Chapter Eight: On The Horizon

Kinsley’s POV

We’ve made a new camp every day for a week. Ace is threatened by my mate, I can tell. He wants to move us further each day. I wish I could find the humor in his fear. He storms through packs and destroys entire wolven villages, but he is scared of Terron Matthews coming for me.

I have lost a little bit more hope each day, trekking further into the nothingness of this wooded landscape, leading offshoot trails of rogues for Terron to follow. They’re trying to prevent him from finding us, from coming for me, but I start to wonder if he will even get this far in the search.

Unless he has already given up.

I ignore the rogues who banter back and forth, taunting me for my status as an Alpha’s daughter. They think I am a mistake, a lowly reject who lost her mate and her father. I hope their words aren’t laced with truth but no matter if Terron is coming or not, I can’t keep my pace any longer.

My knees buckle, the rogue behind me digging his boot into my shoulder, trying to signal me to stand but it’s useless. My limbs are cold and pale, my eyes are drowsy from the lack of rest and my fingers have only now stopped tingling.

I adjust the handcuffs on my wrists, feeling them dig into my back and my arms.

“Get up!” the rogue barks. It catches everyone else's attention, too. “Come on, mutt! Stand up!”

“I– can’t—” I breathe, panting each breath as though it were my last. “My legs– too tired–”

“What is going on now?” Ace barks, standing over me as I sink into the soft dirt. “Dammit, girl. Get up or I will drag you away by your hair!”

I swallow hard at his threat but it does little to stifle my newfound courage. “It will only slow us down,” I say under my heavy breath. “I cannot walk a step further. You haven’t fed me; I haven’t had much water. I’ll die and your entire plan will fail.”

Ace rattles with my words, the rogues all snickering to themselves. I know I look pathetic here on the ground, whining and weak, but I don’t care anymore.

If I keep walking, I will die.

Ace gives in, looking around the forest path for a lingering moment. “We will set up camp here tonight. A few of you will hunt for food. I’m staying put this time,” he adds, glaring down at me, “just to make sure you all don’t lose my prize again.”

The rogues disperse and I settle into the grass, trying to get comfy enough to relax but Ace doesn’t seem keen on allowing that. He grabs at my arm, yanking me up by my shoulder and dragging me off the beaten trail.

He slams my back into the nearest oak tree and keeps me upright with a rough hand over my throat. His eyes lower, his voice does too, and soon I see his canine teeth extend in threat.

I stare at the twin daggers in debilitating fear.

“You might know now that I need you alive, but it’s not without its terms. If you don’t talk your stupid mutt of a wolf into coming around and putting you in heat, I will have no choice but to have you killed,” he barks.

I gasp for air from the hold he keeps on my throat. He refuses to ease it for me to reply. He doesn’t want me to talk anymore, I know that from my many years staying mute, but things have changed.

Talking to Terron wasn’t just good for me to get to know him, it was great for me because I would have died under Ace’s control as a wordless, no-name captive.

“You move from this spot tonight, you’re dead,” he says with a harsh shove.

I aim to sit down but his hand pushes back into my shoulder, my back digging into the tree bark.

“I said this spot,” he snarls. “You stay standing, all night long, or I will rip you into so many shreds that if your mate does come through here, he will find pieces of you all over the forest.”

He steps back and I shiver, daring to fall to my knees but I catch myself. My thighs are throbbing, my ankles sore and my bare feet have begun to blister.

Ace kicks back a few paces away, leaning on a tree and hiking one ankle over the other. He cocks his arms over his head, his palms acting like a buffer between the back of his head and the rough tree. I eye the position with envy.

My legs might be the death of me after all. I will fall soon. He may not kill me, it would negate his hard work in putting up with me for this long, but I can only imagine the beating he will give me.

It’s a few hours before the sun falls. Every ounce of hydration I’ve had in a week has gone to the sweat beading across my body, exhausting me.

Ace hasn’t slept for a moment, waiting for me to give up. With my arms crossed behind me, my wrists picking at the bark in distraction, I let myself fall to the grass, depleted.

“Well, well, well,” Ace taunts, his voice coming closer as he paces toward me. “You thought talking back to me, embarrassing me in front of my rogues was a good idea earlier but you’re not even strong enough to stand up for a while?”

He nudges my cheek with the tip of his boot.

“I guess you’re going to have to learn to follow orders like you used to.”

He swings his leg back, aimed at my temple but it stops short, a huff of an exhale somewhere nearby. It’s a wolf, we can both tell, and considering his rogues hunted, ate, and have fallen asleep in the dusk hours, I can only imagine it’s an uninvited guest at our camp.

“It better not be–”

A large amber wolf pounces from the woods, charging forward so quickly that Ace can’t yell out for his rogues. He shifts instead, the two wolves clashing together in a hot moment of angst and venom.

They bite for the throat, wolves leaking from all over the forest until the camp is flooded with them. I don’t have much wolven sense yet, but I can tell it’s Terron and his warriors. While rogues and warriors duel, a lean, lone wolf comes to my side.

I recognize the scar on his neck, looping under his chest with pink, fleshy scratch marks all around it. Lucas shifts and nudges me onto my side, hooking a nail into the links of my cuffs and snapping them off with a quick tug.

I hiss in pain but focus hard enough to see Terron’s wolf fighting ruthlessly with Ace’s. Terron bites into The Rogue Prince’s shoulder, forcing Ace to howl in pain but his rogues are too busy to come to his aid. He snaps forward, landing a bite on Terron’s leg.

I leap forward at the sight but Lucas keeps me back, his body pressing between the gruesome snapping and myself. My legs refuse to work, leaving me to crawl under Lucas’s chest until I’m almost free of his protection.

I have to distract Ace. I can’t let Terron lose to The Rogue Prince.

After a few inches of crawling, Lucas notices my attempt to intervene. His hand aims to yank me back toward him but before he can, I grab a hold of Ace’s back leg.

It’s not enough to hurt, but it is enough to distract him.

He swings back, teeth out and ready to snap down on my wrist, instead only getting a few scratches down to my elbow in his muzzle before Terron grips a bite into Ace’s neck.

The black wolf howls in excruciating pain, leaping sideways to evade my mate. Terron dares to follow him, to kill him for good but stops when he spots me in the grass, holding my bleeding arm to my chest.

I blink back spots, the war unleashed in these peaceful woods, and pain set loose in my body.

Even with all the chaos, Terron shifts, kneeling on the ground as he pulls me to his side, he and Lucas speaking wordlessly before the Beta shifts and pounces off into Ace’s direction. Terron pulls me to his chest, my body cold, limp, and useless.

“It’s okay, you’re going to be fine, Kinsley,” Terron pants, warriors falling back from the retreating rogues to surround their Alpha on the battlefield. “You’re safe now.”

I look into the blue eyes I’ve missed so much, wondering how I’ve made it my whole life, or even the past week, without their cool gentleness piercing my soul.

“You– you came after me–”

He nods, grinning wide. “Of course I did, Kinsley. I knew the minute I went to your father’s pack that something was wrong. I should have never left you. I’m sorry the rogues attacked and you were taken. it will never happen again.”

My sweaty, tired brow furrows with his words.

Even in the aftermath of a dwindling battle, I steady my tone. “I wasn’t taken by rogues, Terron.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I was given to them.”