- Put Your Life On The Line For Him II
We convene in a wide clearing, where an Elder awaits us, a long brown rifle in his grasp. There’s a rogue woman kneeling on the floor beside him. She is bound in ropes and her lips are gagged, but when her eyes meet mine, I feel like I have been pinned in place for a more thorough scrutiny.
Her eyes, they’re a very light shade of blue, it almost looks white. I take one look at her dirty greasy hair that still retains the feathery look and her olive skin and I instantly know she’s not from Neredia.
In the same exact moment I come to that realization, pure hate slips into her gaze, bitter, raw and cold. It makes me shiver and I look away, focusing my attention instead on the Elder as he addresses us.
The woman will be cut loose and given a head start of ten minutes. After which we will follow and hunt her down. The one who kills her and
returns with a cut of her greying hair as proof wins.
I swallow, eyes darting back to the woman. She looks unperturbed by her impending death. She looks relaxed, too relaxed, and if I could guess, I’d think she couldn’t understand our language. Only, we spoke the general tongue applicable to both lands.
Still, it’s a horrible way to die. Being hunted down. I couldn’t do it even if I wanted to; kill her. Or anyone.
Beta Randale takes the Elder’s place and instructs us with stern rules that everyone knows won’t matter the moment we run past the starting line. I take a moment to observe everyone. Moira’s fingers are especially tightened around an arrow, and I swear the woman seems intent on using it. I’d best avoid her. Katherine’s another to avoid. She keeps flipping daggers with the skill of a dancer.
I assess all my rivals, watching for their stances, their hands, their eyes. I’m not much of a fighter, but mother did teach me how to read people
by just watching and listening. It takes me a few seconds to finish up and I come to the decision that there are no friends or acquaintances in this gathering today.
There’ll be the hunters and the hunted. I belong in the latter category. Myself and a couple of others, and you can tell by the way they shift. nervously and the heavy stench of fear in the atmosphere that they. know their lives are in danger. I see the doubt in their eyes, and I am not surprised when Brianna steps forward, dropping her bow. “I withdraw.”
She isn’t alone and in the next five minutes, there are only nineteen of us left. And everyone’s too busy watching them to notice me weave through the crowd and approach the man of my dreams.
Lost in thought, he doesn’t notice me either, until my fingers reach for his. He starts, starting to move away from me, but my fingers tighten on his. “Really? You have no idea if I’ll survive the next hour and you’re running from me. What if you never see me again?”
Alpha Kier’s eyes glint with an icy resolve. “Then I’d bless the Goddess. every day of my life.”
His remark stings, but I grin and bump my shoulder into his like we’re old friends. “Liar. You’d miss me.”
Alpha Kier shakes my hand off his, but I refuse to let go. “You have the bravery of a thousand men combined, and just as much foolishness.
My grin widens. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” I pause, gripping his wrist with my other arm and it takes nearly dislocating my arm to pull him down to my height. I press my lips against his dusky, chiseled cheek and murmur, “I’ll come back, I swear. No way I’m letting another woman have you. You’re mine. And if I die, I’ll return as a ghost and marry you. So, I strongly suggest you pray that I live, because having a ghost of a Luna is very unpleasant.”
He turns his head to mine and there’s a golden ring in his hazel eyes.
2/4
+25 BONUS
ine Kos Him
Keep saying things like that and I’ll kill you myself.”
I blink innocently. “Asphyxiation is my preferred method. The sexual kind.” a
He cringes, his cheeks reddening and I laugh, pulling away. I toss him at meaningful glance before slipping back into the crowd of nineteen. Then I let myself breathe and feel the tremors starting in my veins as the fear starts to sink in.
The fear that I might not see him again.
I look back at the women leaving. Should I have given up too? Walked away? I shrug. Even if I had, he’d still kick me out of the pack and that’s a different kind of death.
Beta Randale has us stand in a horizontal line, a few inches apart from each other, and then he walks carefully to where the rogue kneels and be cuts her binds, leaving on her gag in place.
She takes off without hesitation, and I marvel at how fast she moves. But then, she must think she has a means of escape. She doesn’t know the forest, so she wouldn’t know there’s only one way out and she’s headed in the wrong direction.
When Elder Bran angles the rifle into the skies and shoots, I spare a glance at Alpha Kier to find his gaze trained on me and something flickers in his eyes. Worry.
A small smile tugs at my lips as I break into a sprint in the opposite direction of the others. My heart races, and my muscles scream in protest. I risk a fleeting glance backward, and I find that I’m being followed. Katherine and Marion are hot on my tail, bows nocked as they
run.
My eyes widen as I look past them and lock onto Moira, standing very still. One eye shut, she pulls back the bowstring.
344
I swerve left, and something whizzes past my ear, hitting the tree beside me. My heart pounds in a frenzy, and spare another glance back in time to see Moira let another arrow fly.
But it isn’t aimed for me and and my voice erupts in a desperate warning to Marion to get out of the way. Only, she hears it too late and for the second time in my life. I watch someone die
It’s ugly Marion’s face is etched with bewilderment at my sudden shout, her expression frozen in confusion when the arrow impales her, piercing skin and bone, jutting out from her chest. Her eyes empty out before she even hits the floor, and the sound of my pounding heart silences the thoughts in my head.
Katherine whirls, screaming at Moira Have you lost your fucking mind?!
As I spin around and hurtle through the woods, my chest aching with each breath, Moira’s reply to Katherine’s fury reaches my ears as she readies her bow once more. “Run, Kat Let me see you run.
Seems like I’m not the only one on Moira’s kill list
