Mated

Thirty-Four

A/N hellooo I am so very proud of this chapter as well as chapter thirty-five. I think it might be the best chapter in Mated imho (in my humble opinion) just because of the all of the action and I'm so glad to share with you.
Please enjoy <3
(Ps sorry for the weird format I'm uploading from my phone on my flight and will edit later..!)

James' angry roars followed after me. What have I done? I only wanted to throw someone in his way so that the Rogues would take me because that was the plan. He wasn't supposed to get stabbed in the back!

I craned my neck to look even though there was nothing within view behind me but the narrow, winding foyer of the cave. The woman still at my side grabbed my face and whipped my head around. She had a disheveled pixie cut and sported a piercing in the center of her bottom lip. I bared my teeth, my eyes narrowing at her and when I raised my arm to punch her in the jaw, she caught my hand.

"Don't even think about it," she snarled. She barked at one of the others to grab on to my other side and once again I had a Rogue on either side of me, leading me through the mouth of the cave. We stood on a landing strip which was just the little bit of cave to stand on without anything left to cover our heads. It exposed us to the daylight which judging by how long of a day it had already been, it had to be nearing sunset. The sun was hiding behind thick white clouds and the air was humid from a light rain. It must have rained a little while we were inside.
I looked up, my eyes tracing the dips and uneven surface of the cave toward the top of the cliff above it. Sure enough, everything was coated with a light sheet of dew. The zip lines were gone. Ryder would have hidden them after James, Raquel, Cort, and I were safely inside.

I stared at them. "And how did you expect to get back up?" I shuffled to remove any remaining weight on my injured leg.

"The same way we got in," a girl who had to be no older than a teen said before extending her claws and latching them into a crack on the wall. My eyes widened.
She couldn't be serious. One wrong move and you'd fall thousands of feet down to the ground onto the spiky rock cliffs. And I didn't think even a werewolf could survive that. It was a death drop.

"You'll fall!" I blurted. But I wasn't saying it for her, I was saying it for me.

"You better hope you don't," said the woman at my side. She caught the thick, mucky rope someone threw at her and let me go to begin tying it around her waist. Then she handed it off to the man still holding onto me and she came around to stand  behind as he bound me to her. I groaned as the rope cut into my stomach, forcing us onto each other until there was no space coming between us.

Protesting did nothing because the Rogues moved quickly, realizing that the fight inside was coming to a finish and no one else looked brave enough to go back in to distract my pack any longer. I stumbled as the woman I was tied to began walking, moving us to be flush with the orange cave wall. I stumbled forward grimacing at the pain from my twisted ankle, planting my hands on the cave's wall. Her claws made a dull grazing sound as she sunk them into the crack. But she didn't climb right away. She let the others go ahead, watching and waiting as they began their climb. Then I realized she was watching where they decided to cling to, letting their decisions lead the way for us. She was waiting to see who would fall.

With a grunt, she hoisted us up before retracting her left hand and sinking her claws into another crack, one higher. She did the same with her right hand and I felt her legs tense behind me as she tried her best to grip the surface with her feet for a boost. Only, her feet slipped and I let out a blood curdling scream when we jolted downward.

"Quiet!" She bellowed into my ear. My pulse beat wildly in my ears and I could feel it pounding in my chest as I looked down. I closed my eyes before the sight beneath us could make me dizzy. The woman moved a few inches and we jolted upwards again as she found another sliver in the I choked on a frustrated sound as I heard James' angry roars following after me. What have I done? I only wanted to throw someone in his way so that the Rogues would take me because that was the plan. He wasn't supposed to get stabbed in the back!