already seen how strangely time passed. There’d been less than a couple minutes between her and Austin disappearing before they returned, and with Eli, she’d been gone ten. Max.
Only the Mother knew how long we might be parted. To be away from her, forced apart…that was the last thing I wanted. Or needed.
I was so ready to claim her, I was about to fucking howl.
I needed to be tied to her. Needed it like I needed my next breath, because if I was tied to her, I’d know how she was doing, what she was thinking and feeling, enduring.
I stared at the flies as the humming rose to a crescendo that I was sure I could feel in my bones, the vibration throbbing through my skull like the power of a pneumatic drill, and suddenly, just like I’d clicked my fingers, it was gone.
The lights winked out, and I stared, aghast, as they all fell to the ground, surrounding her in a pile of dead things that were so small, I barely saw them in the dim light.
What I did see?
My mate’s naked, sleeping form.
I sighed at her beauty, loving that she was back in her skin, because that meant I could hold her as I moved her around.
She was still sleeping, and that was fine, since I saw her belly wasn’t torn to shreds. If anything, she was back to normal.
Perfect.
In all ways.
Relieved to the point of fucking tears, I shrugged my feelings aside and instead, gathered her in my arms.
She was a deadweight, but that was nothing I couldn’t handle.
Maybe I should have kept her there, close to the tree, but I wasn’t sure if this place was safe. The cougar had attacked here, what was to stop her from coming back if we were trapped in the clearing for days? That’d be enough time for both the beast and my mate to heal some.
No, I needed to put some distance between us.
With her in my arms, her skin against mine, my heart settled some, making me realize just how fast it had been beating. How hard the panic had filled me.
We seemed to walk for ages, but I carried on tracing Eli’s original path to wherever they’d come from.
I knew that Austin had felt sure he’d been with her for five nights, so I knew there was definitely somewhere safe for us to find shelter. Even if wolves had entered his territory…
Nowhere, technically, was safe in a place where I couldn’t reconnoiter without leaving my woman unguarded.
Not going to happen.
Just the thought had me tipping her up so I could press a kiss to her forehead.
She sighed, and almost scared the shit out of me when her arms moved up to curve around my neck.
The kiss… Was she Sleeping Beauty or something?
Before I could overthink shit, she didn’t improve my mood by waking up.
No, she just sighed, cuddled into me, and squeezed my neck like she was awake.
But she definitely wasn’t.
Even now, I couldn’t hear her, so she was either unconscious, which felt impossible with how she was able to cling to me, or she was unable to communicate with me at all here.
Loneliness speared me yet again, and it was with relief that the sudden tumbling of water made itself known to me.
When I peered over into the distance, squinting slightly because the light was so strange here, and amid the trees it was even fainter, comfortable, but still a little difficult to see into the far distance, I could discern the pool Austin had described.
If it wasn’t for the fact that Sabina and he had been knocked out, I’d have thought them both insane.
Seeing, however, was believing.
I tugged her tighter to me, needing her close, now that I was utterly alone in my head.
Having never been that way in my life before, having always had Austin’s presence, the numbskull, inside my head, I had to admit…I’d appreciate him a lot more from now on.
Mother, my brain felt like a vacuum, and the only thing that was tying me to an odd sort of sanity was the strong hold she had on my neck in this even odder half state, where she was neither awake nor asleep.
I led us to the pool, and since we were both naked, it didn’t seem too much of a stretch to figure that she wouldn’t mind getting wet. Especially not when I waded into the water and felt just how perfect the temperature was.
I sighed, appreciating the heat against my