Page 40 of Pack Ruin
I felt my cheeks burn, not at their banter, but at the situation. I was Grigor Dimitrivich, the most powerful and feared shifter alive, reduced to hiding under a bed, eavesdropping on a worthless, twisted male and his dominant lover. How had I fallen this far?
“Love makes you weak,”my father had warned me centuries ago, as I lay broken and bleeding in his dungeon. His hands hadstill been wet with the blood of my mate, Anya. “Love is the true enemy.”
He had been so wrong. I’d never been stronger than after he took my love from me, took the only creature in the world who might have stopped me from killing not only him, but every single member of his pack. I’d burned them all alive, warming my cold hands over their ashes.
Though now I wondered if loving my little sharp-thorned flower had weakened me, knew that perhaps it had. But I was weary of living alone, in the shadows. And her brilliance, her indomitable spirit, made me long to warm myself in her glow from now on.
The male came quickly, his seed spattering the floor near my face. He groaned into the phone, “Mistress, when can I come to you? When can I see you again?”
“When the Heir dies, Torran.”
“I can make that happen?—”
“You cannot kill him. I told you he must appear to die of natural causes. Why hasn’t he already?”
“I don’t know. He’s breathing on his own. There’s no explanation, unless… perhaps he is mated.”
The woman’s voice grew louder. “He had no mate mark. You told me.”
Torran swore. “I swear he didn’t. You examined him yourself.”
“I ordered you to check again.”
“I did. I’ve gone over every inch of his body, as you asked. I’ve done it all; I turned off the machines days ago. He’s had no water, no food. His organs should be shutting down. Even a strong Alpha would be dead by now. He’s been healing, Mistress. I’m not sure how.”
“He must have a mate. It’s the only way.” She went quiet. “You said you thought you smelledme?”
“Not exactly, but something like your scent,” he murmured, heading for the door.
“I’ll check on it. Make sure no one goes in or out of that room, Torran. We need that shifter to finish dying so you can be named the Heir. We need you to be Alpha.” The lock turned, and footsteps moved away.
It was safe to leave, but I was still too weak to rise. Perhaps I would stay here until my little blade arrived. If Torran returned to make his hidden cuts again, to hasten Luke’s death, I would need to be close to heal him. Close to protect the only one I had allowed to touch my magic, besidesher… I drifted into a troubled sleep under the weakest of my Flor’s mates.
Though I wondered if that might no longer be true. My power had been drained until I felt like a starved wolf, lost on the tundra. I fell into the dream, the memory of when I was exactly that, and all I had to fill my belly was snow.
Faster, Flor.
19
Ghost Stories
FLOR
“Faster. We have to go faster!” I woke up shouting.
Glen’s eyes glowed faintly blue in the dark cab of the truck. For some reason, we’d stopped, and I knew we would be too late to save… who? For some reason, the wordeveryoneechoed in my mind.
Glen’s voice was intense, but quiet. “Flor, what’s wrong? Are you awake?”
“Where are we?” I sat up and glanced around. The sky outside the slightly cracked windshield was beginning to blush pink along one edge, and trees surrounded us. It was morning, which meant we were there, or almost. But when I craned my neck to look around, I didn’t recognize this part of the forest, or the gravel path we were on. It wasn’t wide enough to qualify as a road, and the kudzu was so thick here, the whole landscape was covered with a thick blanket of camouflage. “How long have we been here?”
Glen reached into the back seat for our packs. “I just pulled over. You slept through Louisiana and Mississippi. We’rehalfway across Alabama now, on the back road that you said leads to the hunting grounds. It’s time to ditch the truck and go on foot.”
“Got it,” I whispered, unbuckling my seat belt. On the seat next to my leg, the journal lay, the latch on the front closed again. “Did you read?—”
Glen shook his head. “I shut it when you fell asleep. What did you find out?”
“So much,” I said, my mouth dry. “I’ll tell you on the way. We have to hurry.”
