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Chapter Seventeen
Oz
I heard voices and automatically ducked for cover behind a few thorn bushes. A few red berries boasted their bold scarlet color, but as I plucked one out of pure starvation, my skin tingled when the juice from the smashed berry made contact. Why in the world, in this day and time, would someone waste not only their time and energy but the soil and water for a plant that didn’t actually produce food that could be eaten? The only thing I could think of was that maybe they were used for some kind of healing salve or a tincture. Whatever it cured had to be something deadly.
There were two males, wolves from what I could pick up from smell alone. They were pacing in front of the bush. Their potent scent was strong as though they hadn’t bathed properly in days or maybe running on a week. Perhaps they simply couldn’t smell me over their own funk.
“It’s only a matter of time before he becomes alpha,” the taller of the pair said.
A wind kicked up, and I stopped my staring to breathe in the fresh air. The Cursor had all but vanished as I reached the edge of this pack land, or what I assumed were pack lands. I was out of food and, to be truthful, out of my mind. Even my wolf refused to come out, given the weakness in my bones and the lack of resources to fuel his journey any longer.
Even worse, I’d begun to sicken, which was dire for a shifter. We hardly ever got sick and, when we did, it was time to take care or lose your life.
My body felt like I was already knocking on death’s door.
In my self-absorption, crouched down behind the bushes, I lost my balance and landed face-first into the sharp thorns, not only cutting up my face but alerting Stinky One and Stinky Two.
Now I’d done it.
I didn’t have the gumption, the will, or the health levels to put up a fight.
“Well, what do we have here?” They picked me up before I could recover, each one with their beefy hands gripping my forearms with entirely too much force. Our pack was mostly nonviolent, and we assumed shifters who came sniffing around were looking more for shelter than they were to harm us.
Clearly, these people didn’t share the same ideals.
“I mean no harm,” I tried to tell them but found the words left my mouth in less than a whisper where I’d meant it to be a commanding tone.
“Well, you can explain it to the council.”
Oh, damn, it was one of those packs with too many people in charge and not enough attention to the workers. I could just feel it.
I blacked out, going in and out of consciousness while they dragged me somewhere. My face was only inches from the dirt, and my feet dragged lines along the earth behind me. Spasms overtook my muscles due to the way they were carrying me, but I dared not squirm. The last thing I wanted was for these people to think I was resisting in any way possible.
“We’ll see what they think of an outsider just dropping in.”
My mind floated to a time when I was a small boy. A shifter who looked worse for wear drifted into camp one night. My mother cooked him a meal while he washed himself in the river. We put him up for a night, which was all he claimed he wanted, but the next morning, he gobbled up my mom’s breakfast and claimed he might stay another night. That man ended up living the rest of his life out in our peaceful pack and two years before he died, by an act of pure Fate, found his mate. They lived the last two years in bliss before old age and time took them together. His mate died only minutes after him, holding his hand, both of them smiling.
I could only wish for such an end.
In the meantime, I had to outlive these jerks.
They tossed my body in front of a gathering of males who all had their arms folded over their chests.
“We found him snooping around the outskirts of the pack, alpha.”
I managed to get on my hands and knees. “I was traveling and came upon your lands. It wasn’t intentional.”
Ugh, I had to get out of this so I could find my mate. This was taking entirely too long.
“Why are you traveling? Don’t you have your own pack?”
“I do. My reasons are my own.”
I watched as they rifled through my pack but didn’t find anything interesting.
“You don’t look like you could travel one more step, shifter.”
I nodded. “It’s been a while without food, and the shifts in weather patterns are hard on the body. I don’t have much farther to go, but the sun was giving me delusions.”
