Page 82 of Drown My Sorrow

But…

“Ezy, we can’t do it. We won’t find her.”

“What?”

“You have to get them out. Whatever it takes. Lean on everything. Gael and I will search, but they are the ones who will be able to find her.”

I race out of the small house my family rented and follow the road to the beach.

The rain is falling thick and fast, and I’m soaked in minutes. More thunder cracks.

I point at a group of people. “You ask them. I’ll go this way.” I race over and ask the group of people standing in a café. “Have you seen the woman we’re with? She might be walking with a limp and looking scared?”

They shake their heads. An hour passes, and no one has seen her. I’ve asked everyone. I’ve knocked on every business and home. I’ve begged and pleaded until my fingers are shrivelled from the rain and my legs ache.

No one has seen anything.

I feel them before I see them. A massive show of alpha strength that slams into the air and charges it. Three behemoths of rage.

The world stops and slows. In the rain, they look deadly. Capable. Stronger than I could ever be. Bigger than I ever dreamed.

I hate feeling less. I’ve always been first, the strongest, the best, but I’m not even in their league. The Daane are something else. I don’t know anyone that is in their league.

Shale barely looks at me as they run past, straight into the jungle. I follow on their heels.

“Why would she come here?” I shout at them.

“Do you see the ocean here?” Beau asks bitterly.

“No.”

“There’s your answer, hotshot,” Beau spits at me.

Ezy and Gael spread out, and we search in the bushes and forest as we follow the Daane.

“What’s that scent?” Gael asks.

Shale grits his teeth and turns his head. “You don’t touch her. Not one finger. Do you understand me? If you want to live, you don’t touch her.”

He means it.

Heat. Oh, fuck. She’s going into heat?

In the jungle?

“Keagan, where is it?”

“Should be just up ahead.”

“What is it?” Gael asks.

“A cave,” Keagan hisses. “When my beautiful omega gets scared and her heats come on, she goes to caves, you dumb fuck. You always find the location of caves because she will go to them like a magnet.”

We ignore the insult. They have a right to be angry. I would be furious.

She’s going to a cave? I thought they were the problem, have I been wrong? Have I been blind? Is she that traumatised?

The cliff appears suddenly in front of us, stretching up into the sky, and there is a huge split right in the middle.

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