The voices were getting closer.
I tried to convince myself it was no big deal.
So there were people walking around in the woods—so what?
That didn’t mean they knew, or cared, that I was there too.
After several deep breaths, I managed to leave the security of the tree behind. But the voices were still there, no matter how many shaky steps I took. And none of them sounded familiar.
I tried to put space between myself and those voices. A few minutes of creeping stealthily through the trees, and I thought I’d succeeded at this—until I heard someone following me.
“Will? Kael?”
There was no response other than the crunch of those quick footsteps, getting louder every second. I slowed to a stop and turned circles where I stood, searching the darkness. “This isn’t funny you guys,” I said. A twig snapped nearby. “Look! I’m sorry for running off like that, okay? You guys don’t have to—oomph!”
My stomach absorbed most of the blow, and I had a hard time catching my breath for several seconds. I was thrown backward and shoved up against a nearby tree. As my back slammed against the bark, a hand clamped over my mouth and muffled my automatic scream-response.
My breath caught in my throat, almost choking me as my eyes met my attacker’s.
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hostages
Kael took a deep, weary breath and shook his head.
“Shut. Up.”
Beads of sweat dotted his forehead, and his face was flushed a brilliant shade of red. He must’ve sprinted the entire distance from the clearing to where we stood. His gaze was fierce, and he was alternating between glancing at me and the distant forest.
It was a few minutes before he spoke again. “If I take my hand off your mouth, are you going to start screaming again?” he growled.
I glared at him, and jerked my mouth away from his hand. He didn’t try to put it back; instead, he placed it against the tree beside me, mirroring the position of his other arm and pinning me between him and the giant oak.
“I wasn’t screaming,” I shot back in as quiet a voice as I could manage. “I was calling quietly, and only because I couldn’t find you guys!”
“You couldn’t find us? You’re the one who ran away from us.”
Okay, so he had a point there.
Time for a subject change.
“You scared the crap out of me, running at me like that. Do you always have to be so violent?”
“Do you always have to be so reckless?”
I managed, somehow, to bite my tongue on that note. “Did you hear those voices?” I asked.
“Of course I heard them.” His eyes returned to the forest again. “That’s the only reason I bothered coming after you,” he whispered. “And it’s a good thing I did. Yelling like that… you’re lucky I found you first. Did it never occur to you that shouting in the middle of forest, miles from the house, and miles from me—” His words came out in a quiet, angry rush. “—my god, Alex, do you have a single self-preservation gene in your body? Valkos is—”
He fell abruptly silent, and I didn’t have to ask why.
Because I heard it too.
Both of our heads snapped toward the direction of the voices. Voices that suddenly sounded incredibly loud and incredibly close. I still couldn’t understand exactly what they were saying, but it was clear now that there were several different speakers. I counted at least five, and they all seemed to be talking at once.
“There are ten of them, maybe more,” Kael whispered.
I gasped at my own miscalculation. “Who are they?”
“Eight lycans, two werewolves. Other than that, I don’t know; I don’t recognize any of them by their scent alone.”
“What are they doing here?”
“That’s a good question.” Kael looked worried as he turned back to me. “But at least they seem pretty absorbed in their own conversation. I don’t think they’ve noticed us.” He’d barely uttered that last syllable when the forest suddenly fell eerily quiet.
I closed my eyes and tried to listen, but there was nothing to hear.
The shuffling of footsteps had stopped, and the voices with it.
For what must have been several minutes, Kael and I waited on bated breath, holding our place like an awkward statue that had sprung out of the tree trunk.
Then, as quickly as they had gone, the voices came back. They were hushed now, and closer still— close enough that I could make out some of what was being said.
“Are you sure you know where we’re going?” asked a woman’s voice.
“Not much further now,” came the quiet reply of another. “And yes I’m sure. Besides, why don’t you use your own senses? The others obviously passed this way not long ago.”
“I suppose they’re already there, then?” asked the first woman. Her tone was sulky. “Having fun without us, no doubt. I bet they’ll already have everything taken care of by the time we get there.”
“If you spent half as much energy walking as you do talking, we could have been there a long time ago.” The third voice—a male’s—made me jump, because it sounded so close that the man speaking might as well have been standing right next to me.
Kael closed what little space was between us and brought his mouth up beside my ear. “Calm down,” he said in a voice that was barely a whisper. “Don’t forget how good your hearing is now. They aren’t as close as you think.”
I nodded slowly.
(But they are close enough to hear you, if they decide to listen for it,) he continued in my head. (So you need to stop breathing so hard.)
“I can’t help it,” I whispered back. But even as I spoke, I tried to take deeper, less-raspy breaths. It wasn’t easy though. And Kael wasn’t exactly helping, being so close like that. His skin radiated heat. Every breath I took was full of his smoky forest scent, which somehow calmed me and made my heart beat faster all at once.
I closed my eyes and tried to focus on being somewhere else.
“Their pace just quickened,” Kael breathed. “They’re moving away from us.”
“Thank God,” I said with a relieved sigh.
“Shhh.”
“You said they were leaving!”
Kael only shook his head in response, pressed a finger to my lips and shushed me one more time. I rolled my eyes but kept quiet after that. It was at least a full minute before he spoke again.
“I don’t hear them anymore,” he said. His voice was still just a whisper.
“Does that mean I can talk now?”
“Do what you want,” he muttered, taking a small step back and dropping one of his arms back to his side. His other arm stayed braced against the tree, his hand less than an inch from my head—and the rest of him was still practically as close.
“I’m sorry if I worried you,” I blurted out.
“I wasn’t worried,” he snapped, just as abrupt. “Will insisted we look for you. Personally, I was content to let you wander aimlessly through the forest for a few days at least.”
“I would have found my way back on my own.”
“A real tragedy if not.”
“You would have missed me eventually.”
“Doubt it.”
He sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than me, and I suddenly remembered what Vanessa had told me the other night: supposedly, he’d been worried about me then, too—even if he was reluctant to admit it.
I still found that hard to believe, and yet…
I expected him to turn away, but he didn’t.
His gaze was as intense as it had been on the first day we met. He’d met my eyes then, too, even when everybody else looked away.
Why?
My face started to get hot. I fidgeted uncomfortably beneath him, my back scraping against the rough tree bark. I forced my gaze away from his and stared instead at a knot on a nearby tree. “So, um, we should probably head back to the house,” I said after a minute.
“You’re p
robably right,” he said, his breath hot against my cheek. But he didn’t move. In fact, I’m pretty sure he moved closer.
I looked back at him, and our noses bumped. My palms were sweating by this point. This was too close. I was too vulnerable. I had to—
“Right. Let’s go,” Kael said suddenly. He shoved off the tree and turned away from me.
Now it was me who didn’t move.
Kael didn’t wait for me; his long-legged pace carried him away while I just stared.
What the hell had almost happened there?
I had no idea, but I could already feel regret gripping me as I stepped away from the tree.
What was he thinking now? I would’ve given anything to know. I even thought about trying to break my way into his thoughts—although part of me was terrified of what I might hear.
God, I thought as I trudged after him, why does everything have to be so damn complicated?
* * *
Kael didn’t speak to me again until we reached the edge of the yard. And even once we were there, all he said was: “Something’s wrong.”
It was so quiet, and that scent in the air…
“Is that blood I smell?”
Kael nodded in response. He didn’t say anything else. And then all of a sudden he turned and looked expectantly back toward the woods—and, thanks to my super-sensitive hearing, I understood why.
“It sounds like someone’s coming?”
“Madoc’s coming,” Kael confirmed, frowning.
I turned toward the sound of the approaching footsteps just in time to see Kael duck and avoid Shane’s swinging fist.
Shane was thrown off-balance by his faulty swing, but it only took him a split second to regain his center and turn to face us once more.
I couldn’t help but take a step back when I saw the mad gleam in his eye.
Sweat dripped from his forehead and slid down his face, which got a little redder with every heavy breath he took. With slow steps he started toward us, and I automatically moved closer to Kael.
“What the hell’s wrong with you, Madoc?” Kael asked.
Shane replied only by launching himself so fast at Kael that he left a cloud of dust where he’d been standing. Kael pushed me out of the way and managed to dodge the attack himself.
Barely.
And in a flurry of motion, Shane had already turned around and leapt again at Kael.
“Okay, now I’m getting annoyed,” Kael said, catching one of Shane’s fists and stopping it centimeters from his face. “I swear to god, if you don’t—”
“Why did they take her?” Shane interrupted. “They went straight for her. What did you tell them to do with her?”
“I didn’t tell anyone anything, you idiot,” Kael said through clenched teeth, shoving him away. “I don’t even know who you’re talking about!”
Shane’s eyes narrowed. He looked dangerously annoyed. “Emily!” he bellowed. And this time Kael couldn’t move fast enough to dodge; the side of the porch was several feet away, but Shane hit him so hard that Kael covered that distance easily.
And Shane wasn’t done. As Kael tried to get back on his feet, Shane flew at him again. His hand wrapped around Kael’s throat, slammed him back against the porch and held him there. “And don’t act like you don’t know,” Shane said. “Because I know you had something to do with it.”
“What the hell are you talk—” Kael’s words were interrupted by a gag as Shane tightened his grip.
“Stop it!” I shouted.
“You’re not really in a position to be lying to me,” Shane said to Kael, ignoring me completely.
“Let go of me.” Kael’s voice was low and surprisingly steady—considering Shane was still crushing his windpipe. But soon his steady breathing became irregular gasps for air. He didn’t fight back, though; he just stared at Shane with an eerily hollow look in his eyes.
“Shane!” I cried, running toward him. I had no idea what Kael was waiting for. I just knew if he wasn’t going to stop Shane, then I would— preferably before he passed out from lack of oxygen. “Stop it! You’re going to kill him!” I was inches from his face, practically screaming right into his ear, but Shane didn’t so much as flinch.
“I wish it was that easy,” Shane said darkly. “But I’m not trying to kill him, anyway. Not this time. And I’ll stop when he agrees to answer my question.”
Kael’s face looked as resolute as ever, and he still made no move to fight back.
“This is so stupid,” I said, grabbing one of Shane’s arms in both my hands and attempting to pull it away.
“Knock it off,” Shane said. “This doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“That’s beside the point,” I said, gritting my teeth as I dug my nails into his skin. At first, Shane seemed indifferent to any pain I might’ve been causing him. Frustrated, I stared at my fingers, silently hoping and praying for a bit of help.
And to my surprise, it came.
This time, the transformation was almost instantaneous. Black claws extended from the tips of my fingers and dug into Shane’s arm. He jerked, either from pain or surprise—hard to tell which since his expression didn’t change—and I managed to wrench his arm away from Kael’s neck. Little pools of blood were welling up where my claws had dug into his flesh, but I didn’t let go just yet.
Shane looked from me, to his arm, and back to me again, rage lighting up his features.
“I said knock it off,” he snarled.
I had to let go of Shane’s arm as he flung it backward, throwing me back with it. I hit the ground with a thud and sat up angrily, claws stretched and fully ready to get even.
Kael beat me to it.
I’d seen Kael looked pissed off plenty of times before, but nothing compared to the look on his face now. He got to his feet in a flash, grabbed Shane by the shirt collar and lifted him several inches off the ground.
“You don’t touch her. Ever. Got that?” Kael said quietly. And then his mouth kept moving—only now no words were actually coming out. At least, none that I could hear; but Shane must’ve heard something, because his eyes went wide all of a sudden.
A blinding slash of orange light lit up Shane’s face. It burned for only the blink of an eye, but it was several seconds after that before I could see clearly again; when the scene before me came back into focus, Shane’s cheek was singed a dark shade of gray, and several streams of what looked like blood were dripping down it.
Kael released his grip and Shane stumbled back, looking shocked and angry.
I took several steps back too, and my hand flew to my mouth as Shane dropped to his knees, holding the side of his head. I was still staring at Shane—not sure whether I should be amazed, or appalled, or terrified—when I heard Kael’s voice behind me.
“Are you okay?”
I didn’t take my eyes off Shane, who was still clutching his head in silent pain. “What did you just do?”
“What are you talking about?”
I jerked around to face him. The second my eyes met him I felt weak. Scared. My head— my entire world—was spinning. “Are you serious? You barely moved…and you…look at him…”
“He’s fine,” Kael said in a cold voice.
At that moment, almost as if to prove Kael’s point, Shane got to his feet. I breathed a small sigh of relief as he turned to face us.
“What was that weird light a second ago?” I asked, turning back to Kael. This time, I didn’t meet his eyes all the way.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said again.
“I know what I saw,” I said, starting to get angry. “And it definitely wasn’t normal.”
“I never claimed I was normal,” Kael said flatly.
I was about to reply when Shane’s laughter suddenly interrupted. “Why don’t you tell her the truth, Kael?” he said.
“Why don’t you shut up, idiot?” Kael replied. “Unless you’re going to be useful for once and tell us what’s going on here?”<
br />
“Why the hell would I tell you anything? Especially after that little demonstration?”
“What was that even a demonstration of?” I’d officially lost my temper now. “Would someone care to fill me in?”
Shane looked at me curiously for a second, then his lips parted into a half-smile. “Still a human more or less, huh?” I couldn’t tell whether he meant it as an insult or not. “Shouldn’t expect you to recognize black magic when you see it, I guess.”
“Black magic?”
“Yeah. Pyromancy if you want to get specific. Keep hanging around him, and I’m sure you’ll get to see a lot more of it.”
I looked at Kael as a strange numbness settled over my body. He didn’t look back, and I tried not to think about what this all meant; before now, I’d had my reserves about Kael, sure. I had my reserves about all of them. But I’d been starting to think that, if I could have trusted any of them, it would’ve been Kael. Despite his arrogance, and his rudeness, he’d always been the first to chase me down. To look me in the eye. To tell me the truth, however bluntly he had to put it.
Right now, though?
Right now I didn’t just not trust him—I was scared of him.
Scared that I’d completely misread him.
If he could do that to Shane’s face without lifting a finger, then what else could he do?
All I could think about was what Eli had said. About Valkos, and his powerful black magic that started this whole mess to begin with. And hadn’t Eli said that most other lycans shunned the use of magic?
“Kael, why do you know how to do that?” I asked quietly.
“This conversation doesn’t need to happen right now,” he said, even quieter.
“Nonsense,” Shane said, looking eager all of a sudden. “It’s all relevant, I think. Don’t you think you owe her the truth?”
Kael glared at him, but he didn’t answer one way or the other.
Shane raised an eyebrow. “Keep quiet then,” he said. “As if my suspicions about you needed reinforcing,” he added under his breath.
Kael laughed bitterly. “Suspect me all you want. You can’t prove anything.”
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