Total pages in book: 193
Estimated words: 184001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 920(@200wpm)___ 736(@250wpm)___ 613(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 184001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 920(@200wpm)___ 736(@250wpm)___ 613(@300wpm)
Someone didn’t just get hurt. There was a struggle here. I can see blood in a small puddle turning the rain pooling there into a light pink.
“Khalil!” I shout. “Thorin! Zeeeeke!” Nothing but the howling wind answers me back, so I continue down the riverbed, my boots splashing in the swiftly rising water. “Khalil…Thorin…Zeke!”
The water surpasses my shins, slowing me down and erasing the breadcrumbs, so I climb out of the riverbed, but it’s not easy to do because the bank is a few feet above my head and the wet ground is too slippery to get a good hold. I manage to use some of the embedded rock to pull myself up until I’m lying on the ground panting and shivering. Eventually, I have enough strength to crawl to the trunk of a tree at the edge of the bank and rest there.
Get up. Keep going. They need you.
I pull myself up and continue following the riverbed, but I don’t make it more than a few feet before it feels like I’m being hunted. Call it a sixth sense from nearly dying earlier, but I don’t question it as I reach for my bow and draw an arrow from my quiver.
Those wolves could still be in the area, and so could the bear.
And I ran out of the cabin and into a storm in the dead of night like a fool in love.
I force myself to keep going, to put one foot in front of the other, my eyes and ears on alert as I call their names over and over. Thorin, Khalil, and Zeke.
No one answers me.
The water in the channel below me is rising higher and higher as the rain continues to pour. It rushes alongside me as I come to a crossroads and consider which direction to go. Lightning flashes then, and I see a lone figure walking toward me from the trail that leads back to the cabin.
It has to be one of the guys but an ominous feeling crawls down my spine because I don’t recognize the gait. I know all of their walks pretty well by now—even Zeke’s.
Thorin walks like he never stops hunting—silent, deadly, and focused.
Khalil walks with a confident strut that says he’s used to being watched, coveted, and admired.
Seth walks with a perpetual bounce in his step and trouble in his wake.
Zeke walks like he’s alone…trapped under a cloud of turmoil.
The tall figure moving through the dark has a stride I don’t recognize. He walks like he’s trying to blend with the night and become one with shadow. He walks like he’s darkness incarnate, looking for something to consume. How do I know? The instant fear coiling around my heart and begging me to stay away.
Instinct from living with predators tells me not to run the other way.
As if testing my resolve, thunder claps and I jump. I continue to eye the figure that walks through the downpour as if he doesn’t notice the storm.
“Hello?” I shout.
“Aurelia!”
I’m startled by the voice that answers because it doesn’t come from in front of me where the lone figure is still walking toward me.
It comes from behind.
Spinning around, I gasp when I see Khalil with one arm thrown around an injured Thorin as he holds him up. Disturbingly, I note that they’re on the other side of the river. Thorin clearly needs help, and so does Khalil judging by the way he’s struggling to keep Thorin upright, but there’s no way I can get to them. There’s no way they can get to me either.
A twig snaps, and I’m suddenly reminded that I’m not alone. But if Thorin and Khalil are over there, then that must mean…
I spin around just as his face comes into view.
“Zeke?” He doesn’t answer, and something about the anesthetized look in his eyes—as if his soul had been wiped of feeling—makes me uneasy, but I’m still relieved to see him. I can already feel some of my worry melting away now that I can see he’s…mostly okay. His dark hair is plastered to his forehead and curling around his ears. He’s shirtless, and I can see bruises from earlier as well as fresh red ones forming. What the hell? Had he gone ten rounds with a brick wall since leaving the cabin? “Are you okay? What happened? Where did you go?”
I reach out a hand toward him despite the malevolence rolling off him in waves and to my surprise, he reaches back.
Our fingers are stretching toward one another, lightning flashes, and my stomach pitches for some reason. The tips of our fingers just barely meet when Khalil screams again. “Aureliaaaaaa!”
The desperate cry is dosed with panic unlike anything I’ve ever heard from him before, so full of fear that it easily rises above the rain and roaring river.
Startled by that unbridled scream, I drop my hand before Zeke can seize it and turn away in search of whatever caused it. When I don’t see anything except for Khalil and Thorin standing unharmed at the very edge of the opposite bank, my confusion spikes. “Are you okay?” I shout.