Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 242728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1214(@200wpm)___ 971(@250wpm)___ 809(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 242728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1214(@200wpm)___ 971(@250wpm)___ 809(@300wpm)
It’d taken a while to slink into position, pain constantly shooting through my arm, but I used the heavy cloak of darkness as my ally. My bare skin was coated in earth by the time I’d lowered myself to my belly and narrowed my eyes at a different world.
A world where there was more than one of me. More than one of the girl. More people than I’d ever seen. And babes too. Younglings who darted from one pair of legs to another, squealing and giggling, reminding me so much of the playing wolf pups that my heart clenched with homesickness.
For most of the night, I’d watched.
I’d seen the large platters of food being passed around and swallowed back hunger as people ate their fill, drank from carved cups, and smoked a long thin device that released pungent smoke, sending it spiralling with the smoke from the large fire that everyone seemed to worship.
No one cared that they danced and ate next to death.
No one seemed to fear the pop and spark as flames chewed through a particular piece of delicious wood. They merely replaced it with another log from the pile stored on the outskirts of their camp. Their hands touched the heat as they tossed in waste from their meals and other unwanted debris, but their skin never burned.
My hackles rose.
These were mortals.
Like me.
Blood and bone—creatures born of earth, yet when they suddenly held up their hands and cupped cheery flames in their palms, they’d proven they weren’t like me at all.
They were part of the fire.
And fire was my enemy.
It was every beast’s enemy, and I swallowed a growl as the tall man with his hair heavy with braids blazed the brightest, holding his arms aloft, revealing enough power in his hands to incinerate their home, my home, and every wolf I called family.
I’d wanted to rip out his throat for that.
I’d wanted to race into their camp and stop them.
They were idiotic to think fire could be controlled and tamed.
It can’t.
Eventually, it would slip from its prison and set the world alight.
If it wasn’t for her, I would’ve left.
I would’ve run all the way back to the cave—wound or no wound—and gathered the pack to come hunting. By morning, this entire threat could be dealt with. Wolf teeth were sharp and effective, and I was only too happy to use Salak and his hunters if it meant that the many other animals would be kept safe from these mortals and their fire.
But her.
The moment I found her sitting with another female by the hated flames, I couldn’t leave. My eyes locked onto her as if they were drawn to her. As if there was an invisible bond that tugged and guided until I found her again.
I’d watched all night, not caring that my arm still bled or that the throbbing agony had given way to a dull numbness. My fingers worked, but my strength was gone. The weakness in my bitten arm worried me, but I didn’t know how to fix it. I’d done my best to pack the gaping tear with absorbent dirt to stop the bleeding and wrapped a long stem of grass around my arm, tying it tight by my elbow, trying to keep the two bitten pieces together.
When I’d run from the lynx, I’d intended to return to Salak and the safety of the cave. But once the lynx stopped hunting me and the plume of smoke was far in the distance, I’d tripped with sudden light-headedness.
My skin broke out in sweat even as dusk fell, slowly bleeding into night.
And I’d stood in the middle of the vast expanse of grass, trying to decide what to do. I could run back to my pack...or...I could go back for the girl.
I didn’t think I had enough energy to make the journey back to Salak and then return for her. Not until I was healed at least. Not until I figured out how to regather my strength and fight whatever sickness now lived within my blood.
And by then, it might be too late.
She said she lived with other males.
Males who were a threat to the happiness she could grant me.
I hunched into the earth, a different kind of pain fisting my heart.
The girl had proven, rather callously, that she didn’t want to go with me.
She wanted nothing to do with me.
But...I wanted her.
Only her.
Even now, after seeing so many mortals in one place, I still only wanted her.
Shaking myself free from sick-sticky thoughts, I forced my eyesight to focus. The spreading weakness in my blood infected my mind as well as my body, making everything so much harder.
I picked up my pace as the girl swallowed a moan and added a burst of speed to her haphazard run.
She left behind the others and their fire.