The bag really only needs to go in for 90 seconds, but that’s just three presses of the microwave’s 30-second button. Not enough time for what I needed to pull off, while his back was turned.
Just as I expected, the small electrical oven with all its options stymies him. After several seconds of searching, he says, “I cannot find any numbers to key in…”
“The keypad’s inside the door. You have to open it to get to it.”
I glance at the butcher block Damianos left on the counter 3 weeks ago …only to find the slot for the chef’s knife empty. Guess Kirk literally took that one with him to his grave, so the much thinner slicing knife will have to do. Quietly slipping it out, I flood our mate bond with good cheer and yummy popcorn anticipation, as I say, “Sorry, I should have told you that.”
“There is no need to apologize, Reverence,” he answers, opening the door. “It is I who should apologize to you for never having properly learned these things so that I might revere you more readily.”
God, I wish he hadn’t called me that…or apologized. It feels like a punch in a gut, one so painful, I can’t hold on to my fake cheer.
His shoulders stiffen.
“What is wrong…” he begins to ask, turning back around.
But he never finishes that sentence because I plunge the knife straight into his neck.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I run. And run. And run some more.
But it’s not far enough to get the last picture of Damianos out of my head. Collapsed on the floor and choking on the knife embedded in his neck.
There had been blood. So much blood. And I could feel everything he felt over the mate bond: blinding pain, and even more rage.
It was hard to discern whether I was sticking to the plan when I turned and ran out the kitchen door or if I was trying to get away from all that pain and rage.
But I ran, and I didn’t stop running until I could no longer feel him.
Did that mean he was dead?
My wolf whimpers inconsolably inside of me at the thought. Even though she should understand what I did was necessary. No matter what he’d said about revering me forever, the fact remained that he had me collared and was keeping me prisoner.
It was the only way, I tell my inconsolable wolf, the only way we could be free—wait a minute, where am I?
I look around, totally confused. I’ve been running downhill for sure and I’m finally on flat land. But instead of a road, there’s…more woods.
Trees as far as even my wolf eyes could see in the dark. And dammit…I can’t hear any traffic, even when I cup both ears. Which means I have no idea which way to walk to get out of here.
I’m on the verge of falling to my knees and shaking my fist at the sky when the smell of roasting meat hits my nose. Some kind of big game mammal, even though hunters are only allowed to hunt birds in this part of North Dakota. Kyle worked for years with animal rights activists to get those laws passed.
Who cares? Where there’s smoke, there’s someone who is not a sociopath dragon making that smoke. I run toward the smell and let out a huge sigh of relief when I find a group of hunters sitting around a fire.
“The hell? Where’d you come from?” one of them demands, grabbing his rifle when I emerge from the dark.
I sniff the air. They’re not YMWs, they’re humans. Humans stupid enough to hunt in a protected territory, if the carcass hanging upside down over their campfire is any indication. Normally, I’d be tearing them all a new one for daring to shoot anything on four legs around here. I cannot express enough how dangerous that is for the shifters who have to turn into wolves every full moon.
But today, I feel nothing but relief at the sight of them. And I can’t even blame them for pointing their guns at me.
I bet I look like I stepped straight out of a horror movie in my white nightgown covered in dragon blood.
“I’m not trying to hurt you. Lower your guns,” I say, holding up both hands.
Wolves have a lot of cool powers, but surviving gunshots isn’t one of them. And I’m deeply aware that I’m now surviving for two.
“I was kidnapped,” I explain. “And I just now managed to get away. I need you to call someone to come get me and take me out of here.”
“None of us have biochips. No way we’re letting those chinks hack our brains and shit.”
Okay…and apparently they’re racist conspiracy theorists. Total side-eye emoji. But unfortunately, they’re my only hope right now.
My dads can get anywhere they want in the woods. They’re always doing things like telling us to head east or west as opposed to left or right, or predicting the time of day by where the sun’s located in the sky. But I’m stupid dependent on my bioGPS, and I’m pretty sure I’ve overshot the old kingdom village I saw the other day. These racist bags of trash disguised as humans are better than the prospect of getting even more lost trying to find a road.