Page 120 of Ruthless Alpha Beast
You cansmellthe rot.
“Any scent on Jasper?” Monroe asks.
“If there is, it’s being covered up by something else,” Dylan responds.
I can smell that something else—it’s the rotting flower scent, it’s putrid.
I squint my eyes.
“I can cast a spell,” Danielle says, looking around cautiously, “but then we risk being caught out.”
The shadows from the orbs reflecting off everyone's faces make them look haunted. Danielle’s eyes are big and wild.
“No spell,” Dylan says. “Let’s keep following in the same direction. I can tell that he’s here. Tara, you remember where you guys went?”
I realize then that we’re at the point where we left the witches and shifters last time. Just Jasper and I took the other path alone.
“Over here,” I say, my voice coming out a little above a whisper. “We’ll go ahead.”
The wolf that I’m on moves to the front of the group, and now I’m face-to-face with the darkness. It feels as though anything could jump out at me from its depths.
But no part of me wants to go back—I’m here for Jasper.
At my command, the wolf moves forward, and we lunge ahead.
Guided by the lights of the orbs, I scan the forest carefully. Luckily, I do recognize where we are.
Soon, we’ll be coming up on the narrowing path that leads us to the fake flower.
But we don’t want to go there. It has to be somewhere else.
As we move, I hear little whispers, as though the forest is bending, shifting, and changing around us.
I’m waiting for something to attack.
But surprisingly, we’re able to get through in peace.
Eventually, we do reach that path, and I lift my hand, motioning for everyone to stop.
“It’s here,” I say. “This was the path we took that led to the fake flower. So around us there has to be something else.”
Danielle, Monroe, and the other witches step forward, holding their lights up to the greenery in front of us.
The shifters are already scanning; they don’t need the orbs to see.
“There’s a path here,” Dylan says.
“And there’s one here,” a witch responds.
Two separate paths, one on either side of the path that led to the fake flower.
“We should take both, we’ll be able to hear who’s found the right one. If not, we’ll have to use the smallest amount of magic,” Danielle says.
“We’ll waste no time,” Dylan agrees.
The wolf chooses for me which path we take. We go to the left.
I hope that it’s the right one. I whisper a small prayer.
