Raider's Treasure (Alpha Barbarians Book 1)

1

It was colder than she expected as Lyric ran across the open field, the frozen grass crunching under her foot. The trees had blocked some of the wind, but now she was exposed and thinking twice about the wisdom of her decision to run. Maybe if she had simply submitted, they would have spared her and she wouldn't have found herself gasping the freezing air into burning lungs.

Lyric had never expected to have to leave the village she had always called home. Her father was the First Alpha, and the alpha that she was promised to mate with was someone she knew and respected. Though he wasn't someone that she would have chosen for herself since he was so much older, she was content with him being her mate knowing that her father could have picked someone far worse.

She had actually been looking forward to their mating in the spring once her first estrous hit, but the raiders had changed all of that now. The pleasant, unexciting life she had envisioned was gone. Watching her father's throat slit before her, and then finding her intended already dead when she tried to turn to him for help, Lyric had no other choice but to run and hope none of the raiders tracked her.

That's why she had left the cover of the trees to cross the field. There was a river ahead of her across the field that she hoped to use to break her trail, but with how cold she already was, she wasn't sure she could force herself to step into the water. Dying of hypothermia was not the way she wanted to go.

Pushing on as fast as she could run, her tired legs pumped until Lyric came to a sudden halt at the water's edge. The crust of ice along the bank did not inspire her to run into it as she had planned to break her trail. Forced to think fast, she decided to follow along the edge of the bank and pray that no one was tracking her, but it didn't take long for her to lose that last bit of hope as she heard rough male voices calling out to each other in the distance. They weren't in view yet, but they were close enough that she didn't need to strain to catch their words though she couldn't understand them.

Gathering the last of her courage, Lyric waded into the water, gasping as the chill stole her breath. Instantly beginning to shiver, she forced herself to slog in deeper so that the water would carry her scent away. Knee deep in frigid water, she wasn't able to move as fast as she had before, with the rocky bottom and the numbness quickly seeping into her legs and feet.

Tears running silently down her chapped cheeks, she kept moving upriver until a rock turned beneath her boot and Lyric was pitched into the deeper water running swiftly through the center. Attempting to force air into lungs trapped beneath muscles seizing from the cold, she couldn't get her feet beneath her again and was swiftly being pulled back towards her village. The river passed just outside the village edge, and her only hope now was that no one was watching the water when she passed by.

Giving in to the river's pull, Lyric began to try moving with it, instead of fighting it. Propelling herself as fast as she could in the frigid water, she tried to make as little noise as possible as she moved past the edge of her town seconds later.

She thought she was doing well until something bumped into her shoulder. Looking into the blank open eyes of a boy she had known in school; Lyric couldn't stop the scream that escaped her throat as she struggled to get away from him. Shoving against the body to propel it away from her, she realized he wasn't the only one floating in the river. Thrashing to get away from the corpses lining the water along her town's edge, pain bloomed in her left shoulder and caused her to swallow a mouthful of dirty river water.

Sputtering, she felt herself being pulled towards the riverbank as she choked on another scream. When she looked behind her towards the bank, she saw a large figure was holding the line that was attached to the arrow now sticking out of the front of her shoulder. Lyric tried to fight against the pull, but between the cold, and now the injury preventing the use of her left arm, her body was giving up. There was just no strength left to fight as she was reeling in like a fish caught on a line.

Feeling one massive hand wrap around her upper arm, Lyric was lifted from water, screaming again from the pain of her weight pulling on the injury. As the man reached out his other hand, she saw the glint of light along the edge of the knife he held, and she accepted her fate.

Going limp in his hand so he could get it done faster and hopefully not cause more pain, Lyric barely had the energy to be surprised when he paused, pulling her closer to sniff at her hair. Unable to do anything more than shiver, she didn't resist as he held her against him and nuzzled her throat, licking over the pulse in her neck.

At the point where she was oblivious to anything but the warmth of his body, she snuggled closer to him as he lifted her into his arms and strode back towards the village, his musky scent wrapping around her and telling her muddled brain that she was safe.