“I see.”He means to leave me at the encampment with them.“And if I… if I give you whatever you wanted,” my skin prickles as I say the words aloud again, wonderingexactlywhat it is he wants from me now that my mind is reeling with thoughts. “You will let me walk away too?” I joke, my fingers fidgeting. “I won’t have to worry about you throwing me over your shoulder and taking me somewhere against my will?”
His eyes glint in the darkness. “Yessss.”
“It’s a deal,” I say quickly, my pulse racing. “We should go. We’re wasting time. The girl is bleeding too much and I still need to bandage her to staunch the flow.”
Turning away and heading back to Olivia and the others, I pick up speed as I get free of the trees, feeling some type of way with what Krellix has implied wanting from me.
“Julia,” he calls out, his voice remaining low. I halt, wondering what more he can say. “I want answers too and nothing, not even Zaku or anyone else, will get in the way of that. You are not alone there.”
I frown, walking the rest of the way back to the others, knowing now, more than ever, I’m in danger of making a bad decision. Until now, I thought Krellix was just an honorable guy. Yet now, I’m not so sure. But one thing’s for certain…
He wants more from me.
And he’s willing to bribe me to get it.
But for some reason, my instincts tell me to trust him.
TEN
ANYTHING
Krellix
The pearlescent glowof dawn fills the sky by the time we leave the ship wreckage behind. From there, I lead them further down the mountain and toward the lake, taking it even slower than before for the new humans. A tense silence fills the air between the ragged group that’s only occasionally broken by a strained, hushed whisper. The males show their fear of the trees, bushes, and bugs, tripping over logs, and stumbling over rocks. They show their fear of me.
But their gazes are numb beneath it all. Because of that, they do not complain. I do not worry about them.
I shift Olivia in my arms, hoping she does not wake. The smell of her blood coats the inside of my nose. She has lost much and I have not seen her wound like Julia has. Covered in the bandages Julia wrapped around her, all I can see are bunches of mostly bloody cloth, tied haphazardly at her sides.
She was awake when we began our descent but has since either fallen asleep or is unconscious. I try not to move her too much as I tentatively barrel through the forest’s overgrowth.Her face is shuttered from me, pressing into my chest, covered thickly in a mask of Julia’s making.
After we travel enough distance away from the ship, I find a place to make a temporary camp between a clearing of trees where the overgrowth is not as thick. Lying Olivia on the flattened ground I have made with my tail, Julia comes to my side to start checking her wound. The younger female stirs awake with a sharp intake of breath.
I turn away to give them their privacy and to watch the two males find a spot on the ground nearby. Their bodies sink to the forest floor, deflated. They lean against their packs and wearily look around.
Meanwhile, and for the entirety of our trek so far, more ships continue to arrive, some of them making their abrupt landings in a nose-dive fashion. Explosions have gone off and those explosions have made the humans and myself jumpy.
The noises come from all directions.
Moving and waiting briefly at the edge of our camp to make sure everyone settles, I turn from the exhausted males to watch Julia rebandage the girl. Helpless to do anything about it, my attention drifts to Julia’s quick acceptance of our agreement.
‘Anything he wanted.’
Julia pulls her water out of her pack and gently pours it into Olivia’s mouth before taking a swig herself, her throat bobbing when she swallows it down. Once she’s done, she uses one of the remaining clean strips of cloth to wipe her hands.
Caught by her beauty, the colors of her dark hair gleam in the airy light of the rising sun. Taking her in, my gaze hovers briefly over her messy, long strands, which remain partially held back with a tie at the nape of her neck. Some of her hair has slipped out to fall over her shoulders, adding to the single, silky lank I gripped earlier. It falls across her chest in waves to rest along the seams of her jacket. Mesmerized by the golden shadow shiftingover her rich brown flesh, and over the dusky pout of her lips, my own tongue drifts across my fangs.
Taller, curvier than the other females, her hair longer and thicker too, I ache to see her locks free again, tumbling down her back and swaying across the divot of her waist. My fingers twitching, I curl them into my palms until my claws dig into my skin and the pain shifts my attention.
‘Anything he wanted.’
When I first saw Julia, emerging from the bushes she had been sleeping in with the other humans she was with…
I had not expected to be confronted with the most beautiful female I have ever seen. But seeing how emaciated and fearful she was, I did not want to add to her distress, despite the abject need to draw her into my arms and tell her it would all be okay.
My teeth grit, knowing now as I did then that I have no nest to take my female. I have no safe place to call my own. I am not a risk-taker like Azsote is, so eager for his female to be his bride and to stay with him that he convinces her even though he lost his nest in the process.
If I take Julia like Azsote took his bride, the only place I have for us to go is back to Zaku’s, or to the old, crumbling observatory I sometimes hole up in, in the mountains north of here. Everywhere else is the forest, the mountains, the lakes, the wastes... I have no hides to cover her in, no shelter to place her under…
