Beauties and Beasts

Chapter 74: brought to you by a sprinkle of lies

Today on "My Best Friend Stockholm Syndrome!": A much-anticipated reunion, a funeral, and a proposal, along with the mental scarring of a female so severe, she might never recover. Yay mental scarring!

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The fight kept her awake until they popped out into a small valley, the high peaks of the mountain cutting it off from the rest of the world. It seemed green enough, although wildlife sounded scarce. Aetius shook his head slightly beneath her, his shoulders shrugging as he turned around and looked at the tunnel behind him. He dove into the vegetation without warning and Neara heard an explosion behind her. Before she could turn, branches slapped at her face and body as Aetius raced through the trees.

"Slow down!" She knew it was hopeless; when he got like this, he wouldn't stop until he'd gotten to wherever he was going. After some time, maybe minutes or half an hour, he stopped and waited, his entire body tense beneath her fingers. "Are we being chased?"

No answer, not even a flicker of movement to show that he was paying attention.

"Is it the scorpions again? Or the wolves?"

No answer.

"Yeah, this is going great." She propped herself up on her knees and tried to look around. He wriggled his shoulders so she fell against him. "What the hell, Aetius?"

He crouched beneath a towering fern, the fiddleheads coming off of it as big as she was.

"I'm not doing anything!" She reached up, pinched off a few leaves, and shredded them while she waited for something to happen. Her ribs ached and she remembered the slice in them, which felt satisfying in the moment but deeply embarrassing now.

After a few moments of silence, a heavy clicking started reverberating through the forest, like large rocks being hit together. Aetius's ears slowly rose. He looked towards the mountains, maybe the same ones they'd come from, and started walking towards them.

"What's going on? Can I walk? Ugh, why won't you talk to me?"

Silence. This was going to be irritating, especially since she felt the emotional exhaustion of fearing for her life right after a fight.

At the base of the mountain, several rows of earthen hills peaked against the vegetation, looking like Hobbit holes, only somewhat smaller. Most looked abandoned, but some had fires gleaming in the windows and smoke rising from the middle of the hill. They reminded her of igloos, or sod houses from 'Little House on the Prairie'. Aetius walked towards the largest of them, still small by her standards, and carefully shook her off. The look he gave her felt measured in some way.

"We have your friend here."

All irritation disappeared, replaced by confusion, hope, and fear. "Shay?"

He nodded. "She's been drugged."

"Drugged?"

"Yes."

"Why? What's wrong with her?" She inhaled sharply and clenched her fists in her cloak, drawing it tightly around herself. "Was she captured by ferals?"

"No. We brought her here, away from her mates. We wanted to talk to her alone, but they wouldn't let us near, and she probably wouldn't listen to what we have to say with them around."

Neara didn't exactly like Shay's mates either, but it still felt odd that she was a kidnap victim... again. "So what do you want to talk to her about?"

He sighed and dressed himself as he spoke, "Our Clan is dwindling, dying, and she won't have anything to do with Joseph. We want her to make a decision, once and for all, about whether or not to accept his court so he can be free to pursue other females."