Friction (The Frenzy Series Book 4) (5 page)

Garreth yelled down to the guards, who began to argue with him. I sighed and left Roman to walk outside and see if I could help. Garreth muttered a curse and told me to go work my mojo on them as he stepped back inside to attend to Roman. At the gate, I was able to convince the guards to allow Tage and Mercedes to enter Mountainside, though I had to repeat myself a few times. Tage tried to compel them too, but the men looked away and refused eye contact with him. They obviously knew how to avoid it; so why did it work differently with a woman?

We would be allowed entrance, but our horse would be held as collateral and it would be killed and eaten if we didn’t provide meat for the people of the hill. Mercedes angrily handed Lady’s reins to the taller guard and he strode away with her, skirting along the inside of the giant wall.

Tage grabbed my hand as I began to follow my sister beneath the gate. “We have a problem,” he ground out from between clenched teeth.

“What’s that?”

“Me,” Saul answered, stepping out from behind a nearby tree. I hadn’t even smelled him.

“How’d you get here so fast?” I asked.

“Mercedes let him ride with her,” Tage said sweetly. How did he even catch up to us?

Saul stepped toward Tage in anger and I put myself between them because I could tell Tage was struggling to control himself. All the scents and sounds, the tension. It was getting to him. “One day my sister will hate you for what you did, so enjoy her charity while it lasts, Saul.”

“She’ll never hate me more than she hates herself. And one day Porschia, you’ll forgive me.” His eyes were hard, yet pleading, stormy, and angry.

“You underestimate the level of hatred I feel toward you, and that is a very dangerous thing. For
you
.” Forget fangs, I wanted to stab him in the throat with a twig; a small twig that should never hurt a human being. Or maybe I would fight fire with fire. Set him ablaze and let him try to fight his way free of the flames. Did Mother try to free herself from her confines?

His blue-gray eyes swirled with emotion. His jaw ticked. My fingers twitched. Tage’s arm on mine pulled me toward him. I looked toward the guard. “Is there another dwelling, a separate one that he can stay in, please?”

The guard looked down. “You all stay together if you want to shelter here.”

Tage breathed into my hair. “We could leave him outside the wall.”

“No!” Mercedes interjected, moving past me and Tage to stand with Saul. I’d honestly forgotten she was even there. “He stays with us.”

With a growl, I turned to the guard and nodded, rushing off to check on Roman and leaving my sister with her sympathy and the monster who garnered it. Saul had probably turned his sights on her. He was probably preying on her guilt and kindness. If that was the case, he would find that she had the former in spades, the latter only sporadically. Maybe it was best to keep them close. I didn’t fully trust either of them.

Garreth held a dampened cloth to Roman’s head. He didn’t bother acknowledging us when we came back into the home. “How is he?” I asked.

“Fever is drawing out.”

That was good. “Do you know what’s wrong with him?”

Garreth stood, his scalp almost touching the ceiling. “I’m not entirely sure, but it seems flu-like. We haven’t had it here in years, but it’s very much a human condition. It’s caused by a virus, and he has an extreme case of it from the looks of him. But it’s not usually deadly for young people. How long has he been sick?”

“Not long,” Tage said from beside me.

Pursing his lips, Garreth looked over Roman again. “Early on, the flu makes you feel like you’re dying. Body aches, chills, fever. His fever is causing the seizures because it spiked too high, but he’s fighting hard and it’s been a long time since I’ve heard of anyone passing from it. We’ll watch it closely and in a few days, he should be better.”

“Thank you,” I said as my sister and Saul stepped into the room. Garreth looked them over. “They’re human. Both of them,” I answered his unanswered question.

Garreth shook his head with a slight smile while he stared at each one of us in turn.

“I told you.”

“I guess seeing is believing,” he mused. “You’re an odd bunch. Night-walkers and humans...” He paused, handing the water bag to me. “See that he drinks every half hour. He needs to stay hydrated. If something changes, send a human for me. It’d be best if you and he stayed inside this room,” he said, motioning toward Tage. “I’ll be back at dark and can stay with him if you’d like. The illness tends to worsen at night, and I know that the two of you will be hunting.”

Motioning between me and Tage, I assured him, “We won’t bother anyone, and we’d appreciate it if you’d help him tonight.” We needed to find food for the people. Although I hadn’t seen many of them, the guards, who were likely the strongest among the people other than Garreth, seemed gaunt and thin. There was a hollowness even in the giant’s cheeks.

A smile split his face. “You let me focus on your friend. You focus on finding food. I look forward to the meat. Good luck tonight.”

“Thank you,” Tage and I said as he ducked out the doorway.

Mercedes looked around the place. There was a small wooden table with two chairs, Roman’s bed, and a wooden chest at his feet. A few utensils hung on the wall next to an assortment of charred pans. “I can see if someone will let us have some food for today,” she offered.

“You noticed the food was gone?”

“I did. Tage told me it sank in the river,” she answered, looking down.

“I’ll look for firewood. There’s a pit outside.” Saul shoved his hands in his pockets.

Tage smiled. “I’ll go with you, Saul. We can look for animal trails while we’re collecting wood.”

I almost laughed out loud at Saul’s expression; half surprised and half angry. Squeezing Tage’s hand wasn’t enough for him. He caught me by the waist and planted a gentle kiss on my lips. “Be back soon.”

Saul glared at the two of us from beside the door before disappearing outside. Mercedes huffed, following him.

“Stay with Roman. Saul and I will get firewood from the forest,” Tage added, kissing my temple.

“Be careful.”

“Wild horses couldn’t keep me away from this hill hole, kitten.”

Mercedes was at another door thirty feet away, asking for anything our new neighbors could spare. There wouldn’t be much, if anything. I hated to break that to her, but she was from Blackwater, where resources were richer and neighbors dutifully helped one another. She would understand soon enough. Saul was striding down the pathway that was carved up the mountainside. I jogged and caught up with him quickly. “Leaving without your chaperone? Not the smartest idea.”

“I don’t need a babysitter,” he replied gruffly.

Laughing, I pointed toward the forest. “
Something
has these people scared enough to build a twenty-foot tall wall around their homes. I wouldn’t take that lightly. You were Infected once. We wouldn’t want that to happen again.”

“We both know you wouldn’t care if I was out of the picture for good.”

I smiled. I would love it if he were gone – from Infection, a fall off a cliff, a tumble down the mountain...

“You rub me the wrong way, Saul. What can I say?”

“You think you don’t do the same to me? I hate seeing her with you. You were always getting in the way, even from the beginning. The blood bond, holding her hand, telling her she could get through the transition, telling her that this entire thing was a blessing and not a curse. You’ve been waiting for this since you saw her!”

“I have. And you know what? You’re not angry because I’ve wanted her all along. You’re angry because you threw it all away. You had her and in one moment, lost everything.”

He strode down the mountain in brooding silence. Poor guy. Had he even seen it before now? Did he know how much he hurt her?

“Scent is one of the most intense senses for a human being, but for a night-walker it’s even more overwhelming. Do you know what she smells when she looks at you?” Saul stopped just inside the gate, waiting for the humans to lift it for us. Once outside, as we stepped into the forest he turned to me.

“What do you mean what she
smells
when she looks at me?”

Let me inform you, asshole. “
A vampire can detect the slightest of scents even a mile away if we choose to focus intently enough.”

“So?”

“So, the night you decided to singlehandedly burn the city down, the first thing she smelled was the burning bodies.”

Saul inhaled sharply.

“Even more specifically, she knew her mother’s scent and could smell when it...when
she
began to burn. She smelled the flesh of her mother being overtaken by smoke and flame.”

I watched as the realization hit him in the gut. “She smelled her burn?” His voice was quiet and pensive.

“Yes.”

He exhaled sharply. “No wonder she hates me.”

“And yet
you
think you did nothing wrong,” I said, looking out into the forest. “Let’s go east.”

“I didn’t realize,” he stammered. “I was trying to do the right thing, especially after Pierce had his way with most of them,” he said quietly.

“You thought wrong—about her mother, at least. The others, Porschia could have forgiven you for.” It was cold, but true. He needed to stop sniffing around Mercedes to get to Porschia. He needed to stop looking at her like he could still have a chance if only he bided his time. Saul needed to man up and accept what he did like a man—a man with no chance in hell of getting Porschia Grant to love him again.