Chapter 39
1276 Words
“He won’t,” Kris said, positioning himself between the two.
“Get out of the way, pup,” Jason warned. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“The hell it doesn’t,” he stood his ground. “My…”
====
Kris
====
… mate…
Well, s**t, he thought as he caught himself.
“Your what?” Jason grinned, looking as though he caught the canary.
Kris, thankful for the shield his fur covered him with, began to blush. His skin heated uncomfortably, desperately trying to add another word, any word, out of him to cover up his mistake.
“You couldn’t possibly think this one’s meant to be yours…”
… Right to the point. How was he doing that?
“I just know,” he laughed. “You think you’re the only one that can enter a mind? Think again.”
Renee looked on, concerned.
“You’re a fvckin open book, wolf.”
Kris inhaled deeply, trying to keep his wits about him. If he didn’t there would be bloodshed.
What if’s rolled around in his head next. What if he couldn’t stop once he started? What if Renee stopped talking to him over it?
“Yeah, yeah… what if,” Jason teased, sauntering over to the both of them. “What if I remove you from this situation?” Jason grinned wickedly as the evil beast stacked two hands against his shoulder and shoved him.
Set ajar, Kris toppled over his own two feet.
“What the hell?” he roared, cut off by his mate’s worry, his name on her lips.
“Not quite. Although for some Cleric’s Cavern can be!”
Kris fell hard against the smooth, weathered sandstone onto his side. His shoulder burned with the intensity of hellfires as did his hip and down the side of his leg.
“What the fvck!” he groaned low, mostly to himself.
The impact threatened his sight too. He most likely slapped his temple on the way down, he struggled to think.
It certainly throbbed. He knew that for sure.
“Kr-is!” Renee’s voice sounded choppy in his ear.
“Re-nee,” he choked back sand against the floor. “Rene-e!”
Kris whined in the back of his throat, trying desperately to alternate breathing with calling back for his mate. She couldn’t think he was gone; that he’d give up on her!
“Renee! he called back again.
His voice lightly echoed through the cavern, worrying him further.
“I wouldn’t have had to do it,” he heard Jason’s voice break around him in a series of echos. “But you gave me no choice!”
“There’s always a choice,” Renee spat.
His fiery angel…
“Just leave me alone,” Renee urged Jason to listen, “Or I’ll report you!”
“Report me for what? Hurting your feelings? As if you have any…”
“For shoving a new student so far off of school grounds he can’t attend,” she snarled.
Kris couldn’t have been prouder. To hear his little mate blackmailing that enormous s**t was music to his ears.
Yes… she’s the one for me, he thought.
“It’ll set you back. Make you redo your four years. You’ll never get your title and will be off my case immediately.”
Kris waited there on the ground, listening; letting his body work through the pain before attempting to sit up.
It felt like ages before Jason spoke again.
“What do you want in exchange for your silence?”
Renee had him! Kris lifted his brow, his pride soaring.
“Bring him back. Kris. The one you threw away… him. Back. Now.”
Jason whistled.
“Tall order.”
“Reported,” Renee replied in a huff.
“It’s not that easy. The Cleric Cavern is impossible to get out of.”
“The guidance office is legitimately across the hall. Be a dear and figure it out before I get there.”
“If you could have anything else, what would it be?”
“To be left alone. I want to finish my studies without another incident,” Renee laid it on, making sure no stone was unturned or that the demon couldn’t switch her expectations on her.
…Smart.
“I want you to get out of my way. Stop showing up. Stop trying to save me. You have no idea what you’re dealing with. All I want is to serve my sentence peacefully.”
… Sentence?
“Done?”
“What?” Renee worried.
“You want all of that for your silence,” he parroted. “Done.”
***
There’s no way to tell how time moves in the cavern. There’s no true light to speak of but ambient light spreads like fog across ridges and into wind-carved walls all around him.
It’s a welcoming factor given his eyes are still watering due to the fall. Cleric Cavern sat out past the desert of the Hallowing Shift, far to the west. Those that wound up this far from civilization died before they ever made it into the desert.
The fact of the matter worried Kris. His heart, as sore as his bones, urged him to move for her.
It would be a long journey back, but still one he was meant to take.
Kris turned to his side, attempting to get up. His bones creaked like an old shifters’ would, throwing him back into a world of pain.
“Ah!” he groaned loudly with nothing else on his mind but pain.
“Kris?” Renee’s voice pushed through the waves of it.
He forced himself to breathe through it, to focus on her.
“Kris?” Her voice sounded off again.
“A beautiful melody,” he murmured to himself, allowing the essence of her memory course through him.
At least he got to see her.
At least he knows she’s real.
Not just some wisp of a tag, nearly forgotten.
Renee’s calls continued, wafting around in his mind, painting a scene of want, of need for him to return to him.
“I’m coming,” he wheezed out, testing his lungs for strength. “I’m coming,” he repeated, opening and closing his hands.
He blinked back the shaky reassurance that nothing major was broken as he turned to face the ground once more.
“Ugnh,” he groaned as he made it over.
His front now laid flat against the ground. His legs sprawled out like a newborn pup pathfinding his way back to his mother. It was an odd state to be in, considering his status.
Goddess, what the others would think if they saw him like this… he groaned, still practically immovable. What strength he did have left in him fled soon after, his head dropping haphazardly to the ground.
“Oof,” he grumbled as his nose hit the gravel there. “I hate this place already,” he whimpered into his arm, childlike and uncaring.
And again, “I’m going to beat you. Mark my words,” he promised the ground as he tried to pick himself up. “I’m going to get back to my mate,” he groaned as his hips realigned, supporting him further. “I’m going to show her the love she deserves…”
His chest seized as he pushed to get off of the ground. Kris gripped his muscles there, begging for it to stop.
“Come on!” he yelled at himself. “I don’t have time for this! I have to get back… have to be wrapped in her embrace. I have to…”
- Writer
