Page 89 of The Lycans: Vol Four

Being his fated mate meant he’d do everything and anything in his power to keep me close. And the truth was, right now I needed a friend.

I bent down to get the half-filled canteen of water I had stuffed into one of the packs. When I’d found myself in this parallel dimension, there’d been debris scattered all over the place, presumably items from the Assembly and guards that had been blasted here by the Leandrean opening the portal.

Two canteens filled with water, a few ration packs and cardboard-tasting energy bars, a few random pieces of clothing. Even a few weapons were among the scattered items.

I also found one severed arm, a handful of fingers, and what I assumed was a face, but the front part had been so burned off that it looked more like a piece of barbecue than what was once a human.

I took a small drink of the water and glanced over at him, feeling Sebastian’s stare as if he were holding my face in his hands, making me aware he was right here.

“Do you remember anything about… anything?” I held out the canteen.

He crossed his beefy arms over his chest and shook his head. I cocked an eyebrow, about to insist he drink something, but then I remembered he already had.

Me.

“I hope I tasted good,” I muttered, a snide comment that I immediately regretted and was about to apologize for.

“You did,” he murmured, low and deep. “The sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted.”

My breath caught and I couldn’t look away from him.

“If I ever drink from another living thing, it’ll taste like dog water.”

I didn’t know whether to be flattered by that or offended that I was a step up from dog water.

After shaking my head more to clear my thoughts than to dissuade anything of what he’d just said, I focused on the canteen and put it back in the satchel. I stood to my full height of five-foot-three, which was laughable in the face of this nearly seven-foot-tall vampire.

I might be small but I was spunky, and right now facing off with Sebastian meant I felt completely unstable, especially because of what he was to me and what he’d just said.

“What do you remember?” I asked again, hoping to steer the conversation back to where it had been.

He was silent for a second and I held my breath, expecting him to be stubborn, but I let out a breath when he scratched his jaw and his shoulders relaxed a fraction more.

“I remember taking down a lot of Assembly fuckers. I remember freeing Otherworld creatures.” His voice was so deep I felt the vibration along my skin. “I remember a lot of blood, violence, and dead bodies littering the ground from my rage. But then there was a pulse and blast of energy, and I cracked my head on the wall before everything went dark.”

He glanced toward the entranceway of the cave once more, a muscle under his jaw ticking furiously, as if he were reliving that.

“And I remember waking up in the forest, stumbling around like I was drunk, unable to see or hear, feeling that fucking sun draining me dry before darkness claimed me once more.”

He looked at me again, his gaze roving slowly up and down my form. I visibly shivered just as he tore his focus from me and looked around at the cave again.

“Where exactly is here?”

I shrugged. “Hell if I know.” I sat beside the small fire I’d started before he’d woken up. Despite it being daylight outside, the interior of the cavern was cold and dank, with water dripping somewhere and echoing annoyingly off the walls.

He only stood across the cavern for a second before he came closer. I eyed him warily, not sure what his intentions were. He sat across from me, the fire this sort of shield between us, and I let myself relax marginally.

We were both silent for long moments as I stared into the flames, listening to the wood crackle as the flames licked across it.

“The smoke is green,” he mused, as if to himself, and I glanced up, surprised to see that he was staring at me instead of the flames.

“You really don’t know or remember anything?” At his stoic look I exhaled through my nose. “I watched a Leandrean open a portal. I saw the humans surrounding him all but melt away from the power. He thrust us into another dimension, which is where I got the few supplies I have… because I found them scattered amongst body parts.”

He grunted and looked back at the fire, as if me telling him how fucked all of this was didn’t affect him.

When he glanced back at me I swallowed, because the look in his gaze was intense and piercing. He stared at me as if I were his, and I knew if we were going off fate or destiny or whatever, I was, and he’d forever see me as such.

“Can you stop doing that?”

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