A Little Left to Give (Forgotten Series #8)

Chapter Five

The walk was painful, even with Luiz carrying me. I had a feeling I would need bed rest anyway. I didn't want to do it, once was enough and who knew what would happen once we all got back to the camp. Brandt was dead, dead dead. I knew there would be questions and a borderline interrogation from the others. Some of it wasn't going to be pretty and I was not looking forward to that.

Females... the illegal rogue pack didn't treat them well. Which was a glaring fucking understatement. But I knew I would be blamed for it. They would 100% blame me for luring Brandt out and getting him killed. It would be taken out on me with the exception I didn't really have protection. Luiz was decent, but Kreegan could be aggressive. He didn't hesitate to break ribs if someone looked at me too long. Luiz always wanted to talk things out.

Problem was, you couldn't talk to these fucking animals. The only language they understood and respected was violence. Barbaric assholes, all of them.

However that didn't help my problem any. I was going to be blamed for it, I knew I was. It was how this shit went. Something went wrong, a female was blamed, beat, and then left to get up or die. My belly gave another cramp and I winced, clenching my hand into a fist until it went away. The cramps needed to stop, they were getting on my nerves.

I could almost smell the camp. It was a sour smell. Unwashed bodies and despair. Not to mention the unmistakable scent of pure fucking evil that radiated out of most of the males. There was a reason most of them ran with Brandt, he let them be as cruel and sadistic as they wanted with no repercussions. I just hoped that there would be some way to mitigate the backlash so I wouldn't get the brunt of it.

I turned my head and watched as Ezekiel dropped Brandt's body and tilted his head. My eyebrows furrowed slightly, wondering what he was doing. "What?" And there was Luiz. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. I loved my brother but he liked to talk. And talk... and talk. That and he was so... I didn't want to say naïve but he believed that if people talked it out, things could get better. It was hard to see that when I had first hand experience that didn't work, that it never worked.

"Where the fuck have you two been?" The words were snarled out and I immediately lowered my gaze as Luiz set me on my feet so he could protect me if need be. I could hear one of the patrols approaching, he was a foul one, in looks and temperament. "It's fucking sundown and that means all females need to be in the bounds of camp."

"We were out." Luiz stood a bit taller and I flicked my gaze up and the male was sneering.

"Do I look like I give a shit? We have rules for a fucking reason. Females are to be confined to camp at sundown!" He approached me quickly, his hand snapping out and my heart jumped. I took half a step back before Ezekiel was there. He had a hand in the male's hair, yanking his head back.

He didn't growl, didn't snarl, he just stared down at the male. His entire aura was menacing and the male stilled rather quickly and stammered, "L-look there are rules-" Ezekiel made no sound, just pulled his head back further, and the male abruptly stopped talking. His eyes were wide and he was moving his mouth but not saying anything.

I watched as Ezekiel lowered his head. "No." It was low, it was growled, and absolutely filled with menace before he let the male go.

The male stumbled back, well away from Ezekiel. "What the fuck is this, Luiz?" He spat it out and Ezekiel simply stared at him. I felt like he was half a second from snapping and killing the male anyway.

"Brandt's dead." Luiz gritted the words out and the male blinked once and then again.

"Don't fuck with me, Luiz." It came out low, growled, and I flicked my gaze to Ezekiel as he moved. The other male flinched as if he were afraid he would get hit but Ezekiel just grabbed Brandt's jaw again and started dragging him towards the camp. I watched as the patrol's eyes bugged out, locked onto Brandt's corpse.