Page 51 of Heart of Dawn
Enough of this shit. I couldn’t take anymore of Lance’s reanimated corpse or the proximity of the biters. Let Dawn say whatever the fuck it wanted. We were out of here.
I used the last of my energy to shift and get some good distance quickly, tearing off into the night with the vamp. I’d pay the physical price later.
The horde made its horrific noises while Dawn cackled. Those sounds echoed around us, even after gaining decent distance on the fuckers.
After about five miles, my body finally gave up. I shifted to human in the middle of a country road close to a windmill, rolling onto my back.
“What is it?” Daria asked, taking my hand. “Are you spent?”
“Yeah…”
“How long do you need?”
“Give me… Fuck. Maybe ten minutes. Give me ten minutes.”
“I can heal…” Basil struggled to say. “I can heal you.”
He was in no state to be healing anyone.
“It’s alright,” I replied. “I’ll be fine.”
“We can shelter in the windmill,” Daria suggested. “I will check it first.” She carried Basil away.
“Ori?”I tried reaching out to him, my pain and exhaustion too much of a blocker.
Damn. I just wanted to hear his voice.
Daria returned. I sensed her bristle, saw her pupils dilate.
Ah, shit. What now?
“Wolves,” she whispered. “Your wolves.” Her lips curled into a smile. “Can‘t you smell them?”
As soon as she said it, I picked up their familiar scents, the remainder of my fury softening. “James? Paige?”
I saw them coming down the road in wolf forms. James, my beta and pack engineer was brown-furred. Paige, the pack’s medic, was a soft blonde.
What a sight for sore eyes, some of my tension easing.
My people. They were really here.
Both of them shifted to human at the same time, jogging the last few feet.
Three naked werewolves, a vampire, and a fae all gathered on a road—there had to be a joke in there somewhere.
“Oh my God,” Paige said in her Irish lilt, the back of her hand on my forehead
“What happened?” James asked, his ninety-percent perky voice cracking. “Look at the state of you. Come on. We’ve got a safe space where Paige can treat your wounds.”
Paige nodded, her pale blue eyes shining.
“Then we’ll talk,” James added, his nostrils flaring in response to the distant sounds of the horde.
I passed out five minutes into the journey to this safe place, falling into a dream about Orion.
Nothing steamy, nothing more than holding him on my bed, back at my Haven flat.
And it meant the world.
