462: The Wolf

The Wolf

If you like music while you write, try "I Ran (So Far Away) – Epic Trailer Version" by Hidden Citizens (yes, it does need to be that version, lol.) It's what I was listening to while writing!2

*****

~ SASHA ~

Zev moved so fast the fur made a snapping sound as it was thrown back. Sasha didn't even have time to register that he was moving before he was on his feet and starting across the cave.

"You know who I am, correct?" Zev asked, his voice dead.

"Yes. It's time to give up, Zev," the guy said, his face serious. "If you don't fight, you won't get hurt. And neither will she." His eyes cut to Sasha, who suddenly remembered she was naked. She gasped as Zev shifted, his wolf hunched and prowling, head and shoulders low as he padded around the fire, a silent threat.

"No need for that," the guy lifted his hands as if in surrender. "I didn't even get my gun out so you'd know I came to take you in, not to kill you."

Bullshit, Zev snarled in Sasha's head. But all the guy heard was a low, menacing growl.

The guy's eyes went wide and he turned on his heel, grabbing some kind of communicator from his hip and pulling it up to his mouth as he started sprinting for the cave mouth. "Code Red! Code Red! I have—"

The guy's scream as Zev hit his back in full flight, teeth in the back of his neck, was bloodcurdling.

Sasha screamed, "Zev! Be careful!" but it was too late.

The communicator clattered across the stone floor unnoticed, as the guy screamed in terror and pain, arms and legs flailing as he tried desperately to flee, but Zev was too strong.

Don't move!

Zev's voice boomed in Sasha's head and she froze, halfway out of the furs as he snarled and shifted his grip on the guy's neck, cutting off the screams with a strangled gurgle.

Sasha stood in shock as Zev, teeth buried in human skin, turned his head enough to meet her eyes once, then bolted from the cave, dragging the guy, who was still alive but fighting weakly now. They were gone in seconds, leaving Sasha gaping at a blood-spattered floor, and smears that followed their path out.

She couldn't breathe.

She needed to breathe.

What the actual fuck had just happened? How had that guy found them?

Zev. Oh, no… Zev.

Trembling so that she worried her knees might give, Sasha yanked on her clothes that she'd left next to the furs the night before. But as soon as she was dressed she froze again.

What was she supposed to do?

Zev was out there killing a guy. Had the guy given away their location? Had he communicated with the others before he came into the cave? He must have, surely?

Then she looked across the bloodied cave to the little black device that lay innocuously on its side on the floor, nearer the cave mouth.

There was a light blinking on it.

She didn't even question, just tore across the cave to stomp her foot down on the thing. The casing snapped and a piece shot out to smash against the cave wall. But Sasha kept stomping. Then, when her foot got sore, she picked the thing up and threw it against the same wall, as hard as she could.

It shattered and one piece of it flew back, slicing her cheek while the other bits pattered around the floor of the cave. Sasha gasped and clapped a hand to her cheek, crouching and covering her face. But a moment later, everything was quiet.

She straightened, wiping the line of blood on her hand onto her thigh, and gulping at the air.

What the hell.

What the hell?

She wasn't sure how long she stood there, but eventually she needed to move or she was going to cry. So she turned on shaky legs and crouched to pick up one of the pieces of the communicator.

A few minutes later she thought she'd found everything. Including the chip or whatever the brain of that thing was. She threw it, along with the other pieces, into the embers of the fire, then ran to get more wood and kindling, throwing the small pieces on first, then putting one of the large logs over the top and blowing like Zev had shown her to make the flames pick up.

It took a couple of minutes and she'd almost suffocated it before the wood finally took and the flames began to crackle and leap, pouring smoke up to the roof of the cave that collected like a cloud that slowly trailed up the cave towards the mouth.

It wasn't until she went outside to see if she could see Zev—and saw the bloody trail instead—that she realized the smoke was pouring out of the cave in a long cloud—and the morning sun was now up.

That smoke cloud was a dead giveaway to their location.

She almost screamed, but swallowed it back and ran back into the cave, picking up the two large waterskins they'd brought, poured them over the massive fire, now roaring, spitting, and crackling, almost three feet high.

The water doused the biggest of the flames but didn't put it all out, and it seemed like there was even more smoke now.

Panicking, Sasha ran outside and grabbed an armful of snow from a bank near the cave mouth, running back inside to dump it on the fire, where it hissed and whined.

She did that three or four more times before there was no more smoke. But now the firepit was a soggy mess of wet black ash, coals, and half-burned wood.

Looking back and forth between it and the haze of smoke in the cave and outside, and the blood on the floor—now marked by her footsteps in and out and around the fire—Sasha's vision began to blur with tears. She backed up to the wall of the cave and then, in a parody of Zev's crisis the night before, she slid down it, her ass bumping on the stone floor so her teeth clattered.

And even though she knew it wasn't what strong Alphas did, she pulled up her knees, dropped her face into them, and wept.

***** 

IT'S ALMOST THE END!  Come join me for AFTER THE ALPHA live Q & A! (This note added after publication so you aren't charged for the words)

Mark your calenders! The final chapter of RISE OF THE DARK ALPHA will be posted in just 5 days! 

When the new month begins, there will be a mass release of 10 chapters, leaving only 10 chapters in privilege for the final days. I will be posting 5 chapters of extra content on 13 June to push further material into "normal" reading. Then ALL chapters will be released from privilege on the 1st of July. 

Buy 600 coin privilege (which is less than you paid this month) on 1 June (31 May in the USA) to read the end of the book, and then join me LIVE on June 12th to read the extra content for FREE (go to linktr.ee/authoraimee and join my FB or Discord to gain that access.) Or wait for 1 July and read it all right here!

THANK YOU SO MUCH for your support of me, and of this book. I am truly humbled. And I can't wait for you to see Sasha and Zev get their happy ending!

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