Jagged Embrace

Chapter 72 - Will

Maeve scratched again at the body armor as they stood outside of the SUV in the humid evening air. Her hair was tied back the way she wore it when she trained with him. He didn't want to tell her, but he kind of liked it, not as much as when she wore her hair down. But she looked kind of sexy with it in a no nonsense ponytail. She didn't like the uniform; he didn't think she would, but at least now she had a set of field clothes.

Her field clothes were like theirs, reinforced with ceramic particles for protection against anything that tried to cut her. Whether it was a creature, rocks, trees, it didn't matter. Almost all of their clothing had either carbon fiber or ceramic woven into it, with their outer pieces containing dyneema. The dyneema made their pieces fifteen times stronger than steel, so it helped a lot when a monster was trying to rip them into pieces.

The next time they stopped at Mason's, he'd pick up the jacket he'd ordered for her that not only had ceramic particles and silver weaved into it, but it was made of the ballistic nylon and polybenzimidazole (PBI). PBI was expensive as fuck, but it gave protection against fire and some chemical resistance. In the seventies, they used PBI for space travel to protect spaceships as they came back into orbit, and later made firefighter uniforms from it.

Maeve did like the other quick dry, silver infused set he'd picked out for her. He knew she liked pink and preferred skirts, so that'd been easy. He liked her to wear skirts too, easier access. But those weren't for field work, those were for training.

He scanned the forest while Ander talked to her, giving instructions and reminders. Damn normals with no training. But, if she was gonna be useful, she had to learn. He rubbed the rear of his head, glad there was less hair now. He didn't really want her on the retrieval. Too many questions still hung out there, but if she turned out to be a decent lookout, it'd make part of their life a lot easier. Did it mean he'd accepted she was staying with them?

She is our mate; she stays, the voice barked at him.

He winced. Fucker hadn't been that loud in a while. He hadn't drunk enough today. He'd fix that when they were done.

"Do you remember how to use the camera?" Ander's quiet voice cut into the ramblings of his mind.

"Yes. We'll be back soon," Maeve's tone was calm and reassuring.

Will's eyes flicked to Ander and remembered the last time he'd been left alone for hours, part of the reason they already had three retrievals lined up. He'd flipped out again, but maybe that was just the meds fucking with his brain.

Will gritted his teeth. "We need to get going. You're gonna slow me down and we need to be back by dawn."

"It's not going to take six hours to walk four miles," Maeve snapped.

"No, it's not, but we still have to watch for the DNR and do a sweep of the area."

Her face crumpled. "Right, sorry, I forgot to take that into consideration."

He shook his head. Normals. They headed toward the treeline. Will moved at less than half speed to keep her with him. She was slow and had no experience in a wooded area at night, probably couldn't see either. As long as there was some type of low light, he had no issues viewing everything around him. He was happy to discover she was much quieter than he'd predicted. Not as quiet as Ander. No one was as quiet as his cousin, but she was lighter on her feet than he'd expected. Will had to make a concentrated effort to keep his heavy footfalls quiet.

They made good progress and only had to pause three times on the way to the cotton mill. Once for a ranger making the rounds, once for a group of drunk adults, and once for a deer. Will had moved them far away from both the drunk people and the deer to remain hidden. With the ranger, he'd had them pause and observe until the ranger was done with his check. Afterwards, they followed him for a while to get a better idea of his pattern. Maeve stayed quiet the whole time, just like he ordered her, before they crossed the treeline. He was worried she wouldn't listen to him and start asking a million questions. Thankfully, she hadn't said a word.

The scents of various animals and foliage called out to him, inviting him to give in to his instincts and explore the wooded area, but he ignored it, thinking again that he should have drunk more before they left. Every time the wind shifted, and he smelled Maeve, it calmed him because it drove out everything else. Of course, it also made him want to stop and push her down to the ground and fuck her until there was nothing else but them. His teeth tingled at the idea of taking her into the woods. Chasing her, catching her, pinning her to the ground... He shook his head, irritated he couldn't focus.

Finally, the burned down cotton mill loomed in front of them. The ambient sounds of the forest died away to an eerie stillness. He tilted his head to the right and sniffed the air. Something wasn't right. He stopped and waited.

"Will," Maeve whispered behind him, so quiet he barely heard her.

Why was she talking? He told her not to talk. Ignoring her, he continued to scan the area for movement or sign of life.

"Will."

He snapped his head around and glared at her.

She recoiled. "You've been standing there for forty minutes." Her eyes widened to an unnatural size as she peeked behind him.

He turned toward the cotton mill. A creature that appeared like a man appeared in the ruins. The clothes were dated and the longer Will peered at it, the more he was positive it was a monster. When it turned its eyes in their direction, he wasn't surprised to see a dim glow in them. Everything inside him demanded to take the creature down. It was an abomination. Its very presence sickened and enraged him. It needed to be destroyed. His muscles tensed as his beast stirred.

Maeve's hand touched his back and pulled him out of his haze. The creature turned away and stared in a different direction. Will angled his body toward Maeve. What the fuck was she doing? He saw her holding up Ander's camera, pointed directly at the monster. The faint noise the camera made as it took the picture sounded like thunder to Will. He moved his hand to the camera, but she pulled her hands back and nodded at him.

His eyes flicked to the monster. It had to have heard that. The creature made no motion toward them. Maybe it didn't have keen hearing like he did. They stood motionless until the creature moved deeper into the cotton mill. Will signaled it was time to move.