Descendant (19 page)

After several minutes of lying there, I decided to open my eyes. I lifted my head a few inches off the ground and saw that the sun had all but disappeared behind the trees. How long had I been out for?

“What happened?” I managed to cough. The sound of quick footsteps was the only reply I got. I tried to sit up, but only made it about halfway before my strength left me and I crashed back to the ground. The clouds above started to spin, and I shut my eyes tightly to try and relieve my stomach, which was churning right along with them. When I opened them again, Kael and Will were both crouched beside me, their faces completely devoid of color.

“Are you okay?” Will asked. There was nothing about his expression that even suggested the huge smile he normal y wore.

“I’ve been better,” I mumbled. “I don’t understand what happened.” I tried to sit up again, and this time I faired a little better and managed to prop myself up on the palms of my shaking hands. “I thought I had it. But then I saw myself, my human self…and I just lost it. It was strange.”

“It was dangerous, that’s what it was,” Kael said angrily.

“There’s got to be a better way to do this.” He looked at Will expectantly.

Will shook his head. “Look man—I never claimed I was an expert at this. I mean, I told you it isn’t real y something you can teach. Most young lycans figure it out on their own…

but they do so over time, you know? Al’s only known what she is for twenty-four hours, we should never have expected her to instantly—”

“I don’t have time to waste,” I reminded him. “I’ll just have to try harder.”

“It’s not just about how hard you’re trying—it takes practice, Al. Lots of it.”

I shook my head dismissively at Will , and started to get to my feet. My legs felt like I’d just gotten done running a marathon or something. They shook unsteadily as I straightened up.

“I still have time to practice a few more times before—”

“I think you’ve practiced enough for one day,” Kael interrupted quietly.

I gave him an incredulous look. “I haven’t even accomplished anything.”

“You accomplished nearly getting yourself stuck in a permanently disfigured, comatose state.”

I made a face. “Thanks for reminding me. That’s helpful.”

“I’m just saying—if you try again now, the same thing is probably going to happen. You’re tired. We should go home. Eat. Sleep. You can try again tomorrow.”

“I don’t know if you’ve forgotten—but I can’t go home. I don’t have a home to go to. And tomorrow? What happens if tomorrow is one day too late for Lora?”

“I don’t think your sister would want you to put your own life at risk to—”

“How do you know what my sister would want?” I asked, throwing my hands up in frustration. “You’ve never even met her.”

“That’s kind of beside the point,” Will said.

“No Will ,” I snapped, turning on him. “That is the point. The point is that neither of you could possibly know what I’m going through right now.”

“I never claimed to know,” Will said, his voice remarkably calm despite the growing frustration in mine. But his even calm despite the growing frustration in mine. But his even tone only made me that much angrier.

How could everyone around me be so calm? It didn’t make sense. I turned and started to walk away. I wasn’t even sure why. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the moment.

“Where are you going?” Will ’s asked.

“Away.”

“Alex…” Kael voice sounded annoyed, but I didn’t care. I just walked faster, determined to put as much distance between myself and them as possible.

Yeah, these new senses were going to come in handy for sure.

With that in mind, it occurred to me that I might be able to find my way out of this place after all . I tried my best to hone my senses—and I did notice a lot of new sounds and smell s. As it turned out though, the smell s were pretty useless. I smelled what I thought might have been the trail we’d made coming up here—but every time I tried to follow it I just ended up losing it in the billions of other smell s around me.

So being able to smell my way home was looking unlikely. I still had my hearing though. I stopped walking and closed my eyes, thinking maybe I could pick up the sounds of Will and Kael heading home. Then I could follow them at a distance, and show up at the house before they—or Vanessa—had too much time to worry about me. I listened for a few minutes, to the sound of the wind and the leaves it rustled, to the trickling of a nearby creek, to birds fluttering in the trees above.

I was starting to get restless, when all of a sudden I heard a voice. And then another. I was about to breath a sigh of relief—Kael and Will were nearby after all —when I heard another voice, one clearly distinct from the first two. And now that I real y listened, those first two didn’t real y sound like the guys.

I slunk back against a nearby tree, and tried to quiet my breathing and listen. My heartbeat was impossible to silence, though, and it was beating so loudly that anyone within a ten-mile radius could probably have heard it. The voices were getting closer—or maybe just louder, it was hard to tell . 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, 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. I walked for at least another five minutes. I tried to focus on each individual step, until my mind became oblivious to anything else, and the voices seemed distant, trivial. But then there was another sound.

One I couldn’t ignore.

“Will ? Kael?”

There was no response other than the crunch of 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!”

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.

Kael took a deep, wary 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 hissed.

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 effectively pinning me between him and the giant oak.

“I was only screaming because I couldn’t find you guys!” I shot back in as quiet a voice as I could manage.

“You couldn’t find us? You’re the one who ran away from us!”

“Whatever,” I said. “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...yell ing like that — you’re lucky I found you first. Did it never occur to you that shouting at the top of your lungs 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, didn’t you listen to anything Eli said? 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. They were louder than ever now and, though I still couldn’t understand exactly what they were saying, it was clear now that there were several different speakers. I counted at least five, and they all seemed to be talking at once. They sounded like they were in good spirits, talking loudly and every now and then breaking up the conversation with loud peals of laughter.

"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 syl able 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'l 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 as he continued. "But they are close enough to hear you, if they decide to listen for it," he added. "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. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on being anywhere but there.

"Their pace just quickened," Kael said a minute later.

"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, and brought a finger Kael only shook his head in response, and brought a finger to his 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 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 practical y as close.

Not the most comfortable position I’d ever been in.

“Hey Kael?”

He didn’t answer, and he didn’t move. His eyes were staring blankly—straight at me but through me at the same time. His lips were stretched into a tight frown.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

He blinked. He still didn’t say anything right away, but at least now he was actual y looking at me. When he final y did speak, he sounded dazed.

“What?”

“I asked what was wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I was just…thinking about something.”

“Oh.” His gaze held mine, and for some reason I couldn’t think of anything else to say for a long time. My face started to get hot. I squirmed 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. “We should probably head back to the house,” I said after a minute.

“You’re probably right,” he said, his breath warm 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—“Let’s go,” Kael said suddenly. He shoved off of 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 further and further away while I just stared.

What the heck had almost happened there? I couldn’t even answer that question, but I could already feel regret gripping me as I stepped away from the tree. I wonder what he was thinking now? I would’ve given anything to know… I even thought about trying to break my way into his thoughts.

I might’ve tried, too. But part of me was undeniably scared of what I might hear.

“Are you coming?” Kael called. He sounded pissed. Great.

Why did everything have to be so damn complicated?