Birch eventually turns away and saunters off, like he hasn’t a fucking care in the world. The guy behind me shoves me forward.
“Walk,” he grunts, shoving me again, so hard this time, I stumble into Flint.
He takes my weight easily, righting me as best he can. “You okay?” He tilts my head gently as we start to walk. It’s awkward but I don’t stop him.
“It’s not deep,” he assures me. “Just a graze. Not enough to turn you.”
My steps falter again as his words register.
Fucking hell.
I hadn’t even considered that.
“You’re sure?” I grip his arm, suddenly desperate to have him say it again. My stomach rolls at the thought of Birch making me anything like him.
“Yes.” Flint looks me dead in the eyes. “I’m sure.”
We walk in silence after that, only Mal’s pained grunts breaking it every so often. The dirt track we’re on has fresh tyre tracks on it. Apparently it’s wide enough for a vehicle, but only just. The clearing we eventually come to is about thirty feet across, surrounded by trees on all sides except ours.
“On your knees.”
We don’t get chance to even register the command before we’re shoved from behind.
Mal falls forward onto his arm, the scream that tears out of him so awful that when he turns to the side and throws up, I almost join him.
“Was that fucking necessary?” Beth snaps, as Flint does his best to keep Mal upright when he passes out from the pain.
No one answers her, and it’s like I can feel the anger rolling off her. There’s a heaviness to the air around us and I half expect claws and fangs when I look at her, but instead her face is screwed up like she’s fighting against something I can’t see.
“Beth?”
Her eyes snap to mine. “M’okay,” she grits out. “I want to shift and tear his fucking face off.” She lifts her shackled wrists. “But I can’t.”
Oh.
The guys behind us laugh. “We’d swat you like a fly.”
She looks over her shoulder and sneers. “Why don’t you take these off and find out?”
LYNX
“Fuck!” I roar the word, hands gripping my hair as I fight the urge to shift in the middle of the road.
The scent of blood surrounds us.
It’s on the road, on the discarded bikes half-hidden in the trees.
Fucking everywhere.
Beth’s, Mal’s, Flint’s.
My fucking pack.
But not Morgan’s, thank the Goddess. I don’t know if Corey’s blood is still helping him heal and I’d rather not fucking find out.
Callum snarls as he bends to inspect the damage to Flint’s Ducati. “It’s like they didn’t even try to disguise their scent.” He stands and kicks the dirt, thinly veiled anger in every line of his body.
Blood isn’t the only thing we could smell from a fucking mile away. The stench of Feral Beasts crawls over the entire area.
