Filed To Story: Traded To The Lycan King Novel (Colette & Merikh) by MG Wattsons
Then I spin on my toes and walk toward the front of the group. I catch up to Nisha, sliding up on her right side as she looks amused by my presence. Neither of us speaks. Why would we when there isn’t much to say?
It is obvious she hates me and looks down on me for some reason. But if we are going to be stuck together for a while, then I may as well familiarize myself with her snide remarks.
“Are you lost, Tracker?” She muses, her deep brown eyes blinking slowly.
“No, Nisha.” I tell her. “Just coming up for some air.”
I mutter the sentence, not even realizing how much I mean them until I hear them in my own ears. Being around Hayes is entirely suffocating and when he isn’t around, usually there is Marcos drowning me with his closeness and his overwhelming presence. Two entirely different men both successfully making me uncomfortable and want to hide from them.
Nisha shakes her head before she points up ahead, where Koda saunters, ducking under a branch.
“You could walk with Koda.” She offers and I admit her immediate desire to send me off ruffles my skin and my lip twitches with annoyance. “Did I do something to offend you?” I ask, tired of the shitty attitude.
“No,” She arches a brow.
“So your dislike for me is purely a personal choice.” I scoff and nod my head. “Fantastic.”
I take a few steps before she exhales and groans. Her hand reaches out, clutching my elbow, tugging me back next to her.
“Look,” she sighs, “I just…I am protective of these guys. They are my family, a weird, fucked up and very anger filled family. But that’s all I have, so yes, I am hesitant to welcome someone else into the group.”
“Well, lucky for you, I’m not looking for a family.” I say my word, drifting off as my eyes scan the area around us, a scent prickling my senses as I slow down. The trees are still, not a breeze breaking through the dense foliage of the forest, yet my nose draws my attention to the right.
Nisha says something to me as I narrow my eyes, tilting my chin up and taking a deep inhale.
Heat permeates the air, the scent of overly warm metal or charcoal in the faintest way pulling me off the path the others trod down.
My lycan perks up, and I squeeze my eyelids together, allowing the world around me to fall silent. In the darkness I see a dull light, like a thread leading me as it pulses away, calling me to follow. I can feel the excitement rising in my gut, a smile coming to my lips as I throw my eyes open and sprint off in pursuit.
“Kyra! Where are you going?” Nisha hisses after me, but I am too far gone, already on the hunt.
As I cut around a tree, I notice a mark on the bark of the tree. There is a small fresh cut, the under skin looking green and still moist. It’s more like a dent, as if a rock were hammered into it. My fingers run over the indent, a shiver running through my body when I bring my hand to my nose and look closely. There is a slight shimmer, an oily hue, on my fingertips. As if it matches the flame fuel a dragon uses to spit its fire.
to I can hear hushes arguing ways behind me, but I push forward. My nose may have picked up the scent, but my other skills have verified it. Ezrah and the egg are close. Now it is a matter of how close. What I need now is stealth and silence as I rely on my lycan’s eyesight and my heightened hearing.
Tracking again feels like coming home after being gone for too long. My heart sings for the first time since losing everything, a part of me coming alive again as I slip through the trees. Every step brings me an exhilarating strike to my chest as I focus on controlling my breathing, keeping it low and silent.
I have no idea how long I track for, elme stopping every now and again to feel the trees, search for the scent and listen for the animals in the trees as I grow closer. My brow dots with sweat as I break into a small opening, ending at a large rocky wall. I stay in the cover of the canopy, lingering in the shadows as I glance up, looking for a way to climb or potentially see how they made their way up top.
When I notice the harder rock surface to the left, away from the fallen shale on the front face of the cliff side, Linhale deeply and step into view sprinting toward it. As reach ch gut, touching the cold stones, I press myself to it, looking up and mapping out my path. I suck my lip into my mouth, gnawing on the lower corner, debating on whether or not I should trust the openings I see.
But this is the first real chance we have had to catch Ezrah, or at least get close enough to remain on his trail. So I take three seconds to breathe through my nerves and shake my hands and fingers out.
“Ty, if you were here, you would love this.” I mutter to myself before I purse my lips and exhale slowly. “This display of bravery is for you.”
I throw my hand up into the first crevices, swinging my leg until I find a footing and I push myself up. Each move is slow and methodical as I work to keep myself from falling.
It is slow and painful as rocks cut at the palms of my hands, but I push on. I am almost halfway up the wall face when my fingers slip and I cling to a rock, the sharp edge slicing into the palm of my hand.
The blood makes my hold slick as I swing my body, desperate to find anything to reach for with either my fingers or my feet. One moment I am swinging and the next my toes tap into something and I force my weight to it with a pained grunt before I try to give my injured hand a shove off the rock.
The cut is too much, my fingers tingling as they lose feeling, and I linger between a delicate balance on my foot and my flailing arms. The reality hits with gravity as I teeter back and my footing disappears and the world twisting around me as I pick up speed.
Fear climbs up my throat with a silent scream as my stomach moves into my chest. A part of me wants to let it happen, to just crash to the ground and let the rocks break open my skull and hide my pool of blood beneath them.
But then I remember why I am here, what it is I am doing and stopping. No one, not even the likes of Nisha, should have to experience the loss that I have, and until Ezrah is found, and the egg delivered, no mates are safe.
My lycan breaks out at the last moment, my nails cutting into the side as I come to a halting stop, my body swinging into the side of the rocks with a grunt making me recoil in pain.
I scramble again for a grip, pain slipping through my body like a heated knife to butter. My body slams into the ground, a raspy grunt forced from the remaining air in my lungs.
My lycan retreats, as I turn onto my hands and knees, heaving as my stomach boils over from the sheer panic and fleeting death. As I try to stand, a calloused hand wraps around the back of my neck, yanking me back enough to make my teeth clatter together.
“What the hell do you think you are doing?!” a voice growls, sending a shiver through my spine as my mouth goes dry.
“Let go of me!” I grit out, throwing my elbow back, my funny bone tingling up my arm and into my fingers as I hit something solid. The hand on my neck releases me and I stumble forward into the wall, whipping around, ready to fight. I stop, blinking as I look at Hayes, who frowns at me and rubs his solar plexus.
“Ouch,” He says, looking unimpressed. “All of that so-called training and you went with an elbow jab?”
An amused laugh bubbles up my chest as I allow my body to go lax and lean onto the rock surface for support. The cool stones soothe my aching muscles from my falling and I sigh heavily.
“Forgive me, but I’m not in the mood for any verbal sparring at the moment.” I huff out, my stomach pinching and churning violently as I lean forward, hands on my knees.
“What the hell were you thinking, running off like that?” He asks, but for once, his words aren’t demanding or condescending.
“I was tracking.” I say, turning my head to look up at him from my bent over position.
“Looked more like you were falling.” He says with a grunt.
I don’t have the energy to fight with him. Going from the high of tracking to near death and then to the scare of being attacked does something to the nerves I can’t quite explain.
My heart is in my throat still, the bile burning the back of my throat as I try to bring my blood pressure back to normal. Hell, fighting that damn dragon felt way less taxing.
“Ezrah is close.” I whisper, standing up again before hunching back over and hurling out the acid that had settled in my throat and around the bitter taste buds around my tongue.
My muscles contract painfully, tugging at my injuries and making me groan in near agony. I have now fallen off two cliffs since starting this mission. If this starts to become a habit, I may have to send myself home.
If I had a home to go back to.
“What do you mean?” Hayes asks, his body going rigid as he steps in closer to me. I slide my forearm over my mouth, cleaning it as I swallow roughly.
“I caught the scent of the egg, and then when I looked closer I could see signs they went this way-“
“Are you sure?” he asks, his voice low as he reaches out and takes my chin between his thumb and forefinger, forcing me to meet his intense questioning eyes.
“Of course I am sure.” I tell him, trying to struggle away from his touch, the sparks flooding through me and calming the painful storm of my wounds. “Look at me, Kyra.” He says seriously, moving his face closer. “Say it again.”
“Ezrah is near. I bet my life on it.” I say, making sure to say my words clearly so he doesn’t question it again. “He is over that cliff and I was trying too “That’s what I thought you said.” He mumbles, dropping his hand before he turns away, a flash of confliction on his face.
“Why do you not seem excited?” I ask, hating how much it disappoints me to not please him with my work. Isn’t this what he wanted for so long? “Why did you rush off on your own?” He asks, his words soft before he turns and glares at me. I stutter under his look. A small shrug the only thing I can think to do to answer him.
“I- uh- wasn’t thinking about it. What it came down to is I picked up the scent, and I followed to verify. That’s what I have always done in the past with Tyler.” I try to explain, but a sinister smile takes over his lips as he clicks his tongue.
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I am not your ex-mate. He is dead” His words have a bite to them that makes my brows furrow. His mood seems to shift faster than the wind in a raging storm, and his words feel like a punch to the gut.
“I know that. There is no way I could ever confuse the two of you.” I snap at him. “What I mean is, this is how I was trained. This is what I do, Hayes. I track, I follow and then I report and we proceed from there. In a sense, I am a spy.”
“Kyra, you left without so much as a look back. Nisha thought you went crazy and freaked out.” He says, a glimmer of guilt in his eyes. “Definitely crazy, but I wasn’t freaking out.” I say as a sound rustles over my head, distracting me.
A rock tumbles from above us and Hayes snaps his head up, his reflexes moving quicker than mine as he grabs me, tugging me into his chest before he spins us to the right, just under a small ledge.
My back presses into the rocks, his body glued to mine, his chin touching my hair. My stomach, once revolting, now calms and butterflies emerge, dancing amidst a field of a love they want so desperately to live freely in.
“Hayes,” I whisper, my lips barely moving. His chest vibrates softly, sending a shockwave through my body.
“Hush,” he utters and I press my lips together, closing my eyes as I try to keep tears from forming.
It feels so nice, so peaceful, so…safe, in his embrace, and that is a feeling I haven’t felt in a long damn time. My lycan is preening and my heart rate climbs with every second he stays in my space.