Page 40 of Sweet Giant

Sickness rose in my throat. Good God. Mountain was the last person who ought to be in charge of anything. The city—or state—would only crumble further under his rule. And I could easily imagine what sort of atrocities he would commit if he commanded an entire army. Would he comehere? Would he search the vast forests for me?

“Well, I hope you find him soon,” I said. “I have to confess, I thought things would go south for him once I left and he wasn’t making thousands of galactic credits every night.”

“He’s been trading secrets and selling alien weapons on the black market instead. Vaxxlian blasters. Horathhann attack drones. And other advanced extraterrestrial weaponry that I’ve never seen before. We need to find him immediately. Do you have any idea where he might be hiding?”

Attack drones? Holy heck. Talk about unnerving. I peered at the ceiling as a chill descended upon me, then refocused my attention on the general. I shook my head. “I wish I knew. We moved constantly when I was with him, and he would send his assistants near the ongoing battles every night to tip the rebels off on where to bring their wounded.” I sighed. “I can’t believe he’s tipping off the military too. What a bastard.”

Someone offscreen said, “General, we’ve got to go.”

Vivian leaned forward. “We’ll contact you soon, Liv, and relocate you to a new safe house.”

“Wait! There’s one more thing.”

Shit. I couldn’t tell them Mastorr had come upon the gruesome scene at the Murder Cabin. I would have to pretend it was me.

“There’s a cabin nearby and I found two bodies in the basement,” I blurted. “A man and a woman. Looked like they were shot. Also looked like it happened a while ago. The house was ransacked too. Do you know anything about it? It’s a small cabin with solar panels on the roof as well as a hovercraft landing pad.”

General Remington sighed. “I didn’t mean for you to see that.”

The offscreen voice made another urgent plea for the general to hurry, but the general shot him a dark look before returning his attention to me.

“The man and woman you found were staying in the area so they could spy on my cabin and alert the military if a hovercraft flew near my cabin,” he said, speaking rapidly as shadows moved around him, others in the room who were apparently readying themselves for battle. Or so I imagined. “On the day we dropped you off, we intercepted their transmissions as we were leaving the area. Fortunately for us, we managed to block their transmissions. Unfortunately for them, I’m not a very forgiving man.”

A shiver rushed down my back, but I tried not to let it show. The general had treated me with such kindness that it was hard to envision him executing two people in a cabin and just leaving their bodies behind to rot. Yet I knew he was the most powerful rebel general in Seattle. There was a very good reason the government had placed a fifty-four thousand galactic credit bounty on his head.

“Well, I’m glad you managed to block their transmissions,” I finally said.

“We have to go now,” Vivian said. “You’ll hear from us soon.”

The screen went black, and I leaned backward in my chair. Guilt panged inside me. I hoped the rebels didn’t suffer too many casualties tonight.

Would the general find Mountain? God, I could only hope.

I spun in the chair to find Mastorr standing in the doorway, a grin tugging at his lips. The sight of him calmed me, helping to chase away my worries.

“A huge, angry bear?” he asked, fully smiling now.

I chuckled. “Oh yes. You should’ve seen him! He was enormous and quite frightening.”

Mastorr made a funny face and growled in the imitation of a bear, causing me to erupt into giggles. He was usually so serious, but I liked his playful side. Then he swept me up in his arms and held me close, caressing his hands through my hair.

“We’ll leave soon, sweet one. Perhaps tomorrow or the next day. Let’s pray the weather cooperates. I would like to be gone before the general tries to relocate you.”

“I want to leave a note explaining my absence. In case anyone comes looking for me. I’ll just say I’m fine and that I decided to go off on my own.” I snorted. “Or maybe I’ll say I ran off to live with my Sasquatch soulmate in a cavern situated deep in the mountains. I suppose I could tell the truth and they would just assume the isolation had gotten to me and think I’d lost my mind.”

Mastorr held me out by my shoulders and gave me a profound look, and I suddenly realized what I’d just said—I’d referred to him as mysoulmate. Whoa. I hadn’t said it on purpose.

But maybe it was the truth.

I opened my mouth to take it back, but the words wouldn’t come.

“Don’t get too excited by what I just said, Mr. Bear. Let’s go to your people’s cavern, where we can safely ride out the winter, and we’ll see what happens between us.”

“I already love you, Liv,” he said in a deep, rumbling tone filled with emotion. “I know you’re scared to love, and that’s all right—I understand why. Please know that I will wait for you, and I’ll do everything in my power to show you that we’re meant to be together.”

To my relief, he didn’t stare at me expectantly as he awaited a response. Instead, he drew me closer and hugged me tight. I appreciated that he knew my thoughts were in turmoil and I needed time to think.

Time to come to terms with how quickly I was falling for him…

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