Strange inhuman sounds erupt from all around.
Not loud enough to wake me fully until I feel hot, humid breath blowing against my face. This sensation forces life back into my eyes to examine the source. We’re no longer in the tree house, and my face is pressed against patches of moss and soil.
A black, wet nose nudges my cheek, and I jerk away, choking on a gasp.
The RottWeilen is back, heftier than a lion. Glossy black fur with russet-brown accents on his chest and paws. He watches me patiently, with large cinnamon eyes and an enormous jaw. I remember when he let me touch him. Caress the mane around his neck and shoulders.
“You might be the heaviest sleeper I’ve ever met.” A familiar tone. “I could have been some psychopath carrying you into the night to dump your body off a cliff.” I twist around to see him standing behind me, a devilish smirk.
“Dessin?”
His mouth stretches into a grin, revealing those straight, very white teeth. “You should have run while you had the chance,” he says.
A pulse of excitement runs through me. I push my hands off the dirt to stand up, shuffling over to him. He looks down at me like I’m an animal that might attack at any moment. My hands slip under his arms, and I wrap around his torso, hugging him tightly.
Silence, like a child’s comfort blanket, wraps around us. My eyes fall closed.
“Was he really that boring?” Dessin asks. I release a laugh against his chest and roll my eyes.
“Not at all.” I nuzzle into his chest. “I just missed you.” He exhales and holds me closer.
“And did he tell you every little secret about us that you’ve been dying to know?”
I huff into his shirt. “Not really. And I’m really getting tired of not knowing anything.” I take a moment to finally acknowledge my surroundings as they have changed. It’s still dark out, but I can tell it’s early morning. We are in a different section of the forest. The trees drape over us so heavily that even if it were midday, the space around us would remain drastically shadowed and cool. The Evergreen Dark Wood has areas that can make you feel utterly blind at night, areas that are the homes of predators not yet identified. The Evergreen Dark Wood is the source of many scary bedtime stories. I dart my eyes around, remembering the RottWeilen standing behind me, and look back at Dessin.
“Why did we leave the tree house?”
“DaiSzek alerted me that we had company on their way to pay us an unfriendly visit. I packed you up and moved us to a location they wouldn’t dare visit.” I look back at DaiSzek, who blinks twice to confirm the story.
“You packed me up,” I repeat.
“Okay, I scooped you up.”
I rearrange myself to face DaiSzek, who sits in front of me, waiting. “Hello there,” I say. I reach my hand out toward him, carefully, like I’m about to touch a hot stove. He leans into me, pressing the side of his face against my palm, closing his bright cinnamon eyes. My other hand reaches up to his chest, my fingers disappear into his sleek black fur.
“You know… RottWeilens are one of the reasons why the seven forests are so highly feared?” Dessin is leaning against a skyscraping Hyperion tree that rules this forest like an ancient king that never dies.
I raise my eyebrows at him.
“About sixty years ago or so, this country was vacant until our people settled here. They ventured through thousands of acres of forest, primarily through the Red Oaks. The pack of RottWeilen wouldn’t let them through.”
I look back at DaiSzek, who seems mesmerized by his words.
Dessin’s eyes flick down at the calm titan beside me. A memory of a smile decidedly hiding on his face. “Not sure why.”
My eyes flick between him and the great beast. “Then how did the settlers end up here?”
“They slaughtered them with chemical warfare. Only a few survived.” He thinks on it for a moment. “That species is quite superior. Their understanding and ability to cognitively think is close to that of a ten-year-old. And on top of that, they’re stronger than a bear or lion and faster than a mountain cat. But above all else, their loyalty is unmatched. No living creature on this planet is as loyal to family as a RottWeilen.”
Loyal to family. “But why is he so tame around you and me?”
A dark shadow casts over his eyes, and he opens his mouth, forming a word that has decomposed before it can pass over his plush lips. He furrows his brow, waiting for me. Like I would have that answer, and he wants me to beat him to it. I blink at him, tilting my head.
“Kane found him just after he was born. His small pack was one of the last hunted down over a decade ago. His mother dug a hole for him to hide in until his pack was killed off.”
I gasp. “Why would they do that?”
“The men of this country feared they’d multiply and eventually invade the city. When we found DaiSzek, he got used to Kane and me, and we became the only family he knew.”
“But why me? Why does he trust me?”
“I suppose he senses you’re my family too.”
I grin up at him, then glance back at DaiSzek. “You hear that, big boy? We’re family now.”
How incredible to be this close to a once feared beast.
~
You have a beautiful mind. I think.
Dessin maps out where we are going to go from here. He draws the terrain and obstacles ahead with his fingers. The punctual movements are exact, and he needs no form of measurement to fact-check himself.
I am flat on my belly, my head propped up by my hands resting under my jaw with my elbows digging into the dirt. I close my eyes, then shift them away from the fast movements he is making. I refocus my attention on his face. The source that makes my heart flop like a fish lurching for water.
His undeterred focus is that of a savant calculating the accuracy of their newest discovery. I have a fleeting image of myself caressing his jawline and—
“Can I help you?” he asks without taking his eyes off the dirt map.
My mouth parts, but I say nothing.
“Just admiring my good looks, or do you have something to say?”
Wow, his peripherals are uncanny. “I’m waiting for you to explain what is obvious in your head and not so obvious to others. What’s the plan?”
A smirk appears on his lips, but he wipes it away like an unwanted bug landing on him.
“We have to get to the North Saphrine Forest.”
I look down at what I’m wearing. A dress. A dress that goes down to my knees, barely passing my shoulders. “Dessin, it’s snowing out there. Temperatures get below freezing at night. I would die.”
“I’ve planned for that.” He nods, examining my dress. “Everything we need will be at our next stop. There’s a Demechnef defect out in a small village in those mountains. People who escaped the city and wanted to live freely. They all settled to this one spot.”
I frown. “So that’s your big plan for us? Wait out the rest of our days in the snow until we finally freeze to death?” For the first time, I feel doubt.
He rotates to me, stands to his feet, and raises his eyebrows. “Did it sound like I was finished?”
I shake my head.
He walks up to me, tall with confidence dripping from his presence. “I know you didn’t have to run with me, and I know you probably didn’t picture your life on the run with a dangerous criminally insane man. I’m fully aware of this.”
But I wanted to.
He’s a breath away from me, hovering like a cloud of death. Thick webs of desire form over my nerves, buzzing under my skin.
“But you are with me. You chose to run, and it wasn’t out of spontaneity. You ran because you trust me.” He stares down at me, and all I want to do is touch him, thank him, and hold him close to me.
Instead, I say, “I’m sorry.” I don’t know why I said that; I’d run until I was old and gray if it meant it was with you. I want to say all of this. But it won’t leave my lips.
He nods. “These are the routes we will take to avoid any trackers coming for us. DaiSzek will let us know if they get close. But let’s just make it to the defects first, and then we’ll know more about the next steps we’re going to take.”
~
The next couple of hours, Dessin leaves me alone with DaiSzek to set us up with a place to sleep and a fire to cook what he hunts. I feel a little useless when he or Kane leaves to do all the work. But what am I supposed to do? I don’t know how to hunt (nor would I want to.) I don’t know how to set up a fire or a shelter for us to sleep. I’m basically deadweight. Why does he even want me around?
I decide to use this time to get more comfortable around DaiSzek. To learn just how capable he really is.
He lies in the dirt looking like a black grizzly bear. I kneel down beside him and run my fingers over the thick fur on the side of his body. His brilliant cinnamon eyes flick over to me.
“Hi,” I whisper to him. He sits up to face me directly. “Can you understand me?” I ask.
Something heavy falls on my thigh, scratching my skin. I look down at DaiSzek’s heavy mammoth paw resting just above my knee. His fur around his paws and ankles is the same color as the cinnamon in his eyes, like he’s wearing little rain boots.
“See? What does Dessin know? You don’t seem dangerous.” But even I can see how wrong I am. It’s the ghost of a feral demon behind his gaze and the promise of imminent death to whoever crosses him.
I fall back on my bottom to stretch my legs out in front of me. DaiSzek lowers the side of his head to my lap and proceeds to slip between my legs, rolling on his back, belly up. His big head rests on my crotch. I laugh. “Can I help you?”
He grunts and wiggles slowly. I laugh again. “Ohhh, you want me to rub your belly!” He wiggles again. It’s unlikely to see such a gargantuan doglike animal cuddle up to anyone. He feels more like a puppy trying to play than a RottWeilen who can demolish a night dawper. I do as he wishes and rub his chest, belly, and neck with both hands. He lies there, completely mesmerized.
“What did you do to him?” A deep voice dipped in warm butter glides over my skin.
I turn my head in his direction. “Leave us alone,” I snap.
“Look at him; he’s defective!” Dessin carries a laugh in his voice that hasn’t been released yet. He trudges over to us, carrying a dead animal and wood for a fire. “Hey! Flea-Head! I told you to stand guard, not crush Skylenna under your big body!”
I burst into laughter. DaiSzek seems to understand the insults and rolls off of me, galloping into Dessin’s lower abdomen with impressive force. Dessin doubles over with a grunt, wrapping his arms around DaiSzek’s neck. “Hello to you too, lazy boy.”
“Leave him alone; he just needed a break.” I push myself off the dirt and walk up to them, wrestling on the ground.
“What do you think you’re doin’, huh? Rubbing your scent all over my girl?!”
Wait. He said, my girl.
I hold my breath. I could ask him what he means. But we’re friends. Just friends. That’s what we have always been, except for those moments that were far too friendly.
He looks up at me after quelling DaiSzek’s need to play. His dark eyes search mine curiously. I wonder if he realizes what he just said.
“Are you hungry?” He dusts himself off. The muscles in his arms harden as he swiftly gathers the wood and dead animal.
“Yes.” Stop looking at him like that. I look away.
He moves closer to me, tilting his head downward to meet my eyes. “Good, because we’re having a little story time next to the fire tonight.”
~
I chew my food. Somehow watching Dessin put in the work to feed me makes it taste that much better. But I’m careful to not overindulge. Without catching his attention, I take small bites. It’s a toxic habit now. The way my mind rejects the dopamine that fills my body from the delicious flavor.
The restraints of that city still haunt me.
“Please tell me it tastes better than Aurick’s fancy dinners.” He’s lying on his side, propped up by one elbow as he eats by the fire. DaiSzek is passed out behind us.
Aurick. I haven’t thought about him in a while. He has no idea where I am. Am I a terrible person for not thinking of him? We were friends. We lived together. I left and didn’t think twice about him or how this would make him feel.
But he hit me, and for that, I don’t owe him a moment of pity.
“Do you regret leaving him?” Dessin is now looking up at me, his dark-chocolate eyes glowing like hot coals in the orange fire.
I break myself away from the spiral of thought that overtook me. I can tell that he is afraid of my honest answer. “You always knew he’d hurt me. How?”
“Kane’s answer to this question didn’t suffice?”
“Not really. It was vague.”
“He was telling the truth,” he says, taking another bite.
“He was telling half a truth.”
Dessin shrugs, focusing on the sparks popping from the firewood.
I yawn dramatically. “Greystone will probably tell me. He’s an honest man.” I look off to the darkness, waiting for Dessin to react. If Kane seemed annoyed by Greystone’s existence, I could only imagine how Dessin feels about him.
Dessin’s head falls as he drops his last bite of meat into the fire.
“I’d rather talk about anyone except the little Greyshit,” he grunts.
A laugh tickles my lungs, but I settle for a teasing smirk. “Not a fan of him?”
He scoffs
“Why not?”
“He’s useless, pompous, annoying, has loose lips, and goes out of his way to ruin plans.” Dessin glowers at me as if merely speaking about Greystone has drained him of all happiness.
“He told me about the other alters,” I say, sitting up. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“We were in a dangerous place, surrounded by people who would use that knowledge against us. I would never risk the safety of the other alters.” He’s sitting up now, too, a stare of loyalty burning into me.
That makes sense. I can’t fault Dessin for wanting to protect them.
“Will you tell me about them?”
“I’m sure you’ll meet some of them soon enough.” He sighs.
“I thought you were going to tell me stories by the fire!” The wind whistles through the branches around us, forcing the fire to make a sputtering sound.
I glance around the woods that are now covered in total nightfall. Extreme blackness. No light. No flicker of stars or the glow of the moon. The Evergreen Dark Wood is a black pit of blindness.
“Mmm.” He pokes the fire with a stick and begins. “When I was at Demechnef’s training quarters, I wasn’t the only one being trained. There were others.”
“Others… like you?”
“Mm-hmm. Only two came before me, and two trained with me. The ones I never met killed themselves a couple of years into training, and the two that trained with me were about fifteen years old.” Dessin hands me another slice of cooked meat. That’s one benefit of leaving the city—no more starving myself.
“The girl’s name was Vinaley, and the boy’s name was Valentine, Val for short. Vinaley could not cope with our environment, the pain, the abuse, the physical conditioning. She went through the motions but was in a catatonic-like state. The hardest part of this to watch was Val. He was in love with her, took care of her. He even found new ways to lessen her training and take more on for himself.”
I remain still, keeping my breath shallow and steady. I don’t want to interrupt or say anything that could stop him from sharing with me.
“He would hold her every night as she begged him to take her home. She’d repeatedly say, I want to go home.” Dessin sighs, running a finger over his jaw. “Val was a good man. Someone I looked up to. He not only took care of Vinaley but also looked after me because I was so young. Unfortunately, when I turned eleven, he killed Vinaley in her sleep and then hung himself above her bed. He did exactly as she begged… he took her home.”
I stare at him in disbelief. “What?”
“It was the only way to really escape.”
“But,”—I set my food down—“if they were all like you, able to think differently, then why couldn’t they find another way out?”
He chuckles. Looks up to the sky. I am a child to him. A child that still believes in magic and happy endings. “They were all like me. Only slightly different. We all emerged from our trauma with adverse strengths. It happens that mine is planning, human behavior observation, deduction, and deception. Val’s was empathic. He could so clearly understand how each individual was feeling. He could sense if someone was afraid of him or afraid of a spider in the corner. It was a gift and a curse. A gift because he could detect weakness in anyone. It allowed him to make nine different escape attempts.”
“What about Vinaley?”
He looks down in thought. “I’m not entirely sure. She was buried in something powerful. Val didn’t even know. All he knew was that training struck fear in her, yes. But whatever her strengths were, they swallowed her in devastation. It destroyed him to feel what she felt.”
I inch myself closer to him. The fire warming my cold toes.
“Did you know he was going to do it? Murder her and kill himself?” My knee touches his, and he glances up at me from under his black eyelashes.
“I knew.” A soft cashmere blanket coats the tone of his voice. “That morning, he told me every person’s greatest fears in Demechnef. He told me what causes them anxiety and discomfort. He told me everything he learned in a matter of an hour. He didn’t have to say goodbye or tell me what he planned to do. But I knew. I had known for some time that he would do it.”
I rub my palm over the right side of my face. “I don’t understand. How were you successful with escaping and they weren’t?”
“Val and Vinaley failed to hide their weaknesses from Demechnef. Kane got lucky that he had me to protect what meant most to him. Without me and several other alters, they would know everything.”
The heavyweight of sleep wraps its arms around me, caressing my eyelids to take a bow. I blink slowly and lean against the side of his body.
“You want to know something?” I ask like the words have been dipped in glue.
“Hmm?”
“You and DaiSzek are definitely my weakness.”
