Let's go.She takes a few running steps and launches into the air. I send a prayer that I can stay seated on her back. With one leg a dud, it takes all my focus to stay perfectly centered, so I don’t lose my balance. We fly low and fast; my thought is she doesn’t want to attract the attention of any more rogue guivres. When we get close to where the battle took place, I can barely look away from the carnage. What an awful site. We quickly leave that open area behind and make our way over the forest that contains many of the jaguar homes. I keep an eye out for anyone that can help us. There are very few people out and about right now, and I get it. I hear the screech of a guivre from somewhere a little ways away, and I shake my head in anger. There are still some still alive.Not for long,I mentally commit. When we get to the sand next to the water, Redara lands.This is as far as I can take you.
I notice she got me as close to the wooden walkway as she could.Thank you.
“Harper!” I turn my head and see Thorne, Shane, and Reneta coming out of the trees. They run towards me.
“Where have you been?” Reneta demands. “We’ve beensearching for you guys for hours.”
“Where’s Rauk?” Thorne’s eyes are locked on me.
“I came to get help,” I start. “He took guivre fire to his back. Not direct contact,” I hurry to say. If it had been a direct hit, he probably wouldn’t be here anymore. “It’s bad. They have a healer here that can help. Have any of you seen Kaldar or Kinsley, his mate?”
“Yes, I just came from speaking with him,” Thorne says. “Follow me.” I hop after him, and it takes him all of about thirty seconds to realize there’s a big problem. “What’s wrong?” he asks, looking at my leg.
“It’s broken.” He stares at me.
“You flew here on a broken leg?” Shane asks incredulously.
“Yeah, well, there weren’t exactly any other options,” I snap. “I need to find that healer.”
“I’ll carry you,” Thorne suggests.
“No. No way.”
“It will take you forever to move on that leg. Either let Thorne or I carry you, or I’ll find Kaldar and bring him to you,” Shane says. I look between him and Thorne and realize I’m not going to be going anywhere just yet because there’s not a chance that I let one of them carry me like some damsel in distress.
“Okay fine; you can get Kaldar. But be fast; Rauk was passed out when I left him.”
Reneta whirls on me. “You just left him there?”
“What was I supposed to do? Carry him?” I snap back. “Noxlyn is there. Believe me, he won’t let anything or anybody near him.”
Thorne glances at Shane. “Go.”
“Do you need to sit down or something?” Reneta asks, looking like it pained her to do so. I make a point of looking around, and she rolls her eyes and looks away.
“Why is everybody from your kingdom so nasty?” I ask Thorne. I don’t even care that my question will totally make the female next to me angry. I’m in pain, and I’m worried. The two of those make me more difficult to get along with than normal, and that’s saying a lot.
“Maybe you just think that because you haven’t done anything to get to know anybody in our kingdom,” Reneta snaps.
I narrow my eyes at her. “Oh, and when was I supposed to do that? Because you all have been so welcoming to me?”
“How can we be welcoming to you when we never see you! Have you made a single effort to get to know anybody in our kingdom?” Reneta continues.
“Reneta,” Thorne says in a low, warning voice that she completely ignores.
“You just show up one day and make no effort to get to know anybody. You hide behind the walls of the castle. And then when you need us, you just expect our entire kingdom to come fight this war?”
“Reneta, stop,” Thorne says again.
“No,” we both tell him at the same time.
Anger burns through me. “I don’t need you to protect me,” I tell him and then look at her. “I tried a few times, and everybody just stared at me. Nobody talked to me or said anything to me when I went into town a few times.”
“When?” she demands.
“When what?” I snap.
“When did you ever go to town or try to talk to anybody?”
