Page 59 of Veiled Fate
So, Clive and I ran on, pulling aside the false wall and down the stairs to the tunnel that led out of the city. Behind us, the mechanism that kept the passageway concealed slowly returned to its resting position, obscuring our retreat. The soldiers would find it, I was sure, but not right away. It would take them time. Hopefully, enough time for us to get out of their reach.
“What the hell was that back there?” Clive snapped as we ran through the dimly lit tunnel. “What were you thinking?”
“It’s a long story,” I muttered. “I’ll tell you if we survive.”
Clive put his head down, ignoring his twisted ankle, and picked up the pace.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The brush and hanging vines that should have obscured the exit were ripped and hanging freely, evidence of the other refugees passing through. I led Clive out into the open without slowing, heading down the gentle slope toward the river.
“Is that our way out?” Clive gasped between breaths. The burst of motion had taken a heavy toll on him after weeks of captivity and likely torture. Still, he gamely worked hard to keep up, both arms churning hard.
“It is,” I said, my eyes focused on the river barge waiting to take us farther upstream toward Teagan. Hopefully, we could lose our pursuers somewhere between there and the farming district.
“Good.”
We reached the river’s edge. A long stiff board was extended from the anchored barge, and I pushed Clive toward it, glaring when he tried to get me to go first. He carefully picked his way across the thin plank and all but fell into the waiting arms of several other rebels.
I hurried across, looking behind us for any sign of pursuit.
“We seem to be clear.”
Turning, I fixed the speaker with a hard look. “You weren’t supposed to wait,” I said. “The rule was that anyone who falls behind was to be left behind.”
Gare looked back at me unflinchingly. “We decided to wait. We’re in this together. Isn’t that the point?”
“Yes, it is,” I said, sighing. “But at the same time, you disobeyed a direct order.”
“Only when we were safe and able to regroup. In the city, we didn’t wait for you.”
“Enough arguing,” Clive said, interjecting. “It’s done. Now, can we get going?”
I smiled despite everything. As Clive’s easygoing personality showed, he wasn’t permanently damaged from his experience at the hands of the Alphas. “I missed you.”
The scruffy, scraggly-haired prisoner managed to summon up a ghost of a smile of his own. “I missed you, too.”
I embraced him then, hard, as the barge pushed away from shore. “Watching you fall into the water … I—”
“Hey,” Clive said, squeezing me back, his arms still strong despite captivity. “I’m okay now. Thanks to you.”
I nodded, needing a moment longer to stabilize my voice. “But … how did you survive? Any of you?”
Blood sprayed across Clive’s face before he could reply as something went through our group like a buzz-saw. Shifters tumbled away, dead before they hit the ground, missing faces, throats, and, in one case, even an arm.
I followed the trail of destruction, my mind unable to register the blur of activity.
A wolf crouched at the bow of the barge, blood dripping in a steady stream from its jowls, creating large pools of it on the wooden decking. The huge brilliant-white beast tilted its head as our gazes met, humor twinkling in the vertically slitted pupils.
It hadenjoyedthe carnage, the savage killing of the helpless. And it was ready for more. I had never seen a beast so big. Not even Kiel was as large as the white wolf, its fur matted with rapidly drying blood.
“Lycaonus,” I hissed warily, not sure what I could do against such a monster.
“What do we do?” Clive whispered from my side, frozen in place like the others.
“I don’t know,” I admitted, glad for the time the Alpha was giving us, even if it was because he was playing with us. Torturing us with the knowledge that he could strike without warning whenever he wanted and we wouldn’t know when.
A few more minutes and we would have been away from the banks of the river, far enough that pursuit would have been impossible. Now, we were trapped on the barge with death incarnate. Far behind, the first guards could be seen coming out of the hole in the hillside, having followed us from the city.
