Page 65 of The Breeding Cave
“Then answer my question.”
A long pause.
“I’m an ally.”
When he turned his head, the moonlight illuminated the right side of his body. And before he vanished into thin air, I caught sight of the burns that covered his skin from head to toe, burns deeper than Yeosin’s, burns that should’ve killed any beast.
I turned around to find where he had gone off to, only to see him behind me.
This time closer.
“You should stay away from the Colossals,” he said. “They’re good at mind games.”
“I am the last person who wants to work with them,” I growled, not liking how much he knew about Yeosin, me, and our arrangement with the Colossals. “We don’t have any other choice to keep Yeosin safe.”
“You have Yeosin,” he said.
I narrowed my eyes at the figure. “How the fuck do you know so much about her?”
“Because she’s my fated mate.”
And then he was gone again. This time for good.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO
YEOSIN
I pushed a tear off my cheek and squeezed my eyes closed, seeing Joseph’s head in my memory. It had sat in that box like a present that I was meant to find. After biting back a sob, I continued forward behind Brent through the forest to the cave.
While I hadn’t known Joseph for long, he had brought me to the cave that first night, calmed my nerves, and seemed so genuinely trustworthy. I swallowed hard and wiped my cheeks with the back of my hands.
Seeing him dead had screwed me up.
Joseph was gone because of me, because he had brought me to the cave, because … the Dragon Clan was after me.
And they weren’t going to stop until I was either dead or belonged to them.
“We’re here,” Brent said, pausing at the cave entrance. “Go clean off in the hot spring.”
Brent had covered me in thick mud before we walked through the forest. He said it was to cover my scent because we had to take extra caution after the Dragon Clan murdered Joseph. Yes, murdered him.
He didn’t just die. They had beheaded him.
Fire burned inside me at the thought of Alvin doing that to him. I could only imagine what his body had looked like—if he still had a body left and if they hadn’t burned it to a crisp. I gritted my teeth. They would pay.
I headed through the cave toward the hot spring with Brent keeping a distance behind me. When I reached the water, I peeled off my clothes and sank into the water to clean off the mud, anger reeling inside me.
This isn’t fair! How could they have done this to him?
“So … you come here with Luciano?” Brent asked, back turned toward me.
My muscles relaxed slightly in the warm water. I curled my shoulders forward and blew out a low breath, closing my eyes. “Yes.”
Brent—who usually was very not awkward—rocked back on his heels and looked anywhere except at me. I shook my head and wondered why this was happening.
The scars, the fire, Alvin?! Most importantly, killing Joseph!
