scoff.
“Kaida,” he warns in a deep tone that says he’s close to the edge.
“You saved your omega, why do you even care?” I spit at last. As soon as the words escape, I regret them bitterly.
“She’s not my omega, she’s just an omega I know and—” he stops, his face twisting in frustration. “It’s part of the story.”
“I’m getting tired of this story, Mordecai,” I snap at him.
“I’m getting tired of it, too.”
“Fine. Where are we going? Which way back to your band of misfits?”
I want to see Jarek and Cadel. I need to know they are okay.
He steps back, putting some much-needed space between us. I don’t trust him right now, and I trust my body and its reactiveness to their presence and his in particular even less.
“This way.”
I follow closely behind him.
“Does your omega know she’s not your omega?”
Mordecai groans. “Kaida.”
“Keres,”I correct.
“Kaida,” he says, ignoring me. “We’ve talked about it repeatedly, but she gets scared, and her nature reaches out to the familiar.”
“You must be really familiar.”
He flashes his white teeth in a deadly smile. “Are you jealous?”
“Yes.”
He stops but doesn’t turn around. His scent gets stronger, warmer, almost turning the air into a hug. I lean towards him, unable to help myself.
“I think that’s probably one of the hottest things anyone has ever said to me. Right now,” he breathes hard through his nose. “Right now, it’s a good thing you aren’t in my head because you’d run so far and so fast because, Kaida, I would bond you and make you mine right here in this rubble.”
My stomach tightens, my thighs tingling. I curl my fingers into my palm and squeeze, trying to get the biting pain to stop my reaction.
“You clearly need to expand your horizons if that impresses you,” I say, but it comes out strangled, my voice too high, and my sweet scent gives me away.
