Page 67 of Beta Hybrid

Watching Vale crumble with the embarrassment and the attention, I squeeze my mate. You’re going to kill my Second, I warn lightly.

Our Second, she shoots back with a wicked grin.

I hadn’t planned for us to break for so long, so I get up and order everyone to finish up eating, refill the waters and switch rotations.

This time my mother drives in the front with Zenna beside her, and I walk behind the two women I love most in the world. I can hear mum and Zenna planning out the wedding and I smile.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Zenna

Riding inside the ute is much easier on my sore feet than walking. I’m tempted to take my boots off and rub my feet, but I refrain. What a time to be caught unawares. I didn’t even take them off to sleep. I glance back at Cai.

‘He didn’t sleep, did he?’ Sarah, his mother, asks from the driver’s seat.

I shake my head a little sadly. ‘No, I don’t think so.’ To my surprise, he was up, talking to Aidan and Will, and even granted them safe asylum with our pack-coven after all this goes down. And their vampires.

Sarah’s mouth quirks. ‘Never thought I’d live to see my boy accept vamps into our family.’

My eyes dart to her.

‘Not that I mind, of course,’ she adds. ‘But some of the others, well, I think it will take time to get used to. How well do you know them? I take it they treated you well in that—that place?’

She won’t talk about the Tomb. Not overtly with me. ‘Well enough. The guys especially. They wanted to set me free the whole time. They helped me.’ I glance around the mountainous woods as the sun begins to rise. ‘I really wish vampires burned in the sunlight,’ I say wistfully. ‘Is it horrible to think it would be so much easier if they just exploded into dust during the day? I’d love to watch Drusilla just poof into nothing.’

Sarah gives me a side-ways glance. ‘I know what you mean, but careful with that. As we welcome new species into our home, it’s important to remember that they are not all alike.’

‘No, I know.’ I draw my knees up, resting my chin. ‘I wouldn’t want that for the others. Just her. After all she’s done.’

Sarah reaches out and briefly squeezes my shoulder. ‘Believe me, I know.’ Grief is thick in her voice for the husband she recently lost. She shakes herself a little and pointedly looks down at my ring. ‘It’s nice to have something to look forward to, isn’t it?’

Something to cling onto, I correct in my mind. But I nod.

I gaze through the windshield at the horizon, or what I can see of it through the trees and the edge of the mountain. The tops of the tallest trees slice through the rose-gold of the awakening sun, a new day spilling over the mountain.

I can only hope we will all live to see tomorrow.

Much as I try to resist, I fall into an uneasy sleep as Sarah drives, the occasional bump over a rock starting me awake. I don’t have shifter-stamina, so the others can press on with less fatigue. I push back a pang of jealously as I stare at the bangles on my wrist.

One for protection from the Mother of Witches.

One for bloodlust from the Father of Faerie.

I close my eyes, trying to See into the future. Again, it’s no good. I don’t have anything personal, and I can’t just see everything that may or may not happen. I need a connection, and there are too many people, too many variables. Useless power, I scoff.

Be nice to my fiancée, Cai says down the bond.

A smile. Fiancée. I like that, I say back.

A warm chuckle.

We’ll have to break again soon. We’re nearing the base of the rocky mountain. Why haven’t we come across Drusilla or her vampires yet? Part of me thought as soon as we left Noah’s camp we’d run right into them, as though they were waiting for us just beyond our tents.

Just as I finish the thought, Sarah slams on the brakes, her eyes flashing.

Behind us, the convoy has stopped. Sarah must have noticed.

She climbs out of the car, and my mate is immediately at her side. His alpha senses are stronger.

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