Scent of Salvation (Chronicles of Eorthe #1) (20 page)

“No mate?” The question popped out. He could have bitten himself for being an obvious idiot.

“No time for one.”

He handed her a piece of cheese and bread, then stuffed his meal in his mouth before anything else stupid came out of it.

Marin had also packed some winter apples soaked in honey—his favorite.

“The recipe for the penicillin is simple. Your pack will produce it without my help. You can use it for trade as well.”

Swallowing his mouth full of food with a dry throat proved difficult. He coughed and took a sip from the water skin. The cool liquid chased the bread down.

She set her cheese on her lap. “Do you mind if I try to live here?”

His heartbeat tripped over itself. “N-no.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to break any more pack laws.” She grinned. “I’d like to make sure the penicillin works. If not, maybe I can think of something else. I know sulfa can cure infections too. I’m just as sure how to make medicine from it.”

“Oh.” His pulse slowed and almost stopped. She wasn’t staying for him. “That would be…interesting.”

“Are you all right?” She placed her hand on his forehead. “You look pale.”

“I haven’t eaten since yesterday.” He took a huge bite and chewed without tasting. Still, he had some time to convince her he was worth staying for.

Chapter Nineteen

The cool night breeze blew through the entrance to the sick room. Susan took first watch, too exhausted to sleep, and looked after the patients.

No one had reacted adversely to the penicillin. Either shifters didn’t have allergies like humans or she’d done the test wrong.

She chewed on what was left of her thumbnail while sitting on the ground, her back against the wall and a frayed blanket over her lap. Fevers still raged, and one pup had trouble breathing earlier this evening.

Lailanie had focused most of her attention on the pup’s care. She used steam and pounding to loosen the phlegm, getting him to cough most of it out. They decided to give him an extra dose of the weak medicine.

Tears burned behind her eyelids, and she tried to blink them away. These people were strangers to her, but her soul would have fallen apart if that pup had died. The pack supported each other like a tight family, their love for each other palpable. She sniffed and rubbed her nose.

Compared to the pack, her parents were distant and her only brother cold. She never knew what she’d been missing until the Apisi.

The pack members treated her with respect, not like a stray as the Payami had. If she was trapped on Erothe she wanted friends. She wanted somebody who’d pat her back and help her cough when she was sick. She wanted to be loved.

But would the pack ever accept her?

Sorin entered the chamber. He used to frighten her. Not anymore. Huge for a human, he would have been mistaken for NFL linebacker on Earth. He could tie her in a knot with one hand but after this afternoon’s impromptu picnic, she doubted he’d ever hurt her.

His gentle side posed more of a threat than his feral beast, though. Stoic and loving was a killer combination in a male. Add those amber eyes and dark silver hair, and she was a goner.

Hovering over the sick bed, Sorin watched his sick pack slumber and didn’t notice her curled up against the far wall. Guess she wasn’t the only one who couldn’t sleep.

She didn’t mind slipping his detection. The last few days’ events hadn’t given her enough time to observe him. Torchlight flickered and played over his muscles. He still wore the sleeveless shirt with his leather kilt. It gave a woman plenty to imagine.

The kiss they’d shared had curled more than her toes. Hot damn, without Lailanie’s interruption she doubted she would have kept her clothes on much longer.

She’d been with men. Nice men, not the kind to tear your clothes off and take you against the wall. Those types didn’t gravitate to her academic social circles.

Sorin lifted a foot and rested it on the edge of the bed.

“What are you doing?” she tried to whisper but it came out as a half-restrained shout. He shouldn’t expose himself unnecessarily.

“You were so still. I thought you were asleep.”

She struggled to stand with legs gone to sleep. “That’s not an answer.” Slapping her thighs, she tried to get the circulation going again.

He crossed the room and whispered, “I don’t answer to you.”

“Maybe you should.” The words slipped passed her brain-mouth filter. He loomed over her. The unnatural glow of his eyes reminded Susan she dealt with more than a man. She dealt with a wolf shifter. An alpha.

His eyes narrowed. “Don’t challenge me. You’ll lose.”

Heat developed low in her abdomen. She allowed her eyes to travel from his rugged face, along his broad shoulders, to his strong chest. Losing could be fun. She shook the thought from her exhaustion-filled head.

“I can’t rest while they need me.” His soft voice broke the spell she’d fallen under. “I’m their alpha. I’m their strength.”

“How?” Did he mean literally or metaphorically? Either could be possible in another dimension. Hell, she was ready to believe anything at this point.

“It’s difficult to explain.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “A connection exists between each pack, a bond. The alpha…” He shrugged. “They’re—mine. I can sense it. My presence offers them—safety? It’s hard to explain, Susan. I can sense they need me. Leave it at that.”

She grimaced and gazed at the bed. “Fine, but they can’t afford to lose you either. A-and I don’t want you to get sick.” The possibility made her nauseated. Placing him in a grave would destroy something new and flourishing inside her.

“I’ve slept with them every night and lent them my strength since this started. I won’t stay away.” He brushed her cheek with the back of his knuckles. “If I get sick, I trust you to save me.”

She sighed and closed her eyes, savoring the moment. His faith in her was daunting, but she didn’t have the power to stop him. If he caught it she’d be there to support his cough and serve his medicine.

Sorin left her side and crawled onto the bed, settling in the center. The sick moved without waking, as if sensing him. They enveloped his body. The youngest were pushed closest to their alpha.

A pack connection, huh? Just another thing that made her different, an outsider. She hunched under the blanket by herself and rubbed the ache in her hollow chest.

Chapter Twenty

The Temple always offered Kele peace. It was a place she sought whenever she could coerce a hunter to accompany her. Many in her pack didn’t like traveling here. Maybe the loss of their goddess was too much. Maybe they felt abandoned. Sometimes she did.

She trailed her fingers over the flowering vines holding the structure together. Odd how these plants had grown and supported a building that should have crumbled by now. She wanted to change her people’s lack of faith, to bring them hope, but she’d have to resolve her own doubts first. Where had the Goddess gone?

A few shifters from other packs made the journey. She found their offerings on the altar, but mostly, Kele was alone at the Temple besides her guards. Belief in the Goddess had diminished. It might be the reason she’d left or that no one heard her call. Either way, communication didn’t flow between shifters and nature like she’d heard it had. All stories and myth now, but she believed that once upon a time, shifters communed with their land instead of just surviving off it.

Escaping her father’s displeasure, she and Ahote, with two other, younger hunters, had made camp on Temple lands, planning to stay for at least a couple of days. She didn’t think Sorin would allow Susan to return—he’d seemed quite adamant about keeping her—but she’d like to be available to the human female if she escaped and found her way here.

It must have been terrifying to fall into another dimension with no knowledge of the culture or laws. Some part of Kele sympathized with Susan’s plight. In a way the human was like her—a shifter who couldn’t change to feral form, trapped as a civilian.

Her guards hunted the Temple lands for amusement, except Ahote. He sat in feral form on the Temple stairs, jerking the petals off flowers growing on the vines. Stubborn, impossible, pigheaded male wouldn’t talk to her. He preferred the comforts of the den to the wild.

A distant howl carried through the forest. Her guards were on the hunt.

Ahote’s ears perked forward, and he dropped his latest floral victim. “Maybe we’ll have lunch soon.”

At least his mood hadn’t affected his appetite. She strolled between the old stone walls that were broken and cracked.
 

Carved in the solid walls were faded words, their wisdom lost to time. She couldn’t read the broken symbols and longed for a miracle to bring her understanding. Brushing away the vines, she searched for her favorite engraving, full of twirls and one of the few engravings still deeply scratched within.the stone.

She’d figure it out one day. She’d even brought her paper and pen to copy some of the writing.

From the corner of her eye, she caught Ahote jumping to his feet. He crouched low as if preparing to attack.

Her pulse sped and she reached for her dagger on her belt, suppressing her urge to ask questions. Silence was a predator’s best tool, so she crept toward the exit.

The sound of struggle came from outside the Temple, followed by a body impacting the ground with a grunt.

Fear seized her gut, and she hurried to the stairs. Could it be Susan? She’d only recently made a delicate friendship with her. Such things needed time to grow, and it wouldn’t take much to shred those ties. Stupid males.

Ahote’s arm snaked around her waist and set her back behind him. “Stay here. I don’t want you tripping me if they can’t control him.”

“Him?” She caught a glimpse of her guards escorting a thin, male shifter to the foot of the stairs. “This is the Temple, Ahote. You have no right to treat others poorly here. It’s sacred ground. Neutral territory.”

“It’s also a place open for attack, and you’re my responsibility.” He pointed at the male. “Look, he’s not even bleeding.”

The unknown male cowed in submission. No posturing. No threats. An omega. Her pack had very few of these, and her father reacted violently whenever she approached one. “That’s enough.” She raised her voice in a perfect impression of her mother’s.

The guards glanced at each other then backed away.

Kele’s spirit lifted. It worked. Maybe her female parent had a useful influence after all.

As she descended the steps, Ahote hovered at her side like she’d grown a new shadow. She peered at the omega. “Please accept my apology. They protect me—from everything.”

The male’s golden fur shone with the sunlight. “Understandable, princess.” He raised his face and met her gaze with his intense green eyes.

The breath in her chest froze. Unlike her guards, the male didn’t look through her but at her, solidifying her existence. “I-I’m not a princess.” She blinked and waited but he didn’t move. “Please stand.”

Ahote tensed behind her.

“The Temple is open to all.” She spoke to the stranger but her words were for Ahote. A foreboding settled on Kele.

“You’re very gracious.” He rose and pulled out a leather kilt from his shoulder pack, then shifted to civil from. As his body reformed he dressed and maintained his modesty. “Better? I’m less a threat this way.”

Slight of shoulder, he still bore enough muscles to be mistaken as a hunter. Handsome. She had trouble meeting his gaze. His presence made her giddy and bashful all at the same time.

He climbed the steps until he stood next to her. “I’m Peder. Sorin of the Apisi sent me to gather some medicinal herbs. I couldn’t find any on our land, but I know they grow here.”

Ahote’s growl vibrated the stone under her feet. “More Apisi dogs…”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Sorin stole a female bearing Ahote’s mark yesterday.”

The omega’s gaze darted to the guards at the foot of the steps. “Susan? It must have been a temporary mark. She wears Sorin’s now. The way she stares at my alpha, I don’t think she came against her will either.” He winked at her.

Taking a deep breath, Kele forced the tension to ease from her shoulders. He spoke the truth. Or at least, what he perceived as the truth. She hated to admit it but Benic was correct about Susan being an untapped resource of knowledge. Kele had been a fool to lose her. Now, the naïve human was in the hands of tribe’s most feral pack.

Peder glanced at Ahote, who still looming over them. “You don’t seem heartbroken over the loss. They seem like a good match.”

The dark hunter stepped around her, his claws flexing in and out of his fingertips.

Peder’s eyes went wide as he sank to his knees.

“Ahote!” She sandwiched her body between the males. Could Peder stay quiet long enough to keep his head? Torn, she didn’t know if she should step out of Ahote’s way or not. This was playing out as Benic predicted. If Sorin mistreated Susan, the fault fell on Kele. “Susan wishes to stay and explore the possibility of staying with the Apisi.” She glanced at the pretty male kneeling at her feet. “In the meantime we should take measures to assure Susan can return to the Payami if she wishes.”