Page 74 of Unlikely Omega

And another man bursts into the shelter, sword thrust forward, dark hair dripping in his eyes, his leathers and armor soaked.

The Commander.

That’s why I could smell him.

Yeah, that makes sense, I think, dizzy and disoriented, aching deep inside, as the Wildman whirls about and leaps at the Commander.

Oh, shit…

“No,” I whisper. “No!”

The Commander swings his sword in an arc—but the Wildman easily ducks under it and bowls the Commander over, knocks him on his ass, the sword leaving his hand and clanking on the rocky ground.

“Come on,” Finnen hisses, pulling me after him. “Let’s go.”

“No. Wait.”

“What? Why? We need to get away now. It’s our only chance.”

The Commander has the Wildman in a chokehold—but the Wildman is pressing a blade to the Commander’s side and blood is pooling on the ground. Lights seem to flash over both of them—on their flesh, their hands, their faces.

I tug on Finnen’s hold. “He needs our help.”

“What are you doing?”

“Look, Finn! The Commander is wounded. Help him!”

“We should run away now, Ari.”

“He’ll die!”

“For the love of all the gods and goddesses above!” Finnen abandons my hand and rubs a hand over his face. His skin seems to glow. “What am I going to do with you?”

With a low growl of my own, I turn toward the two grappling men, intent on separating them—somehow. The Wildman is bowed over the Commander, his long pale locks like a curtain, and the Commander still has his hands around the man’s throat—a strangely intimate pose, a possibly fatal one, too—and I need to get the Drakoryas off him.

With a yell, I shove at the man from the side trying to get him off the Commander, dislodge him—and from up close his scent, no, their scents combined almost bowl me over. Gasping for breath, I stagger back—but the Wildman now turns on me.

I’m too caught up in the pain and need tearing through me to feel afraid. Hunched over, the bloodied knife in one hand, those burning eyes locked on me, peering through the tangled hair, his lips peeled back and teeth grinding together, he looks like a creature of the night, a werewolf or a werebear come to eat me.

Oh, Goddess. I’m about to die and I can’t even move from the spot. The Commander groans from the ground, clapping a hand to his bleeding side, and the berserker is about to stab me and then probably eat me, and I don’t find it in me to care.

As long as I can still smell that scent…

“Dammit, Ari!” Finnen is there suddenly, grabbing me around the waist, hauling me back. Before I can even blink, he’s grabbing the Commander’s sword from the ground and pointing it at the Wildman. “Get out of here. Leave us alone. Go back to your hole in the ground, hear me?”

The berserker howls. The sound freezes my blood and for the first time, I wonder if he’s an animal after all. His canines look awfully sharp in the dim light.

“Don’t hurt him, Finn!” I try to gather my thoughts, think of a solution—because I need to find out more about this Wildman, find out why his scent calls to me like that, why all their scents do—but before I can even move, the berserker steps back, one step, and another, and vanishes back into the curtain of rain.

He’s gone.

Leaving us alone with the Commander.

23

FINNEN

Two warring instincts seem to be driving me. The first, primary one tells me to grab Ariadne and run like hell, far from this shelter, far from both the Wildman and the army Commander who each appear to want a piece of us—of her? of us both? Who knows?

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