Wild Sign (Alpha & Omega #6)(91)

Anna felt Charles’s nearness and increased her pace without considering that the much more fatigued Leah—who had apparently run here from Montana—could not keep up. The trees thinned out a little and she caught sight of Charles and Tag.

Charles saw her, too, and broke from the jog he’d been moving at to a full-on run. She could have flown down the hill. She didn’t slow as she neared, just threw herself at him, wrapping around him, arms and legs and heart—knowing he would catch her. He would always catch her.

And for a moment, with his hard arms around her with bruising force, she wasn’t a badass who had just killed the minion of a would-be god. She was a shivering fearful woman who had narrowly missed being Rosemary. A woman who had seen a cavern of living mummies—and that was a memory she might not fight too hard to keep if someone wanted to steal it from her.

Hugs were dangerous in that way. He held her tight—and she could feel in the too-rapid beat of his heart and the slight shiver of his arms that he had been frightened, too.

“We need to go,” said Leah. She sounded pretty tough, but she had it worse than Anna, and she didn’t have anyone to hug her.

Anna dropped back to the ground.

“Leah,” said Charles. “Da is worried about you. I’m glad to see you safe.”

An odd expression crossed Leah’s face. “Is he? And ‘safe’ is a matter of degree, isn’t it?” She looked over her shoulder. “We should go.”

They set off down the mountain toward safety. Anna and Charles took the lead and Tag the rear, surrounding the usually indomitable Leah with what protection they could.

“Tell me,” said Charles.

And because the pace didn’t preclude talking, Anna did. When she had finished, Charles glanced over his shoulder at Leah so that it would be clear that he was speaking to her.

“My da called Asil back from Billings and left for here in the middle of the night, as soon as Asil returned to care for the pack. His intention was to fly to Bend and then requisition a helicopter and fly to Wild Sign. If he was able to do that, he should be here sometime in the next hour or so.”

Because Anna knew her mate, she felt that there was a lot more he wanted to say. He saw her gaze and shook his head. “Some things my da is going to have to put back together or not,” he told her.

“Should we wait for him in Wild Sign?” Anna asked.

“No,” Leah said, though Anna had been talking to Charles. “We need to get out of here.”

“No need,” Charles answered Anna. “Pack sense will tell him where we are. We should just keep going. We’ll come back and hunt when we have a better idea of what we are dealing with. We can bring some allies along—and a better way to protect ourselves than singing Queen at the tops of our lungs.”

Leah stumbled as they came to the amphitheater. She recovered quickly and took up the pace again, but her running had lost the easy rhythm she’d had before the stumble.

“Leah,” asked Tag, “would you let me carry you?”

“No,” she said. “Twisted my ankle. It will heal in a minute. Keep—”

There was a rumble, louder and longer than any of the thunder they’d been hearing, though it was the same kind of sound.

“Earthquake,” said Tag.

“It’s him,” Leah said, despair and fatigue in her voice. “We were too slow.”

“Look,” Charles said.

The ground that formed the amphitheater lost solidity, dropping down like ground zero of an underground nuclear detonation. Dirt flowed downward like a waterfall, punctuated with the boulders and stumps that had been the pews in the Singer’s open-air house of worship.





CHAPTER





13


Nothing emerged from the pit. After a moment, they all—well, they didn’t relax, that was for damned sure. But they regrouped.

“Should we leave?” Tag asked. “Come back with more firepower?”

“It has the witches,” Anna said. “And all the power they can muster from hell’s own assisted living facility. Are we sure we want to give them time to get here?”

Charles didn’t say anything, just tested the ground with his feet as if making sure it wasn’t likely to open up into a pit anytime soon. Anna didn’t find that reassuring.

Instead of waiting for an answer from Charles, Tag nodded, as if Anna’s comment had been enough. He started stripping out of his clothing in preparation for shifting to wolf.

“We have no choice,” said Leah hollowly. “He won’t let us leave. He can’t afford to.”

“Do you have any insights about what we’ll be facing?” Charles asked Leah.

She looked like she hadn’t heard him. Anna gave her a few seconds and then told Charles what she knew.

“It messes with your memories.” Everyone already knew that, but Anna had very recent personal experience. “The first time it attacked me, it took me back to one of the most traumatic times in my life and removed all of my memories from that time until this. I felt like it replaced who I am now with that earlier version of me. It was very disconcerting. I don’t know how you can guard yourself against that.”

“He tried to do that to me as we left the cave,” Leah said unexpectedly. “But he had trouble with the wolf in me. I think that might mean that the hunting song may shield us—at least a little.”