Breaking off our kiss, Theron looks at the sunbeam dancing on the arm of his leather jacket at the same time as the rooster crows again.Then the beam bounces onto the skin of his hand.
“Ah, fuck it.”He growls and lifts his face to the pink sky while reaching out his hand towards me.The orange sunrise turns the irises of his eyes a deep, reflective red like an animal caught in the headlights on a highway.
Theron goes crashing to the ground like a felled forest tree.
ChapterSix
Theron
Shadow sends me spinning across the brewery until I crash against the wall.My eyes refocus as my consciousness returns.The basement shutters are tightly closed to block out the sunlight.The three other Riders have crawled out of the hidden room behind the panels; all four of them are snarling with outrage.
I’m not embarrassed or humble.Empires have risen and fallen since someone last dared to treat me with such disrespect.One moment, I am sprawled against the wall and forced to contemplate my rash decision to follow Aila out into the sunlight, and the next moment I am upright, snarling a warning.
“Your immortality is skating on thin ice, Watchman.”
That was Shadow’s occupation when I first met him.He was sitting in the watchtower with his brother, on guard for signs of an enemy approaching.It was I who brought news of it to him.
Removing his full-face bike helmet and hurling it at me, Shadow roars.“And I am meant to find an excuse for prancing up the hill in full fucking riding gear after your obsession pounds on Luna’s door crying about how you fell face-down on the hill?”
My obsession.What an apt description for how I feel about Aila.
Rundas is seething with rage.Artim and Jaecar hold the MC veep back as he fights to try and rush me.
“You broke a hard rule, Hunter.”His lips pull back to set his fangs free.“You will pay the price or go, Nomad.”
“Hunter?”Shadow scoffs as he pulls off the leather gloves that protected his skin from the sunlight when he had to go up the hill to fetch me.“Theron is—and always will be—afucking farmer!”
I had been herding reindeer when I first saw the signs of the Red Queen’s wild army coming over the icy fell.My family lived outside the village's palisade walls harvesting roots, broad beans, and peas from the pods in summer, collecting ramsons and berries for winter.
I could kill a bear with one axe swing and easily lift a reindeer stag over my head.But that’s what Shadow fucking Sylva remembers about my origins: farming.
Bellowing, we rush each other.Set loose, Rundas charges in headfirst, too.The three of us slam into one another like sledgehammers.The ceiling above us shudders.The floor cracks.
It’s all pointless, of course.The only thing that can injure us is steel that falls from the sky.Luna calls it meteor rock.My height works to my advantage, as does the reach of my arms.But all three of us possess teeth as lethal weapons.
Our race begat the forefathers of the Vikings.They are the ancestors of those great Ural Mountain warriors in the land of the Rus.Honored with the title of Master of Ice and Snow when I was only seven and ten years old, I stood close to six feet, six inches by the time I was a man.
The fight devolves into chaos in the blink of an eye, with my hands around Shadow’s throat and Rundas pulling me into a chokehold.
“Stop thisnow.”
Luna’s voice penetrates our black fury.We let go and step away from one another.
Pacing like a lioness, Luna scolds us.“I maintain this precarious balance as a favor to my partner.I have no problem walking away from Landslide at any time.Nomad?Puh-leez.I would love to.Don’t give me that chance.Iwilltake it.”
She is wearing a beekeeper’s outfit.It was Luna who knew enough about the outside world to find a variety of full-body clothing for us so that we could walk outside during the day.She tells everyone the beehives are for honey to make mead.
“Theron’s glamour is stronger than yours ever was, Shadow.He hides his true nature quite well,” Luna reminds her partner.“Sometimes a kiss can make time slow down or go faster.It is a simple thing to let time fly when you are having fun.”
Rundas disagrees.“Taking precautions against exposure is one of our stone rules, Luna, and the forfeit?—”
Holding up her hand, Luna stops the MC veep’s diatribe mid-sentence.
“No forfeit is needed.In fact…” Luna comes to stand in front of me.“In fact, Hunter, Aila is in the breakfast room right now waiting for you to join her.”
I am hanging my head, feeling all kinds of regret and despair, but I look up when she says that.
“What explanation did you give her?”
