Page 44 of Breed

“We go back, we face all of the same problems we faced before. We act as pawns for powers who use us for their own ends. We get used, and we get sacrificed and we get nothing. We’re going to stay here, Lettie. We’re going to move far enough away from where they left us that we won’t be found by Wrath or anyone else, and we’re going to start life over. You and I, out here. Free in a way we will never be in the city.”

My heart sinks. He doesn’t understand.

“I have to go back. The crew…”

“Damn your crew. And damn my loyalties. Damn everything we’ve pledged ourselves to because we were once too weak to support ourselves. We’re not weak anymore. We don’t need them anymore. We need each other. That’s all.”

I don’t want to hear what he’s saying. I’m not really even listening. All I can hear is the fact that I am not going to get back to my captains or to my crew. He’s taken me from everything, and he’s going to keep me out here, stranded, captive, alone.

I know better than to argue with him. Shan doesn’t care what I think or what I want. He’s a dictator. He’s no better than Wrath, or Thorn, or Avel. He’s a just another big male who thinks he can stand in the way of my goals. I’ll show him that he’s wrong.

I have already decided I am going to make my own way back. I have some idea where I am. And I am sure that the city itself will act as a landmark at night. The lights from it will be visible in the dark if I just get high enough.

Shan is asleep when I creep out of the makeshift camp. We do not make love that night. I don’t even cuddle with him. He knows I am angry, but he does not do anything to entertain my anger or to assuage it. He lets me sit and bristle and think furious thoughts until finally I pretend to go to sleep.

The second I am sure he too has gone to sleep, I start heading for high ground, further up the hillock in which our cave is located. The starry sky is obligingly bright, which is very nice. All I have to do is find a point from which to see the world around us. This is almost too easy. Wrath is going to regret sending us here once he sees me again. I’m starting to develop an appetite for vengeance, I think.

I get to the top of the hill and look around. Something is immediately wrong. Not only can I not see the lights of the city as I assumed I would be able to… I can hardly see anything. The entire world appears to be silver-tipped forest. The undulations of the canopy almost look like waves in the silver of the night.

Something is moving through it in the distance. Something that looks to my untrained and all too naked eye like a massive tanker moving through an ocean. Then it stops and it extends out of the canopy, and I see a head larger than any I have ever imagined existing thrown back. A roar rumbles out across the wilds, an ancient sound that sends a tremor to the very marrow of my bones. That is a sound my very cells know. A sound all creatures who descend from prey must recognize.

We have not been dropped into the wilds in an amusing and harmless way. We have been left in a place dominated and inhabited by predators that I thought only existed in the collective human consciousness. Whatever I am looking at is bigger than my mind can easily comprehend. It makes the trees look like toys. It makes the whole world seem infinitely smaller. But where is the city? How far out are we really?

I am caught between awe, fear, and a deep disappointment. I have only known myself as part of the crew of the Mare. I don’t want to know myself any other way. I find myself putting my hand on my lower belly, and becoming aware that I might already be more than I was when I lived safely on a ship of thieves. I might already be a mother. And Shan, as much as I am angry at him for daring to tell me I don’t get to go back to civilization, is already my mate.

Is that what’s making me so furious? The fact that so many changes have already irrevocably happened, and there’s no way back from any of them?

I suddenly become aware that I am standing in the open with no armor of any kind, just barely dressed. My scent is being picked up by the wind and carried to the nostrils of every nocturnal hunter in miles. I am less a person and more a stinking piece of bait.

The bushes below me rustle, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that something is coming for me. I see a powerful, narrow head. I see slitted animal eyes. I see silver flashes of razor-sharp teeth and claws, launching toward me on powerful digitigrade legs that act like bands of expanding steel rocketing a predatory beast toward me.

I can’t outrun it. It is moving much, much faster than I can move. I can’t hide from it, because I am exposed on this ridge. And I cannot fight it because it is a weapon designed by nature, and I am a snack designed by nature. I am food, and I am about to be eaten.

The only thing I can do, the only thing I do do, is drop to the ground and cover my eyes and hope that whatever happens, it is over quickly. I give up on life completely. I surrender myself to the inevitability of oblivion. As the rough ground meets my stomach, chest, and legs, my mind runs back through my life, and I wonder if there weren’t some choices I could have made to avoid this moment. I could have listened to Raine. I could have stayed on the ship.

But I didn’t.

I’m going to die because I didn’t follow orders. Not Raine’s and not Shan’s. I did what I thought was right. I tried to follow my instincts. That was a mistake. It’s going to be my last mistake.

The creature emits a shrill sound of what I can only imagine is carnivorous excitement and anticipation. I hear its teeth snapping, big, sharp bones sliding together with fury and hunger. This is what happens to people like me who think maybe they might be special after all. This is what happens when I try to reclaim my family. I should have paid attention to the lesson the man in the shiny boots taught me when I was small. Blind obedience and cowardice are the only ways to survive. Trying to be something, do something, that’s for other people. I’m small, and I should have stayed small.

The fetid, wretch-worthy breath of a predator gusts across me as the beast opens its mouth and…

Chokes?

At the very last moment before lunging teeth catch me and start tearing at my flesh, a shadow comes flying over me. I see a flash of green and gold scales as Shan propels himself over me with unparalleled athleticism. The predatory beast attacking me is as large as I am, but Shan is bigger than us both. He grips the creature by its neck, wringing the beast that would have easily eviscerated me like nothing more than a troublesome rooster. There is a snapping sound, and the dinosaur flops in his grasp.

Shan turns to me, holding it in one hand, staring at me with the full force of his dark gaze.

“I told you not to leave the fire,” he says, his tone dominant and disappointed in equal measure.

Before I can say anything — before I can think of anything to say, he sweeps me up over his shoulder with the arm that is not holding the dead animal.

He strides back down the same hill I just spent so much time climbing, back to the cave and to the fire. He drops me down next to it and sets about gutting then skinning the creature that was about to eat me. Seems like it will be our first fresh-caught meal in the wild. Shan says nothing while he works, and I don’t dare say anything at first. Then, even when I do start to feel a little less shaky, I also start to feel quite tired. Almost being eaten alive after being abandoned in the wilds is a very tiring experience.

He lets me sleep. I wake later the next day with the sun high overhead, the embers of the fire low, and the creature who tried to consume me prepared for my consumption in chunks of charred meat skewered on thin pieces of branch.

“Eat,” Shan says, handing me one.

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