Page 79 of Heart of Dawn
That your nosiness will trip you up one day.
Keeping my lips sealed, I hurried up the sand, joining the path. A group of bikers gathered on the grassy side of the beach were also staring at me, leaning on their big blue vehicles.
Maybe I could borrow one after I got the gates open. None of them looked particularly friendly, though.
Hmmm. Time to think.
“What you got there?” one of the bikers asked.
“Looks like balls of honey,” another answered.
I hurried along the path away from them, sweating profusely from the sunshine. Back in my zombie-free days, I would never grace this beach in a jumper and jeans. And I certainly wouldn’t stink like dirt and onions.
Should I ask the guards nicely to open the gates?
I quickly dropped that ridiculous idea. What would I do, bat my lashes, twiddle my thumbs, radiate cuteness? They’d laugh in my face and have me arrested for wasting their time.
Crap.
How much did they know? Should I go for honesty—the full kind where I threw in details about the royal brothers’ predicament? Or was that asking for trouble? The truth might get me arrested, sounding like a threat to these guards.
What to do. I had nothing to bargain with, no authority. What a shame Prince Dorian couldn’t be here.
Oh, well. I’d figure it out when I got there.
Come on, Orion, I told myself.Let’s go.
Less than three meters into my walk, the screaming started.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
MIKO
Ibarely dodged the big fucker’s fist, diving into a roll.
I felt the air churn before the impact, the boom shaking the earth. New cracks appeared, spitting pink smoke into my face.
The giant’s laughter whipped up the fallen leaves at my feet, hitting my back in a hot gust of acrid air.
“Nowhere to run, chosen wolf. Nowhere to hide.”
Up ahead in the perpendicular street, slowies shambled into view. Somewhere behind them came the hiss of the speedies.
Damn. Another horde.
“This is most enjoyable,” Dawn drawled. “I like games. I like to play.”
I like to destroy fucked up entities. And it’s pending, dickhead…
I cast my eyes around the street, searching for an escape route, aware of the giant lifting its fist for another round of squash the werewolf.
“Die!” Dawn yelled, going for the kill.
I darted to safety and made for a house in the middle of that perpendicular street. Knocking the door down with my shoulder, I charged through a narrow hallway, meeting a biter in the tiny kitchen. A slowie, both arms missing, was wedged between an American fridge-freezer and the sink. I ignored it, kicking the back door down, its glass window shattering loudly.
Two more slowies stood in the concrete back garden beside rotting patio furniture. Again, I ignored them. They were too slow, no threat to me.
“Chosen wolf!”
