Page 225 of Crucible

“All right.” Seth stands back and slips his hands inside his pockets. “So where is it? Where’s the buck?”

“I…she stole it.”

“Who?”

“The wolf…Meera.” It’s the first time I’ve said her name out loud. I’d been toying with it while watching the lone wolf nurture her pups, so I’m surprised by how right it feels.

Seth doesn’t even blink at the ridiculousness of me naming a wild animal. “Seriously? A dog ate your homework? That’s the lie you’re going with?”

“I’mnot lying,” I grind out.

My frustration and panic are at an all-time high right now. If I can’t even convince Seth, who worships the ground I walk on, that I wasn’t trying to run, I have no hope of convincing Khalil and Thorin.

Thank God I added the “no punishment” clause when I agreed to stay, but that doesn’t mean they can’t find other ways to make me sorry. I’m still a little torn about the “Blood Rite,” as I call that night I got my period a week and a half ago.

Seth gives an exasperated shake of his head and takes my arm. “Come on.”

I follow him happily like a good pet and pray his mood improves before we meet up with the others. I need him on my side or it will be three against one, and I won’t stand a chance. I hadn’t planned to stray so far or be gone for so long, and I damn sure wasn’t expecting to return empty-handed.

It looksreallybad.

Seth radios Thorin and Khalil to tell them he found me and we’re heading back. Twenty minutes later, we’re a mile in, and Seth is still brooding. His eyes are fixed straight ahead as we travel inside a dell—a dried-up stream bed with steep hills on either side. Seth’s expression is stormy, so I wrestle my arm free of his hold and take his hand instead.

The feel of my fingers linking his longer ones snap him out of whatever dark thoughts have taken over his mood. Seth looks down at me, and I tilt my head and smile. It’s a small reassurance but the best I can do without giving my true feelings away.

“I know what you’re doing,” he says in a rumble so dark and terrifying, it sends a chill down my spine.

That voice…

It doesn’t…

That’snotSeth.

I falter a step when the realization hits, and I snatch my hand away. Seth stops walking immediately and stands there like a statue.

A whimper tears from my lips. “S-Seth?”

After a few heart-pounding seconds, he blinks slowly, curses, and then shakes his head violently like he’s exorcising a damn demon or something. I get the feeling that he’s locked in some kind of power struggle, and I take another step away while eyeing my bow strapped to his back.

“It’s me,” he finally confirms. There’s five feet of forest between us now while my stomach caves from the weight of my fear and uncertainty. “It’s me.” His voice sounds strained, as if he’s holding onto a ledge by his fingertips, but… he sounds like him.

He sounds like Seth.

Still, I keep my distance because whatever the hell just happened was too intense to merely shrug off. Seth still doesn’t quite seem like he has full control. It’s the only explanation for why he stays where he is when he turns around to face me.

“Are you okay?” I don’t realize I’m throwing self-preservation away and inching forward until he takes a cautious step backward. I stop and stay where I am. “What the hell was that, Seth?”

His eyes are pinched with worry even as his lips curl, and he spits out the name like a curse. “Bane.”

My blood turns to ice. “I thought you said he doesn’t come out unless Zeke is in danger.”

“He doesn’t. I don’t…I don’t know what that was.” Seth curses again when he sees the terror in my eyes, and then he rips the radio off the clip at his hip. “Change of plans,” he spits out. “I need you to meet us two clicks south of the she-wolf’s den.”

I hear the crackle of the radio, and then Khalil’s voice comes through loud and clear. “Everything cool, Seth?”

“No.” Seth’s gaze flicks toward me and then he speaks into the radio again. “Thorin…you’re going to need the tranquilizer.”

Again, Seth doesn’t bother to explain, but maybe he doesn’t need to with them because I hear Thorin cursing through the radio a moment later before confirming he’s on his way.

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