As a now familiar arm settled on her shoulders, Nadya glanced up at Kane. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
It was something they did, this greeting that was both silly and profound. Then again, when the world had been reborn all around you, you did kind of feel as if everything was new and fresh. Especially as you looked, once again, into the eyes of your lover.
After they got Lucan settled down underground on a pallet, Mayhem decided he needed a shower. While Kane worked with him to set up arudimentary curtain for privacy, Nadya cooked up some freeze-dried chicken soup, using distilled water and the pan that had showed her her reflection.
A little butane stove did the trick for heat, and tired though she was, she loved making a meal for them all.
The five of them ate in a silence that was communal, the sense of having reached a plateau of survival making the simple meal a banquet.
“When are that wolven and Apex coming back?” Mayhem said between spoonfuls. “Are we just waiting for them here—”
As if on cue, a high-pitched whistle announced the return of—
Only Apex.
And the male was grim as he entered the garage without its owner.
Kane rose to his feet from his sitting position on the floor. “Where is the wolven?”
“I don’t know. He never came back to the cabin. I have no idea where he is.”
Kane cursed. “Okay, then we’re going to look for him.”
Mayhem got up, too. “Let’s do it.”
Apex glanced around. “I’d hoped he’d come back here. But I take it that’s a no.”
“We haven’t seen any other wolven, though.” Kane reached for a gun. “Maybe they’re all together. Listen, we’ll leave the others here and the three of us will go look up on the mountains.”
“What if he was injured,” Apex said numbly. “What if he’s dead?”
As if that was all he’d thought of the whole day.
“Don’t be like that. Not yet.”
When Kane turned to her, the last thing Nadya wanted was for him to go out into the night, to where the guards were, where humans were.
“Go,” she said hoarsely. “We’ll be fine here.”
“I won’t be long.” He kissed her. “I promise.”
The males took a little time to get ready, and everyone shut down Lucan when the male said he wanted to go, too. Fortunately, Rio handled that bright idea, not that his loyalty to the group was unappreciated.
Kane was careful to kiss Nadya one more time, and as she watched him go out the garage’s side door, she told herself that he had made good on that very vow the night before.
He had promised to not be gone long. And he hadn’t been.
She just needed him to do the same thing again.
The hut was back.
As Kane came into his corporeal form by the clearing’s fire pit, that was his first thought: Over on the right, where it had been the first time he’d been at the site, the deep red draped shelter that was bifurcated by a river bed was exactly where it had been.
Even though finding Callum the wolven was his ultimate goal, he went over and pulled the flap back. The pallet of furs was where it had been, and he frowned. Ducking inside, he went over and knelt down. A tear of fabric, the corner of the towel he’d wrapped Nadya in when he had been determined to bring her to the old female, lay at the foot of the bedding.
Picking it up, he glanced around.