Page 21 of Heart of Dawn
“Stay strong,”I told him, hearing nothing back.“We’ve got this. We’ve really got this.”
Where did this ability to speak in each other’s minds come from? Our bond? Werewolves in wolf form could communicate mentally. This might be some sort of offshoot for bonded mates. I’d ask Cate and James if they’d ever experienced it, also being bonded. They’d never mentioned it before. Maybe they kept it between themselves.
Hopefully this wasn’t a one-off.
A gust of wind whistled down the road, striking my face with a bitter, sobering slap. I rolled my shoulders as I jogged after Joe, sharpening my focus on my surroundings.
The leaf-choked road ran alongside the huge building, curving away at both ends. There were no holes in the fences, no signs of biters or dead bodies or any debris.
It’s too quiet…
The factory was covered in moss and vines, its structure beginning to rust after two years of neglect. Many of the windows were broken, giving way to weeds. It was a seriouslydilapidated place, stinking of mold and damp and grime. But no sounds drifted out of it. Yeah, the horde might be in stasis right now, but I’d rather hear something to eliminate any potential surprises.
I really hated surprises of the bullshit kind.
Halfway down the road, Joe stopped beside a metal ladder. Some of its rungs were rusted or missing.
“Up here,” he whispered, scrambling up the ladder.
“It is safe,” Daria said behind me.
I cracked my knuckles, swallowing any fear of the ladder collapsing, and began to climb.
A crash to my right, followed by the screams of Dawn, sped up the rest my climb to the flat roof. I crouched beside Joe, taking cover against the low wall along the roof’s edge, Daria joining us seconds later.
She put a finger to her lips.
Yeah, no worries about shutting the fuck up here.
Heavy footsteps came from below, the crunch of the leaves like popping candy.
“Where are you, wolf?” Dawn howled.
The painful scraping of metal followed again. I grimaced, stopping short of covering my ears.
“You are the wolf of foolish hope. Chosen. I hear the chatter, I smell your hope. But you will die as the cherry fae and the bee queen.”
I choked on a swallow, a sickening roil in the pit of my stomach. Die like Ori and Wendy? Had Dawn killed them?
No. Impossible. I’d know if Ori were dead; his star still blinked in that other galaxy.
That didn’t reassure me, my chest a tangle of snakes. Deadly fucking snakes, fangs dripping venom. They slithered across my reason, biting, biting, biting. My veins filling with white-hot agony, my anxiety an unbearable ache.
Not my Ori.
My Ori doesn’t die.
My Ori lives so we can both live and love and?—
Dawn’s booming laugh freed me from a spiral.
I rolled my shoulders, digging my metaphysical heels into solid ground. If I held onto my composure, I held onto my determination. The two worked hand in hand.
Spiraling didn’t serve my mate or my pack.
“Cowards do not prosper,” Dawn called, sounding like it was directly below us. “Foolishness in the face of great power does not serve you well. A clean, easy death does. I can give you that, Miko Reyes. I can set you free.”
I kept my cool, as still as a mega-patient sniper.
