Chapter 18

Zac’s pov

Her eyes were huge. Just… huge. Full of the fire and all the horror of the last few minutes. She was staring right through me, shivering like a leaf in a storm. Covered in… gods, covered in blood I’d spilled.

“Freya?” My voice came out all rough and sounded like sandpaper. “Are you… are you okay?”

She just stared at me while shaking like a leaf.

I heard a little noise from her as she tried to keep her calm but it was not possible.

She looked around her to see the dead rogues as she went over to one and looked at it before turning to me.

I looked at the dead rogues. Those animals. They had their hands on her. They held her kid over a fire.

How could they be so cruel?

Something burned within me with a primal feeling but I held it down.

I looked at her and frowned. It then hit me that as much as the rogues were to blame for this whole situation, why was Freya and her daughter in the middle of the woods? This whole thing was shady and I was going to get to the bottom of this whole thing.

“What the fuck were you doing?” Words shot out of me like poison arrows, too harsh. “How could you be so… so fucking stupid? Coming out here? In the middle of the night? Putting her in danger like this? What were you thinking, Freya?”

She shuddered at my words as if I’d slapped her as she looked away from me and I immediately regretted talking to her like that.

She tried to talk to me but then I saw where her eyes were going. Down my body, then back up to my face, real quick, like she was embarrassed. Then right back down again. Oh. Right. I was standing here buck naked and painted in rogue blood. Probably not helping the situation.

“For moon’s sake,” I muttered, mostly to myself and turned away from her, my skin prickling with cold and left over adrenaline… then snatched up the nearest dead rogue, what was left of him anyway, and yanked at his trousers.

They were torn and filthy of course, but they were clothes and probably better than me staying naked and trying to talk some major sense into her. I wanted her to see where I was coming from.

I got the clothes from the rogues and hung them on a low hanging branch before tearing another cloth to use as a rag to clean the blood from my body. When I was done, I wore the clothes and turned to her.

“What you did tonight was reckless,” I said in a stern tone. “You not only endangered yourself but that of Zara. How could you not see how this action could have led to you being killed… or maybe her being killed? Or maybe you two at the same time. That makes absolutely no sense. Any particular reason why you had to go forth and do what you did?”

She didn’t say anything as she looked away and nodded to me.

“I really appreciate you helping us,” she said in a scared tone as she bowed to me.

Her actions frustrated me even more. What the hell was she even doing? I needed more from her. What was all this?

I had just saved her. Why was she avoiding me? Was I doing something wrong? Did I do something… wrong?

I looked at her and closed the distance between us as she gasped and looked into my eyes.

Something like a thump bumped in my chest as I felt my wolf becoming calmer. Something about her was making me feel at ease. I didn’t know what it was but to be honest, I liked it.

She always made me feel that way even in the past when I treated her like…

And that was when it hit me. I looked to the ground where she had been with the rogues and saw a few bags with money sticking out of the bags. I could see clothes and food as well. Were they camping here? And if they were camping they would not need money so that meant that…

A little cry, broken by misery shattered the thoughts I was having as I followed it to see Zara crying close to the fire.

I was there in an instant, down on my knees in the dirt next to her. Her face was grayish and smeared with dirt and tears. And her leg — oh, by the gods, it was bent in a bad way just below the ankle.

"Freya," I said urgently. "What's happened? How did this happen?"

Freya was still by the tree, but she’d wrapped her arms around herself. She looked small. So damn small. “She… she broke it,” she whispered, voice hoarse. “When we were running.”

“Running from what?” I asked, my fingers gently probing around the break, feeling the heat of the swollen skin. Zara whimpered in her stead and I jerked my hand back like I’d been burned. “What were you running from out here in the middle of the damn night?”

The silence dragged on but she still didn’t say anything. The only sound was the annoying crackling fire. I glanced up at her.

She was just staring at me, those big eyes wide in her pale face, and the expression in them… it felt like a kick to my stomach. It wasn’t panic over the rogues now. It wasn’t disbelief.

It was pure, undiluted fear. Of me.

“Tell me what you were running from? Did anyone back at the pack threaten you or anything?”

She shook her head and pushed away from the tree. “No one threatened me. I’m okay.”

“Was it the house? Did you not like it?”

“It was just perfect…”

Now I was getting frustrated because why would she run?

“Then tell me what the problem was or is?”

Her voice was so quiet I almost didn’t hear it.

“We were running from you, Zac.”