A flock of birds took flight over the isolated valley. Susan had never seen anything so surreal, and her adventures on Eorthe were just beginning.
Sorin sighed. “Home.” The word sounded so wistful. Without warning, he swung her around onto his back again and grunted as she resumed her death grip.
“I wish you’d stop tossing me around.”
“I’m alpha. I do as I please.” He gave her a hard look. “That might be the hardest lesson you’re going to have to learn.”
She swallowed with difficulty. Sometimes it didn’t pay to be weak. Her whole life she’d focused on studying, not working out. Brains over brawn only applied in a modern world.
The trip downhill went by in flashes of rocky slopes that transformed to brushes and eventually trees. Sorin was so attuned to his land he virtually soared over the ground. If they followed a path, she couldn’t see it. Through the trunks, she glimpsed the river. They followed as it curved to the right toward the mountain’s edge until they reached a massive, wooden gate that blocked the way into a canyon.
Weathered, ancient doors sloped outward, making it a difficult climb and easy to defend. As they drew closer, Susan noticed every inch was carved. Faces of feral beasts covered one door and smiling, civil faces decorated the other. The detail was so lifelike, she ached to touch them. “Beautiful.”
“My grandfather’s father spent his life making these doors. Every member of the pack at that time is on there.”
“A little piece of history.”
He paused by them. “They represent our duality.”
“The yin and the yang.” Maybe their worlds weren’t so different after all.
“What?”
“My people have a philosophy about how contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent.” She hooked her fingers together. “The good and the bad make a whole.”
“The feral and the civil? Interesting.”
The doors opened outward, just enough for them to squeeze through before they closed again.
Slipping off Sorin’s back, Susan glanced around the canyon. A single dirt avenue stretched in front of her. Caves lined the stone walls. No multiple staircases or balconies like the Payami den.
Simple and clean, it reminded her of her home—the small, sparse apartment she’d kept. Like her home, this place was empty of people.
Sorin meandered over as he pulled a shirt over his head. He’d shifted to his civil form and already wore a leather kilt. His hair matched the color of his fur, silver-gray and silky, but grew past his shoulders in tangles, almost to his hips. Firm jaw and a crooked nose, as if it had been broken a few times. He was smaller than the beast but still big enough to twist her into a pretzel and dip her in chocolate.
The idea of him licking it off her sent a burning flush to her cheeks. She twisted away from him. “Where is everyone?” The silence in the canyon echoed with forgotten laughter. The contrast this den had to the life-filled Payami home sent cold dread into Susan’s stomach.
Sorin pointed to the largest of the caves. “Most of my pack is in there.”
Chapter Twelve
What a horrid and exhausting day. Sorin took a deep breath and inhaled his pack’s scent, filling his lungs with the comforting smell. First the blue light, then the human female and finally confronting the Payami. His pack being the smallest of the six meant they did their best to maintain the impression they were stronger. Only the Apisi’s over-exaggerated feral reputation kept the other packs from trying to take over.
The light faded, and darkness crept through the narrow, dead-end canyon, which his pack had made into a den ages ago.
There should have been more than two warriors on the worn wooden gate, but the sickness attacked the strong as well as the weak.
He walked along the main avenue between the canyon’s walls and gestured for Susan to follow.
The human shuffled along as if her muscles were stiff. Her long hair, no longer pinned up, hung in tangles around her shoulders. Dirt smudged her white jacket and the tip of her nose. She gave him a weary smile. “Not going to toss me over your shoulder again?”
The joke caught him off guard, and he barked out an echoing laugh. His pack mates didn’t tease him often. The old alpha was never approachable, and they’d learn hard lessons about humor. “Not anymore.”
The quiet along the main avenue made his soul ache. Usually at this time of the day, females chased the pups to get bathed and into their beds, the young would flirt and compete for attention, some couples would seek out quieter rooms and the rest would set the day’s chores aside for music.
He passed the now-empty rooms carved into the canyon’s sides until he entered the expanse of the pack room converted to take care of the sick. A large common bed had been set in the center—being close together as a pack helped the healing. Each time he entered the pack’s cavern, he did a quick headcount on the bed.
On this return, two were missing. He searched the dark corners and saw the covered bodies. Guilt wrung him hard. Not long ago he’d been on the mountainside, laughing while these pack mates passed into the shadow.
Susan stopped next to him. Her eyes were wide as they swept over the room. “It’s not like the Payami gather room.”
No lush carpets decorated his den’s floors. What cushions and blankets they owned gave comfort to the ill. Empty bookshelves lined the back wall since his father had burned most of the books long ago, and their games were of the sporting variety instead of the board kind.
She faced the bed. “There are so many.”
“The first signs of sickness appeared twelve days ago.” Now, a once thriving pack lay days away from extinction. He and a few others had recovered quickly, but most still suffered. It tore him apart watching his people die.
“About time you returned.” Lailanie knelt by the bed with a pup in her arms, wiping his brow with a cloth. “The last thing this pack needs is to lose their alpha.”
The snap of her command irritated his feral side. Lailanie thought she’d be his mate someday. Being the most dominant female, she assumed the role that should be hers, except he didn’t love her. Not in the way he wanted. He’d witnessed his mother trapped in a loveless mating. It had destroyed her and left him wounded. He wouldn’t make the same mistakes.
She still hadn’t glanced up as they approached her. All her attention was on the sick pup. “Peder has been beside himself with worry since you never returned from the Temple, speaking about blue lights and strange creatures falling from the sky. If I didn’t need his help so much I would have confined him to his room.”
Ignoring her sharp tone, Sorin knelt next to her and touched the young one’s fevered forehead. “How are they?”
“What do you think?” She glared at him as if she had the right to do it.
He warned her with a low growl as he met her stare. Her frustrations made her forget her place in pack hierarchy, and he had to remind her gently.
Lowering her gaze, as was appropriate, she dipped the cloth in a bowl of water and wrung it. “I can’t work fast enough to keep their fevers down. I’ve used all the blue flowers Peder returned with to make a tea. It helped the fever for a while but I’ve no more.” Her questioning gaze slid toward Susan. “Where have you been?”
“It’s not any of your concern where your alpha spends his time, Lanie.” Taking a deep, calming breath, he blew off instinct before she forced him over the edge. Sometimes feral attack urges trickled into calmer civil logic.
Lailanie ducked her head lower, chin to chest, and remained still. “Sorry.”
He scrubbed his scalp with his fingertips. “It’s been a difficult time for everyone.”