The latch was maneuvered, her quiet retreat unnoticed in the gloomy morning hours.
Clawing for the nearest handhold, she braced against a neighbor’s dwelling to steady a body wracked with tremors and felt a trickle run down her thigh. She had wet herself.
And she couldn't care less.
Cold sweat and misty morning air did nothing to cool the fire crackling through flesh and bones.
Every cell in her body demanded that she just lay still and submit to her fate.
How many more seasons could she crawl without screaming before a neighbor found her sobbing in a ditch?
Already she’d chewed her tongue bloody, dug her fingernails into her palms until they bled. Anything it took to stay quiet.
The Alphas were close, the shooting stars in the sky a sign they descended through the atmosphere and would touch down in mere minutes. They’d be storming through the village before the sun rose, and should she be unable to move, they would find her while ransacking the settlement, convulsing beside a mud-splattered animal pen.
Pulling desperation around her like a comforting blanket, Morgaine forced her body forward another step.
It took her over an hour to stagger the short distance to the settlement’s boundary, another hour to lurch down the road to the nearest tree line.
No matter the wildlife, the forests were safe enough if one knew where to tread—safer by far than the massive warriors, with their vermilion armor, their weapons, and their cruelty. While the Alphas went shelter to shelter taking what they desired, Morgaine would collapse beyond their notice.
While they pillaged, she’d suffer alone.
She’d suffer a thousand days of agony for her mother. She’d suffer the guilt of watching other families grieve their stolen children upon her return.
And once the sun set, their ships bursting with stolen people and goods, the Alphas would have no reason to linger. They would leave. They always did. And her pain would end as it always did.
Morgaine only had to stay unseen for one day.
But freedom wouldn’t count if she were found writhing on the road.
A sharp turn to the right, and the grass’ morning damp began to weigh down her dragging skirts. Fabric caught on her ankles and sent Morgaine sprawling against a dogwood tree.
Ten paces from the stone path, she lay unable to move a single step further.
Under her body, the ground was mud, soggy with fresh water from the stream just out of reach. One sip, a mouthful of sweetness, she craved it more than life. But Morgaine could not move no matter how she strained.
Curled upon herself, the crackling agony traveled through bone and organs. Sobbing against the dirt, time lost all meaning—an eternity of fire in the center of the ugliest hell.
For hours she lay, fevered and ill, gnarled roots digging into her spine. Hours lost in pain.
And then the Alpha ships began to rise into the setting sun. One by one, dozens of vessels filled the sky and began to disappear beyond the atmosphere.
With them went the source of her torment.
Expanding her ribs in her first full breath since before the sun had risen, Morgaine twitched her fingers, then her toes—arms, legs, all movement slowly beginning to return. Damp with sour sweat, caked in drying mud, she crawled wild, unkempt, and exhausted toward the nearest source of comfort.
Trickling water was gulped by the mouthful. Hands and face rinsed clean of muck and crusted tears. There was nothing that could be done for her dress. Grass has stained it, sodden mud having smeared her mother’s fine embroidery.
Throat burning as if grated raw by sand, she told herself to get up.
Stomach sloshing, nauseated, Morgaine found her feet and let the tree at her back bear her weight until she might find the strength to walk home.
With a weak smile, she chanted a prayer for forgiveness.
The spirits did not listen.
Chapter 2