CHAPTER 31

Mated?

That was not what she expected. She pulled back, her contentment vanishing into the night. How could they be mated? She fought it, after what they just shared, she didn't want to lose their connection, or that contentment so fleeting, but a frustration grew within her. She didn't even know if she wanted to mate, she never thought it was a serious possibility. Maybe he was joking. It would be a cruel, unhappy joke, but she checked nonetheless.

His expression was not one of someone pulling a prank. It was soft, and slightly bemused, looking up at her pushing off from his chest.

She struggled against his hold to sit, to distance herself somewhat.

“How could we be mated?”

It was a stupid question, but her mind was not working at full capacity. Her tone must have set off some sort of warning, for his expression grew shuttered.

“My dragon chose you as we coupled. I suspected he might, since he seemed to be highly interested where you are concerned. You are a Dragon Mate now.”

“That's it? I don't even have a choice?”

Something cold passed over his features and he released her at last. She stood and backed away from him, ignoring muscles still sore from their intimacy.

“I do not have a choice, either, Lis, you know this, you grew up around Dragon Lords,” there was something in his tone, a bitter bite, but she couldn't analyze it. All she could think was that she was now trapped. What kind of Shifter became a Dragon's Mate? What would that mean for her? She had done what all Shifter law forbade her to do, and now she was going to pay the price. No pack would associate with her at all, it was worse than going rogue. The Lords, too, would shun her. She would belong nowhere. And it was all her own fault, a punishment for listening to her body, her base instinct, before her head.

She paced, her agitation rising with each step.

Cillumn rose, a clump of moss had attached itself to his back. She fought the urge to go to him and help brush him off. Never again would she place bodily impulse before clear rational thought. He watched her with a wary, guarded expression.

“What now?” she wondered.

“What do you mean, what now? Six, Lis, you are behaving like some great disaster has fallen.” Cillumn was scowling her direction, probably the first time he had done so. The moss on his back chose that moment to fall loose, but he didn't notice. He ran a frustrated hand through his hair.

“It has. I will never do enough to redeem myself to my pack now, nor will any other accept me, ever.”

He blinked at her. Now that his eyes had lost their glow and returned to normal, it was a difficult gesture to see. “You still wish to return to your pack, after all they have done? Why?”

She shrugged. “I am a Shifter.” And it was all she had ever known. A Shifter without a pack was not really a Shifter at all.

The loud snap of a branch, followed by a string of vivid curses, effectively ended their conversation. Illaise.

Heat washed over her, this time of her own creation. Illaise would know instantly what she had done, she would sense it. Lis made a desperate bid for what was left of the fabric she had worn, but the tearing she had felt when Cillumn removed it was more of a shredding. It lay in ragged little pieces upon the ground, like dead moths that had fluttered too close to the flame. Like me.

“Watch the traps,” Scet's voice carried through the night just before three dark figures rounded a bend along the entrance trail. At first, Lis thought the third shadow, hauled between the straighter silhouettes of Scet and Illaise, was the Shifter Cillumn had rescued from the cavern. But as they neared, she reasoned that it slumped too much, forcing the others to half drag it along.

“I am watching the traps,” Illaise snapped, “I watched that one nearly take off my leg. What kind of madness have you sprouted living out here on your own, Rogue?”

Scet did not reply. It might have been his strategy dealing with the woman, or he might have ventured close enough to catch Lis' newly mated scent. The way his eyes regarded both herself and Cillumn in turn led her to believe it was the latter.

Illaise, too, smelled it immediately, her demeanor hardened considerably and she scowled in Lis' direction, as if Lis had committed a great crime, and as if she hadn't, at some point in her life, committed the same crime. Silence descended for long moments as they finished their track to the cabin.

It took Lis' shame that long to subside enough to recognize who they held between them.

Her Alpha.

“What...?”

“We found him wandering the swamps,” Illaise released her grip on the torn and destroyed shoulder. Her Alpha, once a strong virile man, collapsed to the ground at her feet, unable to hold up his own weight. Scet set his side of the burden down with more care.

“In the process of ending him, he spoke, semi-rationally, asking for you.” Scet raised his eyes to hers briefly.

“He did?” Why? She was suddenly glad she had left him alive in the swamp, when she had the chance to kill him—or poison him at least. If he still spoke, then he was still Alpha. She would never live with herself if she took that.

Scet nodded and then glared at Illaise, who had worked her way toward the cabin door. “She would have ended him, anyway, but I insisted that he be able to deliver his message first. The man deserves that much dignity.” He stepped away and moved to a dead, crooked tree a distance away. There, he pulled something metal from a hollow, a blade.

Illaise scowled back at him, but said nothing. Why was she even there? Should she not have gone off to her own pack by now? She did what she had set out to accomplish...didn't she?

Her suspicions roused, Lis moved toward the limp pile that was once her Alpha. His body was torn with wide, ragged cuts, similar to those on all the possessed she had seen, yet not as clean. She thought about when she had watched him in the swamp rake his own fingers over his skin. Were these injuries self-imposed? Her stomach turned a little just thinking of it.

His breathing was ragged and uneven, bruised and torn skin rising and falling along his ribs with unpredictable rhythm. She crouched next to him, out of reach, but near enough to hear if he spoke, even in a whisper.

“Alpha?”

He stirred, but then descended into stillness once more. Lis tried again.

“Alpha, it is me, Lisrith.”

The Alpha heaved a little at her words and his body oozed from laying face down to a position on his back.

Lis swallowed hard. If he didn't retain a small portion of his scent, she would never have recognized him. The skin on his face was torn nearly completely off, only little patches remained. His eyes were no longer intact, either, now just seeping holes of gore. Even as she studied him, he moaned, a pained sound, and raised a hand as if to claw at himself some more.

She couldn't watch that, not without losing whatever remained in her stomach. She stepped, carefully, upon his arm before he got it far from the ground, anchoring it there.

“Alpha, what happened to you?”

His mouth pursed and then opened, his tongue working rapidly. He shook his head a little and closed it again.

“Bitten,” he managed, his voice was a push of air, barely distinguishable. “Bitten,” he repeated, “infected.” He turned his face her direction. “Lis...the pack...infected...heal them.”

It was all he could manage before going limp once more. Lis stared at him in horror. It was as she feared. Some of the pack had been bitten in the attack and now the infection spread. She swallowed hard, so wrapped up in her fear that she didn't notice when the Alpha stiffened.

It was Cillumn that pulled her out of reach. With a sudden surge of energy and inhuman screeching, the Alpha flipped over and lunged, jaws snapping audibly right where she had stood moments ago.

Her heart leapt to her throat. She scrambled to regain her footing and distance from the horror at the same time.

Fortunately, Scet stepped between them, expertly slicing his blade across the Alpha's neck before he had risen completely. It was not a clean swipe and had to be repeated several times before the task was complete.

The Alpha, or creature, collapsed, head now separate from his body, and the scent of Quatori strong in the air. Where did the Quatori go when the body was killed? Lis hoped it found death, as well, but she feared that it simply escaped into the forest. It certainly did not stick around and attack, but who could guess why that was. If they were breeding, then those within the infected would be young, days old really. Perhaps it was just too inexperienced, and frightened, like the young of any species when faced with an enemy.

Her head hurt from trying to think of the Quatori as thinking, feeling creatures, and from looking at the wasted flesh that was once Alpha. He asked her to heal the pack, did he know that it was an impossible task? Even if she could help, they wouldn't let her now, not as a Dragon's Mate.

“I am sorry, Lis, I wanted to warn you that your pack had fled their camp and that I feared something like this. At least it would have reduced the shock a little,” Cillumn sounded contrite.

“You knew?”

“Only that they fled after the attack. I had Dynarys send scouts to check on them. I thought to offer you reassurance...not this,” he swung his hand toward the body, but she avoided looking that direction.

Shame, and not a small amount of guilt, settled upon her. He had sent scouts to check on her people. What had she done? Maybe if she had attended to them as she should, this eventuality wouldn't have come to pass.

“You will enter that door on pain of death,” Scet threatened, his blade no longer trained on the creature Alpha had become, but toward the cabin.

Lis blinked, so caught up in the drama unfolding she had lost track of Illaise.

The woman stood, one hand on the door, braced to enter, firm determination on her face.

“Can you not see, even now, that there is no help for those exposed?” she asked, but she did not remove her hand, or step back.

Scet said nothing, but Lis sensed him tensing. Cillumn, behind her, tensed, as well. Slowly, he set her upon her feet and distanced himself a little, preparing for battle.

“We cannot win this war through compassion,” she continued. “We must cleanse every advance they make or we will be swallowed whole.”

“And is that the fate that Harvok faced? Freed from the chamber and Grim's imprisonment to be killed by your hand when I wasn't looking?”

Illaise straightened. “It is for the better good, his death was painless.”

“He was uninjured,” Scet snapped. “You have no right to decide life and death, Illaise.”

“I have the right to protect my people, and I will do whatever I must to keep them safe.” With that, she slid into the cabin, barring the door behind her.

“Adda!” Lis cried.

Cillumn burst into action first, slamming himself against the door. The ancient wood splintered beneath the force and crumbled to the ground. She raced in after him, Scet at her heels, his blade raised.

Illaise stood over the pallet of furs, her shoulders hunched slightly.

“I guess you win this time,” she turned to them, her face dark.

Lis' brows flew together, and she peered around her to the pallet where her sister lay. It was empty. She searched the room, fully expecting to see Adda awake and alert. Near the hearth, where Lis had retrieved the fabric to cover herself, a log had been pulled away. The rotted remains of the joints soft and splintered, giving evidence to how easily it was done. A breeze touched her face, air flowing through the opening.

Adda was gone.