Chapter 100

It takes me a long time to fall asleep, overwhelmed as I am by my new bond, the closeness of my mate, the secrets that we’ve passed between us that still ring through my mind. But as the minutes pass I feel my eyelids getting heavier and heavier, encouraged by the steady movement of Jackson’s hand over my hair.

When I do finally fall asleep, my head pillowed against Jackso sleep of one who feels both weary and completely safe.

chest, it’s the deep, true

I sleep so deeply that when my eyelids flutter open in the morning, I have…no idea where I am. Even though I am…completely comfortable.

I frown, not understanding, and curl into the warmth of what I assume is my mattress, though it’s a little…firmer than I remember? I’m not sure.

There’s a light chuckle, though, that makes me look up, and my frown deepens as I stare into Jackson’s face before I realize that…

“Oh!” I murmur, sitting up a little. He smiles at me, his hand pressing into my back, encouraging me to lean my head back down against his chest.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs, “take a second to wake up. There’s time.”

I lay my head back down against him, blushing a little as I realize that what I assumed was my mattress is just his body that I’m curled up in his lap, kind of sprawled over his torso, my face tucked against his pectoral –

God, is he really that big, that I can basically use his body as a bed?

Or am I just that small?

I peer up at him again, more awake now, taking a deep breath and raising a hand to rub at

my eye.

Slowly, a smile overtakes his mouth.

“What?” I mutter, shaking my head a little to clear it, a smile pulling at my lips as well

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because…..well, because he’s just staring at me. And it’s kind of nice.

“You’re just so pretty, he whispers, his voice a little awed as he traces his knuckles down the soft skin of my cheek.

I can’t help it then I burst into a brilliant smile.

Because my mate thinks I’m pretty.

His own smile widens, matching mine, and I squeak with happiness, reaching up and winding my arms around Jackson’s neck, pulling him close and pressing probably a dozen kisses to his check and neck. “Morning,” I murmur, after the fourth or fifth.

He doesn’t respond, just puts a hand beneath my chin after a moment and tilts my face up to his, bringing his mouth to mine and kissing me like he’s been waiting for hours to do it, like he can’t wait for it anymore.

And, obviously, I kiss him right back.

–

But we’re both more contained, now, in the light of the morning than we were last night. There was something freeing about the darkness about knowing that as long as it persisted, there was nothing we could do except explore each other.

Now that there’s light by which we can see?

We’re both aware that it’s time to move.

“Um, so,” I say after Jackson breaks our kiss. I stay close, speaking softly as I run a hand. through his messy hair, tucking it back behind his ear, “I lied to you yesterday. I can shift.”

“Really,” he says, his eyebrows going up, and I can tell that he’s pleased. “Little rose–colored wolf, by any chance?”

“How did you know that?” I ask, my eyes going wide.

“I think I met her,” he murmurs, his finger curling in a tendril of my hair, “a couple times. Dreaming.”

I tilt

my

head for a second and then burst into a smile as the truth hits me. All those nights,

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running along the cliffs with another wolf at my side-

Wasn’t just a dream, was it?

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But there’s no time to tend to that right now. “The only problem is,” I say, looking around the forest, “that my wolf is very obviously a girl wolf, and anyone who sees and smells me will figure it out.”

“We’ll keep the plan the same, then,” Jackson says, starting to stand up and ridiculously bringing me with him, setting me on my feet only when he’s fully standing. “We’ll only shift if we run out of time, yeah?”

“Do you think…” I bite my lip, looking up at him. “I mean, are we going to be too late?”

“Nah,” Jackson says, turning to look north. “The only people who would have made it to the mountain and been able to climb it in the night would have been…well, the best of Warrior Track. So, maybe Jesse and Rafe. But still, I think there’s plenty of reason to assume that there’s time left for us to make it.”

“So,” I say, smiling up at him and crossing my arms, “what you’re saying is….if I hadn’t been. weighting you down, you’d already be across the finish line?”

Jackson grins at me, not denying it, but scooping me up in his arms instead and turning met in a slow circle as he presses one last kiss to my mouth. “You can slow me down anytime. you want, tiny.”

I bite my lip, grinning at him, and I nudge my nose with his before I kick and wriggle, begging to be put down. Jackson laughs, but he puts me back on his feet and we begin to assess our plan and our few possessions. We quickly share the water, though I insist Jackson drink the majority of it – I got some liquids out of the fruit, after all- and then I lift my crossbow, twisting my lips at it.

“Do you think I need this?” I ask quietly. “If we’re going to rush, and climb…”

–

“Leave it,” he says, shrugging and making a snap decision as he likewise tosses his backpack into the brush. “We need to move fast now any extra weight is a detriment. Besides,” he bends over, scooping my discarded hat out of the dust where we left it last night and holding it out to me, “I’m your weapon now.”

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I snatch my hat from him, unable to keep the smile from my lips as I wind the majority of my hair onto my head and plop the hat over top of it. Because I quite like the idea of Jackson as my weapon.

Jackson smirks, helping me tuck the last strands of my hair beneath the brim. “Where on earth did my mate go? Now there’s only her boyish twin, Ari Clark, marksman and chemical mastermind…”

“Don’t forget powerful sorcerer,” I say, lofty, as we both turn away from the plateau, and start out in the blue light of the morning.

“Oh, how could I forget,” he murmurs behind me, “melter of very tiny pieces of glass…such raw power…”

I laugh, shooting a little glare over my shoulder, but I focus on my steps on the narrow path ahead of me, which is barely a path and more of a lucky outcropping of rock. I marvel again at Jackson’s sense of balance, as well as the fact that he found this in the dark.

When we get to the bottom of the cliff face, a little forest stretches out in front of us, beyond which I know is the bridge surrounded by cadets. I wonder, passively, whether those guarding it have crossed already? Or they’re still biding their time, hoping to take out more of their “enemies” before they shift and make their run for the mountain?

“I’m going to go check,” Jackson says, looking forward through the woods. “You wait here.”

“Okay.” I say, turning towards the forest.

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“Here,” Jackson says, frowning and grabbing my arm. “Wait here, Ari.”

“Um, I don’t know if not going to the bathroom is part of your supernatural prowess, McClintock?” I say, looking a little awkwardly up at my mate. “But it is…not part of mine.”

He stares at me for a second before laughing, shaking his head. Then he stills, looking around into the forest around us, clearly casting out his hearing to see if anyone is close by. “Yeah, okay. Whatever. Just…don’t go far, and return right here, yeah?”

I nod, ready to obey, trusting his senses more than my own.

He stoops closer, pressing a kiss to my mouth, and then as silently as a forest animal

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himself Jackson moves through the trees, heading for the edge of the forest so he can better see the bridge.

–

I wait until I can’t see him anymore before I move a few trees away, ducking behind a particularly big one and relieving myself in a hurry, silently cursing men – or maybe just men’s fashion for making this so much easier for men to do than women. But I finish up pretty quickly, quietly mourning the lack of toilet paper, before refastening my pants and heading back to the little spot where Jackson left me. noveldrama

I grin as I see a black–clad form coming through the trees.

“That was fast,” I say quietly, smiling, my head dipping so that I don’t trip over any roots.

“Oh, did you miss me?”

I freeze and my head flies up as I recognize that voice.

A dark, sour voice and certainly not my mate’s.

My eyes focus instantly on Alan Wrights, on the ugly sneer on his face. “Because I certainly didn’t miss you.”

I stumble backwards, frantic, seeking a way out-

But as he raises his hand, and I see my crossbow held steady there.

And I know that…this is the end.

I open my mouth and scream even before Wright’s finger tightens on the trigger –

Even before the bolt flies from the crossbow, lodging itself deep in my thigh.