Page 59 of Mated By the Pack
“H… Human me… meat.” The treant swipes a gooey, rotten brown tongue across the edges of its mouth. “Delicious.”
“Oh, no, Brenna!” I run toward her. “Bracelet… Vine… The Tangle. Whatever you are, if you let her die, you won’t get anything else from me!” I take a deep breath and exhale sharply. “Probably because I’ll be next, so… Please…”
The pulse gets yanked from my wrist, sweeps through my body, and dives into the dirt below. Straight through the vines. I’m in the ground. No, Iamthe ground. As quickly as I went down, I go up. It feels like I’ve been fired out of one of those cannons they used to shoot off at the Great War reenactment fairs Saul took me to when I was a kid.
“Whoa!” I say, realizing I’m glowing green. And floating. “Um, big… guy?”
The treant is about to flay Brenna open with a swipe, but I draw his attention. I’m not sure if it is the green glow, or the tendrils moving on my arm. He turns and I just instinctively know to take a swing. The tendrils keep reaching, more of them rushing forward to join the others as they hit the treant like darts. They impede, weave, then the purple drains out the leaking sap. He stops, settles into the ground, and goes quiet. Still. Silent. Only the wind moves now.
The pulse inside me fades.
And I fall.
My feet barely touch the ground before my knees give out. The world spins once.
Then there’s nothing.
I wake up with a headache. I’m groggy. My vision won’t focus. I’m on the ground, but in a different spot. I know that because I’m near a roaring campfire, and I can hear people talking.
“Yes, and then… I think Calla’s waking up.”
“Gideon?” I call out, as soon as I recognize his voice.
“I’m here,” he says, moving to my side and holding my hand. “We all are. And from what Nara tells us, you saved our lives.”
“Her bracelet did,” Fiona chimes, and my vision focuses enough to see her smiling face in the dim light of the campfire. “Are you hungry? Jace made dinner. Vance found some berries that taste like sour candy!”
I start to say no, but then my stomach rumbles like I haven’t eaten in days. “S-starving,” I mutter.
Gideon helps me sit up and I look around. Everyone’s here. They’re all safe. I look down at the vine on my wrist and rub my fingers across it. It’s pulsing again, in rhythm with my heart.
“Here,” Jace says, putting a plate piled with meat and a few berries in my lap. “Water? Something stronger? What do you need?”
“W-water,” I force out, realizing how dry my throat is.
Not only is everyone here, but they’realllooking at me like… like the younger girls look at Leon Hadaway. Like I’m some kind of idol because I can sing really well. Or in my case, summon tendrils from my bracelet that can kill a treant.
I take the water Jace offers and sip until I nearly choke. Once it settles, I eat some meat and try one of the berries. I manage a nod to let Fiona know she was spot on with the flavor comparison. Then I take a deep breath and look around.
“If you’re waiting for me to explain what happened, I have no clue,” I say. “I don’t seem to have any control over it, and it helps when it wants to. The rest of the time it just… pulses.”
“Mind if I have a look?” Vance asks, moving closer to me.
“Go ahead, but it might burn you. It burned Nara.” I motion to her and hold out my wrist to Vance.
“I knew Vance would be fascinated by it,” Knox grumbles.
I make eye contact with him. The hunger is still in his eyes, but it’s restrained, like he’s holding it back. It causes some heat to rise along my neck. My heartbeat quickens. Vance pulls his finger away from the bracelet for a moment before leaning forward and touching it.
“It’s not an instantaneous burn,” Vance says. “Looks like spikeshade. Feels like spikeshade. Definitely would scorch Nara’s skin, but it takes longer for us. If I kept my hand on it for a while, I’d have a mark. Definitely couldn’t wear it all the time like you do. It would start to itch.”
“Didn’t even really notice that thing last night,” Jace remarks, and my eyes get wide for a moment.
“We had other things on our mind, brother,” Gideon says, but he seems to notice my discomfort. “Getting ready for our journey required a lot of preparation.”
“Right,” Jace mutters, nodding in mock agreement.
“Wait,” I say, looking around in a panic. “Is it okay to have a campfire? What if something sees it?”
