Relentless (23 page)

“We have transportation.” I moved closer to Thea.

“With room for all of us?” Thea looked skeptical.

I was looking at Myles, and he was nodding.

“We’ll all fit,” I reassured her.

Thea started off at run through the woods, and we all followed. It was a struggle through the drifts. As we climbed, the trees thinned, and the wind buffeted us, making our progress even more difficult. None of us was dressed for being out in the snow, and even though I was able to tolerate temperatures more easily as a werewolf, I was freezing. The path we traveled began to narrow, and I found myself staring down the side of the mountain. We were werewolves, not mountain goats, and I was not a great lover of high places. We fell into a single line because the stony outcropping wasn’t wide enough for two people to walk abreast. We’d only gone a few yards up the trail when I heard them. The rock beneath my feet vibrated, and I spun round. Wolves were coming up the path behind us. They were single file, too, and there was no room for fighting here, but what choice did we have? Jared placed Noah on the ground and motioned for Brynna to come to him.

“Can you carry him?” I heard Jared shout.

Brynna nodded. Thea bent over them, her mouth moving, the words lost on the wind. With Jared’s help, Brynna heaved Noah onto her back. She held his arms around her neck to keep him in place, but he was taller than she was, and his feet dragged on the ground. Brynna’s face was set with determination as she took a few tentative steps then began to stride up the rocky trail with Robert and Lana behind her. Behind us, the fight had erupted. The two Einherjar and Myles held off the first wolf in the line. Another wolf leapt over them, headed straight for us. Thea’s hand went under her coat and unsheathed the jalmar. Jared and I braced to meet the onslaught of the wolf. The animal hit us at full speed, and my foot slid off the path, scattering rocks into the black nothingness below. I grabbed its foot and pulled myself onto flat ground. Jared had wrapped his arms around the wolf, but it was ripping into his flesh.

“Get out of the way!” Thea shouted at him. “I can’t cut his head off with you right there.”

“Do it!” he roared back at her.

She set her jaw, and the sword arced over her head. The designs of the runes—wolves’ heads and even the intricate pattern of Thor’s hammer—on the blade blurred as Thea brought the jalmar downward. I screamed for her to stop. But she didn’t. Letting go of the wolf’s back legs, I grabbed the collar of Jared’s shirt and pulled him toward me. The blade made a thudding sound as it sliced though fur and bone, blood spraying against the rock wall. Jared fell to the ground under the wolf, the arm of his shirt saturated with blood.

Thea stood over us, the sword in her hand red and wet. “You’re lucky I didn’t cut your head off. Next time get the hell out of the way.”

Jared struggled to his feet, and Thea probed his arm.

“You’re no good to us now. Go ahead and wait with the others.”

“No. I can still fight.”

She snorted. I moved closer, my hand closing over his uninjured forearm. “Go, Jared. If they get past us, Brynna will be by herself, trying to protect the others. I don’t know why Noah is important, but they all think he is. You have to protect them. Your arm will start healing, so you can help them if they need it.”

His face twisted with indecision. The rightness of what I’d said won out. He grabbed my upper arm and pulled me close.

“Do not get yourself killed.”

“I don’t intend to.”

He bent forward and brushed his lips against my forehead. He turned and ran up the path, holding his injured arm next to his side. Farther below us, the fight raged. Myles was backed against the rock wall, his leg in the mouth of a huge red wolf. Thea and I raced toward his attacker. Before we reached him, I heard a scream and saw one of Thea’s friends go over the side of the cliff, headless. I stumbled, and Thea ran into me.

“Keep going. We can’t help him.”

Her other partner still battled a man swinging his own huge sword. I concentrated on the wolf attacking Myles. I hit him in the midsection, knocking him loose, and we rolled down the path with Thea in close pursuit. I banged into the rock face with jarring force, and for a moment, I thought I saw a human figure farther down the path, watching. But the wind gusted the snow, enveloping everything in white. Thea raised the jalmar and ended the red wolf with a forceful cut to its neck. Myles shoved its body over the side. Thea’s last partner was farther down the path, motionless on the ground, not dead but unconscious, blood pouring from his wounds. There was one remaining wolf and the man with the jalmar standing near him. Myles and I sprang toward them before the man could strike Thea’s friend. We grabbed the wolf on his front shoulders, and Thea vaulted over us, sword clashing against the one wielded by the Fenryrian, sending sparks into the night sky. The wolf struggled, and I held on to him as Myles moved to imprison its back legs. Its sharp teeth gouged my shoulder, and I felt the warmth of blood. My blood.

“Over the edge!” I screamed to Myles. “Throw him over the edge.”

We pushed the wolf to the edge. I let go, and his front feet went over. The animal managed to scramble onto a small ledge and jerked hard with his back legs, sending Myles flying through the air. He slammed into the rocks ten feet up and then dropped hard to the ground. He didn’t move. I shoved the wolf. Its front feet scrambled for purchase on the loose rock. With a clatter of stones, the animal slid over the edge, mouth jerking loose from my shoulder. It made one last lunge, driving sharp teeth into my leg. I clawed at the rocks as the wolf slid off the side of the mountain, taking me with him.

“Thea!”

I screamed at her, but it was the wrong thing to do. Her attention turned to me briefly, but it was enough. The sword came toward her. At the last minute, she twisted, and it bit through her arm and shoulder, only grazing her neck. She went down. Then he turned to me. My fear morphed into blind panic. I knew him. It was the man who’d tried to kill me that day in Key West. He was Brodin’s right-hand man. He was about to finish the job he’d started back then. His yellow eyes gleamed with pleasure, his lips curling upward in a maniacal grin.

I shook my legs, grappling to hang on to the ledge. I had to fight against the weight of the wolf hanging on to my legs. It tried to get a better grip on me, but when he moved his mouth, I twisted, and suddenly his weight disappeared. Now there was only this man and me. My fingers bit into the rock to get a better hold. He was only a few feet away, his sword raised.

Movement down the trail caught his attention, and he stiffened then relaxed. Someone was coming up the path, fast. It must have been one of his people because he didn’t seem alarmed. He turned his attention back to me, his jalmar held high.

The figure hit him hard, knocking him to the ground and sending the sword clattering over the edge. The man leapt to his feet, confusion on his face. He had no time to question or react. Eric had picked up Thea’s sword, and it sliced through the air, severing body from head and sending the man over the edge to die. I hung there, my legs suspended in space. Eric’s hands were wrapped around the hilt of the great blade, its point in the ground. He bowed over the sword, his weight resting on it. For a few brief seconds, neither of us moved. His shoulders heaved as he took a breath, then he dropped the sword and ran to me, grabbing my wrist and pulling me up over the edge.

I couldn’t speak. I only stared at him. From behind us, there was movement, and Myles got to his feet. He looked from me to Eric.

“Are there more coming?”

Eric shook his head. “There are others looking for you but not in this direction. You can still get away.”

“Why did you help us?” I whispered.

He turned back to Myles and nodded to Thea’s friend farther down the path. “Get him, and I’ll take Thea. We’ll get you all to the cave.”

Myles ran to the man and lifted him while Eric took Thea. I followed them until we reached a crack in the rock, and Myles disappeared into it. I went in behind Eric, entering as he placed Thea on the ground near Noah. There was a kerosene lantern burning, and Lana and Brynna had flashlights.

“The cave was stocked with all this.” Brynna answered my unspoken question.

Eric knelt beside Noah. He rubbed his hand over the other boy’s hair.

“Take care of him,” he said, looking up to Lana. “What we’ve done to him has been unconscionable.”

“Yes, it has,” she answered.

“I wanted it to stop.” Eric’s voice was low as he traced one of the tattoos on Noah’s forearm.

“It will.” Lana wiped Noah’s face with a cloth.

“Don’t turn him into one big science experiment like they did here.” Eric’s voice hardened. “Just promise me that. He doesn’t deserve that.”

She shook her head. “I won’t let them.”

His hand fell to his side, and he was quiet for a few moments. Finally, he nodded slowly and stood. “I have to go now.”

Everyone in the room was watching us. He didn’t offer any explanation. He moved wordlessly back to the opening at the front of the cave. I followed him out, back to the ledge, my eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness.

“What are you going to do? What will you tell them?”

He gave a half smile barely visible in the snowy night. “That you overpowered us and got away.”

I wrapped my arms around myself, the cold already biting into me. “They won’t believe that you escaped in one piece.”

“I have a plan.” He glanced over the edge.

I followed his eyes, and for a moment, my breath caught in my throat. “You can’t jump off there.”

“It won’t kill me.”

“It might.” I tried to look over, but there was nothing but darkness and flurries of snow.

He rubbed his hand up and down my arm as if trying to warm me up. “There’s a ledge about fifty feet down. I’ll go over the edge and land there. I’ll say you guys pushed me over. I’ll be fine. Getting banged up will not kill me.”

I chewed my lower lip, glad for the warmth of his hands on my arm. “It may not kill you but it will hurt, a lot.”

His hand tightened on my arm. “That it will. I can manage a little pain right now. I deserve it after what’s happened. I’m sorry about throwing you into the wall.”

“Why did you?”

“I have to keep up an image for my father. He has to think I don’t really care about you, that I’m dedicated to following in his footsteps and taking his place.”

I hugged myself harder, cold and confused. “But aren’t you dedicated to following him?”

He shook his head. “I guess in a way I am, just not like he thinks. The longer he believes I’m trying to be exactly what he wants, the better it is for me. You may hear things about me in the future, and I want you to know that I am working toward a better end than what my father has in mind. Remember that.”

“If you don’t want to follow your father, come with us.”

He pulled me into his arms, pushing apart his jacket and wrapping it around me. The heat from his body surrounded me.

“You know I can’t,” he whispered against my hair.

“You can. You just don’t want to.” My words were muffled against his shirtfront, and he hugged me more tightly.

“Alexis, this is bigger than either of us, bigger than us being together.”

I tilted my head back to look up at him. “Nothing is bigger than us being together.”

“Earlier you said you didn’t care if you died getting your friends out. Did you mean it?”

I nodded.

“Well, you can’t die just yet. You have lots more to do.”

“I’d die to keep you safe, too. I’d give it all up for you.”

“We shouldn’t have to give up anything to be together. That’s why what I have to do, what you have to do, is bigger than our being together.”

I frowned, trying to understand his cryptic words. “What do I have to do?”

“Be true to your pack and to what’s right. I won’t betray those who trust me, who are counting on me. And neither will you. That’s what has to keep us apart. The time for us isn’t now. One day, if we stay the course and do what’s right, not just for ourselves but for the others, we might have more than we could ever have if we took off and spent the rest of our lives hiding. We can’t escape our world. Eventually, it would come looking for us.”

His words dug a terrible pit inside me. “Are you saying I’ll never see you again?”

My hair warmed as he breathed against me. He didn’t answer right away, and I prayed to the black wolf, who I didn’t really believe in, that he would give the answer I wanted and not the one I expected.

When he spoke, his voice was firm, as if he’d made his decision. “I’m saying we both have to go on with our lives and do the work that’s in front of us. After we’ve changed our worlds, if you still want me, I’ll be there.”

The finality of the moment overwhelmed me. “We can’t change our worlds, Eric.”

He bent down and kissed me, his lips warm and hard against mine. I clung to him, and he groaned, deepening the kiss, his tongue touching mine. I whimpered, and he splayed his hands against my back, pressing me against his body. Right then, in the quiet of the mountains with only the sounds of the forest and snow, with him holding me, I could forget the horrors that made up my life. His mouth on mine held the promise of something else, another life, if we could only find it.