Kian
Dawn comes too fucking soon.
I’ve spent the night tossing and turning, too focused on the threat of the cops returning before we clear out to get any semblance of sleep. Since Amora tried to use the coffee pot as a weapon yesterday, caffeine is out of the question, so by the time we pack some essentials, shift, and set out, I’m more than ready for a good run to clear my head.
We head north, our sights set on Wyoming. Last we heard, thanks to Quinton’s obsessive need to keep tabs on his ex, Felicity’s pack had set up camp in the southern part of the state.
Worry for Frost eats at me like acid flowing through my veins as we start to make our way across the landscape. Even with Amora staying so close to him that they look like they’re glued together, it’s never far from my mind that he’s one bad moment away from reverting back into a mindless beast made of fury and pain. It’s a long haul from Colorado to Wyoming on foot, and we can’t spend the whole trip sprinting flat-out. Not with Frost in his condition.
Anything could happen on this journey.
I have to be fucking ready.
The first couple days of travel are fairly uneventful, which I’m grateful for. We’re not going as fast as I’d like, but at least we’re all holding up all right. Or, mostly all right.
You know what I miss? Malix says through mind speak on our second day, giving an exaggerated sigh. Our paws crunch on a thick bed of leaves in an unoccupied swath of forest in the northern portion of Colorado. Burgers. A big fat juicy burger smothered in grilled onions. Pop-tarts and old cans of beans just don’t cut it.
I roll my eyes and glance at Frost for the hundredth time. Amora’s lithe dark brown wolf brushes against his larger white wolf, the two of them nearly tripping over each other as they walk. They stride shoulder to shoulder, and her attention is obviously on him more than anything around her. Despite the fact that we’re more traceable in our normal wolf forms, it made more sense for Frost to just be a wolf and not his shadow wolf—both to keep him from being too overwhelmed by the shadows, and so he could travel at a slower speed with Amora to keep him sane.
I’m not jealous of her constant attention or the way she sticks so close to him. Just… worried.
Seriously, Malix says disgustedly. Who the hell stocked that damn pantry? Or maybe they took all the good stuff with them when they left the place. Which is just fucking rude, if you ask me.
I ignore his ranting. As usual, he’s falling back on his humor to keep the atmosphere light. I don’t hate him for it. Nothing about this situation is “light” or easy. Frost is hanging on to a mere thread of sanity, and Amora serving as the tether for him isn’t a sustainable plan. And seeking out Felicity, of all fucking people? We were programmed to hate her from the moment she left Quinton, and now we have to overcome years of brainwashing in order to ask her for help.
The hole we’re in just gets deeper by the day.
Amora’s laugh cuts into my thoughts through our mind speak connection. We’re lucky there was any food there at all. Especially since hunting wasn’t really an option. It could’ve been worse. It could’ve been dozens of tins of sardines or something.
Malix lets out a soft yip. Hey, sardines have their place in the world. Although not on pizza. Never on pizza.
Amora’s wolfish grin widens, her mouth hanging open as her tongue lolls out one side. She bumps her shoulder affectionately against Frost but speaks to Malix. Do you ever think of anything other than food?
Sex, Malix replies without missing a beat.
I shake my head, amused in spite of myself. If there’s anything consistent in our world, it’s Malix’s sense of humor. He may drive me up a fucking wall most days, but that’s just because he’s like a younger brother to me.
I wouldn’t change him. Not for anything.
But other things do change. People change.
Felicity might have changed too.
Just like I have.
For so long, I was a slave to Quinton’s purpose. I didn’t know any better. I had no reason to question him, no moral reason to stand against him, and the shadows inside me—the darkness—compelled me to follow his orders with little thought involved. We were raised to never question what we were created to do. His purpose was our purpose.
But now… now I have a new purpose.
Her.
I glance over at Amora again, careful to keep it surreptitious. I haven’t fully come to terms with any of this yet. The depth of my feelings for her unnerves me, especially given the fact that the potion Erik gave us was meant to destroy the bond entirely.
It’s become very obvious that the bond hasn’t broken. I can’t deny the connection between us, or the way some kind of unbreakable thread seems to weave through all of us. So either the witch didn’t bother making a potion that would actually work since he was going to sell us out anyway, or the bond was just too strong to be severed.
Or maybe this isn’t even the mate bond anymore. Maybe it’s something stronger. Something that I can’t fight, even if I wanted to.
We stop at a river just before we reach the Wyoming state line and hydrate, then walk a few more hours before we camp for the night. It follows like that for a couple of days—traveling, talking, keeping an eye on Frost, and all the while, closing the distance between us and Felicity.
Somewhere in the dead ass middle of nowhere on the third day, Malix says, Hey, Kian, do you remember that game we played when we were kids?
I cock my head in his direction. Which one?
I spy, he answers, shaking out his black fur. Remember? I spy with my little eye… something yellow.
Jesus fucking Christ. I am not playing I spy, I groan wearily. Our lives are in danger, and we’re marching toward a woman who was once our sworn enemy. I spy is a dumb ass game.
Amora huffs out a breath, shooting me a narrow-eyed look. There’s nothing wrong with I spy. Lighten up. Just because you’ve got a stick up your ass, that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to shove one up ours too. I’ll play with you, Mal.
I grit my teeth, but I can’t be mad at her. Hell, maybe I do need to lighten up.
Still, after three hours of listening to them go back and forth, even Frost starts silently begging me to shut them up. At least he’s got my back.
We break as often as we need to for rest, and especially when Frost’s energy seems to flag. He seems to be constantly fighting the shadows inside him, even in wolf form, so despite his fury and strength in the battle back at the farmhouse, this journey wears him out fast and often.