Page 6 of Loki's Enemy Mate

The moment of weakness cost me though as Loki took his chance to retaliate. He jabbed his claws forward, driving them deep into my hip. They sliced through the skin, not stopping until they struck bone. I howled in pain, glaring down at him with all the venom I could muster. But the moment my eyes caught his, I saw the same hesitation.

What the fuck was going on?

“Kill him!” my father barked, noticing the two of us pausing for a moment.

Before I could react, Loki wiggled out from under me, scrambling a few feet away before getting back to his feet. I ran full tilt at him, knowing he would dodge the moment I got close. Unfortunately, I incorrectly guessed which way he’d feint, and I ended up tumbling through the leaves across hard stone. I rolled ass over tea cart for a moment before my back slammed against a massive boulder. This part of the woods was especially rocky with small cliffs and caves all over the place. It was rather treacherous actually and most wolves sought to go around like we did on patrols. But I didn’t have time to choose a better fighting arena. In fact, if I was smart, I could use the terrain to my benefit.

That’s why, when Loki came hurtling toward me, I didn’t try to dodge him straight away. In fact, with the boulder at my back, I threw my arms wide, knowing he would hit me full force and I would be unmovable.

But that’s not what happened.

Loki struck me going as fast as he could. The giant boulder behind me, which easily weighed a couple thousand pounds, shifted. There was a loud crack as we collided and suddenly the earth under my feet began to tremble and quake. Loki and Ilooked at one another, the fear plain on our faces as the boulder slid backward, the ground below us giving way.

Suddenly I was in freefall. Loki fell out of my grasp immediately as I tried to claw for anything I could find. My hands struck stone, tearing flesh and claws alike as I desperately attempted to stop myself from plummeting into the darkness. But no matter how much I flailed, my fingers never found purchase for more than a split second.

I fell and fell into the dark, time slowing seemingly slowing down as I stared up at the moonlight above growing smaller and smaller. A fleeting thought about caverns and old mine shafts raced through my mind. But it was gone a moment later as my body struck hard stone, and white-hot pain filled my senses. There was more than one crunch in my body as everything went silent.

I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t hear, I couldn’t smell, and my vision was still a bright white flare. Adrenaline coursed through my veins, but it did nothing to quell the pain. Slowly my eyes came back into focus and for a moment, I thought I’d gone blind, only a small circle of light in the center of my vision. It took me a moment to realize that it was the hole that had opened up and consumed me. Everything else was pitch darkness, the kind that not even my wolf eyes could see through.

A figure leaned over the edge of the hole, some forty feet above where my body lay crumpled in the darkness. It took me a moment to recognize the face of my father, the pain radiating from every inch of me, filling my mind with a loud buzz that I couldn’t shake. At least three of my bones were broken from the fall. Of that I was certain. And I couldn’t feel my left arm at all. Already my vision was darkening at the edges quickly. I knew I wouldn’t be conscious for much longer.

I stared up at my father, watching him and knowing he would save me. But he didn’t move toward me or look for a waydown. Instead, he merely shook his head and clicked his tongue, not anounceof loss oranyemotion crossing his face.

Then, with a careless shrug, he pulled away from the hole and out of sight, leaving me staring at nothing but dark trees and golden leaves illuminated by moonlight far above.

“Fa…Father…” I croaked.

But there was no answer. I opened my mouth to try to speak again, but the pain was too much. My vision faded away and I slipped into darkness not knowing if I’d ever wake up again.

???

I gasped as I came to, sitting bolt upright. The moment I moved, I screwed my eyes shut as the pain once more attempted to overwhelm me. My head swam and I felt dizzy, but I wasn’t going to let it take me again. Not this time. I was going to stay awake goddammit!

Forcing myself to breathe, I quickly realized that at least one of my ribs was broken. But that didn’t matter. I needed air and I needed to calm down. My wolf healing would kick in soon enough and mend my broken body. I wasn’t worried about recovery. But Ididwant the pain to go away.

For several minutes I sat there on the hard, cold stone, breathing as best I could without aggravating my injuries further. I cradled my left arm to my chest, the feeling slowly beginning to come back to it. Of course, all I could feel was pain, but that was a much better sensation than nothing. A dead arm was more of a hindrance than losing it completely and I was glad that neither would be my fate.

It wasn’t until I heard shifting a few feet away that I remembered I hadn’t been the only one to fall into the cave. Myenemy had gone down with me. And from the sounds of it, he was still alive.

I shifted to the side, putting my back against stone. In my injured state, I couldn’t force myself to shift even enough to grow claws. Besides, my fingers were bloody and torn from the fall and I’d need all the energy I had to heal myself. However, I could still make myself ready just in case he decided to attack.

But from the groans I was hearing, Loki was just as injured as I was. It took me a moment to find him in the dim light filtering down from above. Rock dust coated his skin and hair, giving him an altogether gray look. I could see that one of his legs was bent at an unnatural angle. Even werewolf healing couldn’t fix that. The bone would have to be set before it could heal.

And that was to my advantage. If he couldn’t walk, then he couldn’t come after me. I sat there at the edge of the light, just watching him without saying a word. The longer that he didn’t notice me, the closer I got to being back to my old self. Although, judging by the amount of pain I was still in, it could take four or five days, maybe even a week before I was close to normal once again. I looked up at the light far above.

How the hell was I going to get out of here?

“Fuck…” Loki groaned in the dark as I glanced down and saw him staring at me. “You survived.”

“Yeah, fuck you too,” I growled back, baring my teeth. His tone of disappointment didn’t surprise me, but it pissed me off, nonetheless. “Just stay the fuck over there if you know what’s good for you.”

Loki huffed at me before attempting to push himself up. He cried out in pain as his leg shifted, collapsing back onto the rocky floor. His chest heaved from the exertion even though he’d barely moved. It seemed he was in just as bad of shape as I was. Slowly he pulled himself across the floor, finding a boulder like Ihad and turned himself over to lean against it. I heard him hiss through his teeth as his leg shifted again.

“Fuck…” Loki growled again, staring down at his leg that was still bent at an odd angle.

“It needs to be set,” I said aloud.

I wasn’t sure why I said it. Maybe the darkness was too overwhelming, or it was too quiet. Or maybe it was because I knew the pair of us were royally fucked if we didn’t find a way out of here. Then again, it wasn’t like we were going to help one another escape. My father had ordered me to kill him. It was obvious I wasn’t Loki’s intended target, but if he had to kill me to get to my father, I had no doubt he would do it.

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