Page 84 of Awakened and Betrayed
This is a really fucking bad idea!
“Wait!” I shout out, as everyone bustles around me, making plans and lists of supplies they need to get before we leave.
“We can’t go in there magic blazing, thinking that it’s going to get us anywhere. Look at all the evidence there is that shows doing that isn’t effective. We need to be smart about this. Smarter than the others that never came back, and smarter than fucking stupid ass Lachlan who thought he could do it all on his own.”
“What do you suggest then?” Aydin asks.
“I don’t know, but we need time or more help, maybe both.”
Evrin steps forward, shaking his head. “We don’t have time. We don’t know what he’ll do with them.”
“He’ll use them to his best advantage, either that, or they’re already dead either way.” I point to the guys. “They can’t go into this fumbling with their magic and abilities. That’s a fucking death sentence.” I pause trying to figure out the most delicate way to say what I need to say next. “Fuck it; there’s noniceway to say that Lachlan isn’t worth their lives.”
The room fills with the weight of the arguments I know are mounting in all of their minds. I get that Lachlan holds a different place in their hearts than he does mine, but I’m not about to throw my Chosen to the lamia for him.
“Bruiser, we have to do this. We can’t leave him to the same fate that our parents and your parents had. It’s not right. You told us that we can’t stop you from fighting the battles that you need to fight, and now the same applies to us.”
“I’m not trying to stop you. I’m just trying to make you see that you need to train more and be ready. This fucker is no joke, and we can’t come at him the way every missing paladin and caster has.”
“Fine, let’s get there and then work out a plan of attack. Hopefully, Silva will have more information for us then. If Adriel is going to use them as bargaining chips, then we may have time to train and get ready.”
I nod my head, conceding to the fact that as much as I hate this, I have to trust the guys when they choose their battles. If that’s what I expect, then that’s what I have to give, no matter how much it sends my instincts screaming and my heart begging me to come up with a better way.
Sabin sidles up next to me and traces the line of my jaw with the back of his hand.
“I need to go to my family’s warehouse to pick up some shifter saliva, do you want to come with? It might be good to step out of the chaos for a moment, and take a breather?”
I give him a hollow smile and a nod. He takes my hand and leads me away from all of the noise, planning and scrambling around, and as the door that leads out into the garage shuts behind me, I’m instantly enveloped in silence. We climb into his Bronco, and I try to snap myself out of this numb state I’m currently floating in.
“Sabin, you have to see that everything about this is a horrible idea.”
I turn to watch him as he drives to wherever it is that we’re going.
“Yeah, nothing about it is ideal, but what choice do we have? As long as Lachlan and Keegan are alive, we have to fight for them. Just like they did for your dad, and the twins’ parents, and family coven. This is what we’re about, what we’ve been training most of our lives to do, kick ass and bring supes who break the laws to justice.”
He gives me a cheeky smile that I’m more accustomed to seeing on Knox’s face or Bastien’s, and it lifts some of the weight of worry that’s pressing down on me. I can’t help but give him an answering grin. I sigh and lay my head back against the headrest. The sun is starting to sink closer towards the horizon, and this day suddenly feels way too long. The threat of many more days to come, endless in all the worst ways, looms in the air.
It’s getting colder at night, and it seems summer is finally relinquishing its hold as autumn forces its way in. I try to think about mundane things like what the trees around here look like as their leaves change color, instead of focusing on the gnawing pit that was once my stomach. We pull off on to a small road that’s so obscured by trees, you’d miss it if you blinked. It takes us to an area cleared of trees where a small warehouse sits.
Sabin parks near a door, and I climb out of the car and follow him into the building that has rows and rows of shelves filled with inventory for his family’s shop. Fluorescent lights blink angrily above us; their irritated buzzing at being turned on, the only sound in the space. Sabin finds what he’s looking for and begins to put jars of shifter saliva in a box that he must have grabbed when I was too busy looking at other things.
I could probably spend all day here learning about all the items on the shelves. It’d be fun to come out here and learn as much as I can someday when things calm down. Sabin clicks off the lights, and I follow him out the door. I make sure that it clicks shut behind me and turn around and promptly slam right into Sabin’s back. He swears as he stumbles forward and my apology turns to vinegar in my mouth when I take in what had him freezing in place.
Between us and Sabin’s car are four fucking massive grizzly bears. They watch us as we watch them, and it doesn’t take long for me to piece together that there is nothing normal about this gathering of grizzlies. I quickly flip through my memory banks trying to remember if there are bear shifters that live here, but I only remember being told about wolves and pumas.
I slowly lift a hand to activate the runes behind my ear so I can talk to Sabin without whoever these shifters are knowing, but a deep growl from a bear makes me pause. A grizzly that’s way bigger than it would be if it were just a bear stands up on its hind legs, and the next thing I know the bear is gone and in its place is an average-sized man. I wait to see if he’s going to explain why they’re keeping us here when another grizzly stands up and blinks into a person.
Recognition sucker punches me in the face, and all thoughts that this bear hold up is going to end well vanishes. I step out from behind Sabin but don’t step in front of him like I want to, because one of the bears steps closer to us and I decide not to push it... yet.
“You better be here to say thank you, because if you’re here for what I think you are, you’re going to join your buddies,” I warn, and glare at the big, burly douchebag.
I rescued this fucker from Lachlan and his paladin the night I first met them, and now he’s back proving that no good deed goes unpunished.Fuck my conscience!He chuckles and takes a step towards me. I call on my short swords, and they flash solid in my hand.
“Watch it, Yogi, I gave you a shot to get away before, but there won’t be a repeat of my mercy if you come any closer.”
The other shifter that’s in man form chuckles, and it earns him a glare from the guy I saved.
“An old friend reached out me in hopes that I would help him procure something he’d spent a very long time searching for. Imagine my surprise when I get the description of the precious cargo, and I know exactly where to find her. So thank you, pet, you just made me a shit ton of money. I’d say fate handed your sweet ass right to me, but I don’t believe in that shit.”
