Page 10 of Into the Fire: After
“Taryn?” I called again, moving to swing my legs over the side of the overstuffed sofa I’d apparently slept on. Wearing a gray knee-length cotton night shirt I’d never seen before.
“Better move slow.” I whipped my head around, groaning again at the agony that lanced my skull. “You were split like a melon when I found you.”
A young woman sat at a small round table barely big enough for two. Sharp green eyes locked onto me. A long blonde braid wilted over her shoulder like a sundried vine. Two plaid-covered arms folded onto the table, and frail fingers wrapped around a crude ceramic mug.
I swallowed, doing my best to canvass the room without alerting the stranger to my observation. “What happened?”
“Found you at the base of Falcon’s Edge. Thought you were dead. Youshouldbe dead”—Her tone was downright accusatory—“if it was Falcon’s Edge you actually fell off.”
Bits and pieces came back to me. Hiding with Taryn in the cave, venturing out to go hunting for supplies, some help. Choking on dread as I heard what sounded like footsteps too damn close. Sprinting and making a racket so they’d follow me, even though I’d left the cave hours before.
Then the misstep and the tumble down the ravine. All went black after that.
Wait—Falcon’s Edge?
It was a famous cliff. Views were supposed to be spectacular. Maybe in another life, after a normal heat had ended, we could’ve driven over to experience it ourselves.
And drive we would’ve, because the Edge was nearly thirty miles from Caine’s cabin.
“I couldn’t have fallen off Falcon’s Edge,” I murmured as I rubbed my forehead. “We’re nowhere near there.”
“It’s about a half-hour walk out that door,” the woman said as she nodded to her small shack’s single door. A moment later, she shrugged. “River’s been high with all this rain. And fast.” I strained my memory, but there was nothing. It was the onlyoption that made sense, though. “Bond mark on your neck’s the only reason I didn’t leave you where you lay.”
My hand covered Taryn’s bite, fingers running along the ridges like I could summon her with the touch. I swallowed my frustration, my fear, and nodded once.
By all appearances, this random stranger had saved my life. “What’s your name?”
The woman stiffened, her hands tightening around the mug.
“I’m Brea,” I added by way of reciprocation.
Narrowed eyes watched me, like a burrowing animal assessing a visitor outside their nest. I must’ve passed her internal measure, as she eventually answered, “Nova.”
“Thank you, Nova,” I said, infusing my words with sincerity. “But I have to go. My omega is on her own, and it isn’t safe—”
“Taryn Maddox?”
I was on my feet and snarling in Nova’s face before I’d made the conscious decision to stand, head trauma be damned. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” she answered, showing no fear. She gestured to a sideboard behind her, covered with receivers and monitors and a whole bunch of tech I wasn’t familiar with. “But they’re looking for her.”
“Have they found her?”
“Nope.”
I gave Nova my own assessment. “Do you have a vehicle? I need to get back and find her, like, yesterday.”
She chewed the inside of her lip, eyes darting from mine for the first time. Only then, as her anxiety spiked, did I get a good whiff of her scent. Or maybe I just hadn’t been paying attention.
Hazelnut and cardamom, with a hint of saffron.
“Shit,” I muttered, taking a step backward. “You’re an omega.”
Distrust clouded her face once more. But she didn’t deny it. Couldn’t, really, not with her scent now filling the room.
“Where are we?”
“Where they won’t find us,” she answered, standing at last. She was tall for an omega, the crown of her head right at my eyeline.
