Savage King: New Worlds - Milly Taiden Page 0,31

his hands. What if the alpha killed them? What if they became sick? Would his mate ever forgive him? Would he ever see her again? What if this was the wrong thing to do?

On the tribal side of the ditch, the females who went to look for berries were out of sight. The guards and scouts didn’t patrol this far from camp, so he had a bit more time with them. So he thought until the screams began.

Wren jumped to her feet and hollered out to her friends. “Zee, they’re in trouble.” She took off running toward the sounds, and he followed at a distance. She glanced over her shoulder. “Hurry your furry ass up.” He picked up the pace while she was looking at him then slowed when she turned away.

He heard the deep-timbre shouts of a voice he hadn’t thought about in years. The boy caught between being a child and a man was now grown. He wondered what his once best friend looked like. Had he shed his chubby cheeks in favor of a strong jaw? Had his hair stayed the unusual light color it had been?

Then he wondered why the guards were so far out from the village? Before, the range they secured weren’t nearly this wide.

“Zee,” Wren hollered. He heard the fear and anger in her one word. She was far ahead of him. She’d brought attention to herself. Tribe guards turned toward her. Xenos slid behind a tree. Wren kept yelling and had started running back to him when a guard caught her around the waist.

She gave him one hell of a time, kicking and punching. He worried her captor would become angry and hurt her. Just let him take you, my love. He dodged behind trees then broke into a run to get to the other side of the ditch before someone saw him. One word full of fury and heartbreak chased him from the woods. Coward!

Chapter Fourteen

Wren fought the tears of betrayal, but they were too strong. She sat against a tree with her two friends, while men clothed the same Zee—loin cloth and diaper combo—stood talking about them. Most of the men couldn’t take their eyes off her chest. It didn’t help that her shirt was soaked and stuck to her like a second skin. She was thankful it wasn’t white.

With her last breath, she let Zee know how she felt about him running away. Cowards weren’t allowed. If a friend was in trouble, she would be trying to help them. She didn’t get it. Why would he risk his life fighting a squid thing in water but run when people arrived?

Here she was worrying about him, when she needed to be thinking how to get her friends out of this. The main thing she wished was not to die. As long as she was alive, there was hope.

The men scooted closer and closer to the tree, most staring at her chest. “Take a fucking picture,” she yelled, startling her friends. The men backed away, mumbling. The two main guys who had been talking seemed to have reached a decision. Both drew their knives and headed toward the girls.

Wren stiffened. This was it. They were going to kill all three of them. They’d never see Grandmom or their families again. In her head, she screamed for someone to save them. She hoped that Zee would come, galloping in at the last second and killing all the men, saving her. That’s how she would’ve written it, bringing in the twist at the end; when the reader didn’t think the hero was still alive.

But no Zee or tiger here. Her hands dug into the ground, one squeezing on a tree root by her leg. Please, don’t let them near us. Don’t let this be the end.

A gust of wind in the branches above them whipped the leaves into a shower, blowing into the face of the two men with blades. They rubbed the debris from their eyes, not stopping. When the men were a few yards away, one of the lower limbs swung low and smacked one of the men in the arm, sending him to the ground. A second stem did the same to the other warrior, knocking him to the ground.

One of the guys on the ground yelled something, and the rest of the men standing around suddenly turned to the girls and headed toward them. Reaching the outer perimeter of the tree, limbs and branches dipped down and beat on