never suffer the anguish of endless aloneness that stretched before her without end.
But she wouldn’t. Because Grif was right about one thing, she was a fighter and she would not simply give up.
Kicking hard, she propelled herself upward and made it to the surface once more. Up ahead another pointed rock beckoned.
Stretching, she caught the ledge with both hands and hung on tight, kicking hard to raise herself high enough to get out of the worst of the current’s grip.
She collapsed onto the rocks, panting hard as the current swirled around her ankles. Bumps rose on her skin as cool air blanketed her, and spread to her heart.
She was free, but for what? For so long, her goal to be accepted by the pack had kept her sane and strong.
Now, Grif had pulled aside the veil and shown her all the reasons such a goal would no longer work.
So where did that leave her? Adrift.
If she went back to warn her pack, she would be killed. Such a choice would also mean destroying any chance for the missing females to return home to a better life and people who missed them. Maybe she shouldn’t care after what her captor had done to her, but she did.
If she stayed silent, Grif and his crew would bring war to pack territory and wipe out her people.
Neither was a good option.
And she definitely could not stay with Grif and the Others.
Be her savior? The male was delusional. He wanted to make her into even more of an outsider than she’d been before.
Be a burden? She had been that long enough. She did not need pity. Or another false promise of impending acceptance as long as she did what she was told.
As if by rote, she pushed to her feet, squeezed the water from the cloth she’d found in the storage cavern, and surveyed the least slippery path to the cave opening. The gentle light spilling into the cave indicated the hottest part of the rotation had already come and gone, the suns on their way to rest. Still, if she found the energy and inclination, there was plenty of time left to find shelter and food before she had to hide for the night.
A roar echoed through the cliffs. Her heart slammed into her throat. Her captor had discovered her escape.
She slipped on a slick rock and went down hard. Pain rocketed up her spine. She stifled a whimper and pushed herself up once more. Warm liquid snaked down her thigh. A small cut. Nothing she hadn’t experienced a hundred times before.
Nothing like the near-sweet, achy burn caused by Grif’s palm.
A strong wave of longing hit, making her stumble over the next rock. Horrified, she turned the impulse over in her mind and acknowledged the truth.
She wasn’t just lost. She was altered.
He’d changed her. Wrecked her.
She’d been with her captor for only a short time, but he’d transformed her as surely as the dust storm reshaped the cliffs, remaking her edges into something fundamentally different.
She had thought Gazi could not experience pleasure. Her captor had proved her wrong. Now she was unable to stop craving something she hadn’t known existed only a short time before.
She had thought she’d been enduring so she could eventually thrive, but her captor had shown her how foolish her ideas were. He’d destroyed not just her anazi but her ignorance.
He’d torn away her lies and forced her to see that by accepting their rules, she had allowed Talg to keep punishing her, mostly because she felt she deserved it.
But now that she knew the truth, she could not go back to the pack. She could not beg their forgiveness or accept Talg’s punishment.
She would not betray her pack though, simply because someone had given her praise and shown her pleasure.
A snuffling sound echoed from the rocks directly in front of her.
Her blood. Even a small amount was enough to alert certain predators.
Ducking behind a cluster of rocks, she scanned the area, searching for the source of the noise even as she took measure of the distance to the mouth of the cave, her body clammy. Sharluff had always scared off the worst of the predators before.
Her fingers closed around the first solid heavy rock she found.
The snuffling sound came again.
She’d gotten good at discerning a thigose sound from a far less troubling walrhinot’s, but it was hard to hear anything over the slamming of her heart. Now more than ever, she wished for her spear.
Another snuffle.
Walrhinot. For sure.