Page 4 of Veradel
“Nightmare it is,” Lucan snorts, and hoists me over his shoulder until I’m hanging down the length of his back, the necklace swinging beneath me, his hands clamped around the back of my upper thighs. His fingers so close to the spot that pulses for him that I swear he probably feels that wetness he gloated about.
I shriek and scrabble at his back, but he just lets out a low chuckle that rumbles through each point of contact and lengthens his stride.
And that’s how the Monster carries me away from Xantera, into whatever lies beyond.
By the time Lucan bursts through a clearing some ten minutes later, I’m panting so hard from the continuous effort of trying to break free that I almost tip over when he flips me forward and sets me on my feet.
“Easy,” he murmurs into my ear, planting his hands on my hips to steady me. A retort bubbles on my lips… until I look up and realize where we are.
A dirt road stretches out before me, forking off in different directions and bordered by derelict wooden housing units. Only, these housing units don’t look anything like what we have in the complexes, smashed together like perfect blocks. These have individual pointed roofs with lopsided shingles like crooked teeth and strange, narrow brick structures climbing out of them. And the windows—all in different places, giving each house something like a… personality.
My gaze skates across the nearest one, which has a window shattered in and a door that hangs off its hinges. But the house beyond it has light flickering in the window and smoke curling from the opening in the brick structure at the top.
Up and down the road, curtains flutter in the lit windows, and I swear I sense the weight of eyes pressing in on us from between the gaps.
“This is where you live?”
For some reason, despite Lucan telling me he lived in an abandoned town, my mind could really only conjure lairs and caves. But something about this place bites me with a nostalgia I didn’t even realize I had, a kind of yearning for cozy comfort ingrained in my bones.
“This is wherewelive,” Lucan says, his tone tightening as three figures exit one of the houses at the end of the dirt road and streak toward us.
I tense at the sight of them, glad that Lucan let me have the dignity of standing on my own two feet for the moment I meet the others of his kind.
“Lucan, we heard a scream, but we weren’t sure… oh.”
The middle of the trio, a female with short, dark brown hair and a heart-shaped face, cuts herself off as she finally comes to a halt before me. Her eyes, amber like Lucan’s, widen as they land on me. Even though she’s technically smaller than me, her lean muscle and willowy, ethereal grace make me feel like she could hold her own.
“Hello,” she tells me nervously, confusion warring with excitement on her face.
“Vivian, this is Saskia,” Lucan says curtly. “Saskia, this is my pack. Or at least, some of them. Vivian, Merrick, and Soren.”
His pack? The word sounds strange, but it fits, somehow. The way all four of them react to each other’s body movements, like they’re connected through their very blood, even without the use of a necklace. A pang of longing, of wishing I could be one of them, flashes through me unexpectedly.
The male to Vivian’s right—Merrick—gives me a friendly nod that is the complete opposite of how a Monster should greet you. He has a rich, dark skin tone, his black hair braided back in several rows, and broad shoulders like Lucan. Meanwhile, the male to Vivian’s left—Soren—has a slightly narrower build, with olive skin and light brown hair cropped close to his head.
When he notices me staring at him, Soren flashes his canines in a smug smile. “Glad to finally meet you in person, Saskia. This asshole—” He nods at Lucan. “—has been insufferable ever since he fell i—”
“Saskia’s going to need some more clothes,” Lucan cuts him off, directing that statement to Vivian, who nods with an eager bounce on the balls of her feet. “Gather a variety of them, please. And I’m going to need you to go get Taika.” He turns his glare onto Soren, who shoots him a conspiratorial grin. But before he can obey, an older, gruffer voice permeates the night behind us.
“No need. I’m here.”
I whip around to find a gold-badged man limping toward us, leaning heavily on a gnarled cane topped with a carved wolf head. Ofcourse, he doesn’t actually wear a badge pinned to his chest, but the silver of his hair reflects the first moonbeams that peek through the clouds up above.
“Taika,” Lucan says, and I can feel some of his tension loosen on an exhale. “She fell from the Wall. I need you to look her over, make sure there’s no internal bleeding.”
Soren cocks an eyebrow, and the others visibly glance at each other in question. Up until this point, the surprise of seeing a human in their midst has kept their confusion at bay, I’m sure, but now I can practically see the questions brewing in their eyes.
How did I even get to the top of the Wall? Why did I jump? How did I survive the fall?
I can answer all of them but that last one. Because the truth is, survival should have been impossible. I shouldn’t be breathing, glancing uncertainly between Lucan and the old man with the cane in a ghost town where dozens of curtains still flutter from lit windows.
Taika is obviously thinking the same thing, what with the way his eyes—again, amber like Lucan’s—squint at me with inquisitive assessment. But after a long-bated breath, he nods.
“Right this way, then. Follow me.”
The others disperse, making way for us as we turn around and follow Taika back to one of the first houses at the end of a short, rocky lane. This one looks noticeably different from the others, with a wider roof, double door, and ramp leading up to a wooden deck. The ramp creaks as we walk up, Lucan’s arm a steady anchor around my waist, and I glance at some faded lettering barely visible on the front windows:F M LY MED CAL C NT R.
My spine ripples with even more foreign nostalgia as an old bell dings above our heads when we shuffle in, entering a waiting area with moth-eaten sofas, frayed carpet, and peeling wallpaper. The silence in here breathes down my neck, but I know what it is.
