Mated To An Enemy

Myka and Alice each took Ashleigh under an arm, carrying her up through the dark tunnel.

Though Alice hobbled and struggled to run with the injury to her leg, Ashleigh was utterly spent. The energy she had used to harness Lily's power and the wound in her back had stolen the last of her reserves.

They could barely make it to the tunnel leading up from the center of the mound before the explosion.

Alice glanced back into the darkness in the direction they had come from. She furrowed her brows and then turned her attention back toward the exit, still a long way ahead.

"How is it that this tunnel hasn't collapsed?" she asked. "You set all the charges. That should have been more than enough to topple this section of the mountain."

"Are you complaining?" Myka asked with a grunt as he adjusted Ashleigh's position on his shoulder.

"Not a complaint, more of a question," Alice replied with a hiss as the shifting of Ashleigh's weight pulled at her still-tender shoulder.

"Are you ok?" Myka asked.

Alice only grunted in response.

Up ahead, he spotted something on the ground.

"Oh! It's Ashleigh's pack," he said excitedly. "She dropped it before charging in to be ambushed. Let's stop for a moment."

"Uh.. no," Alice said firmly. "This tunnel may be holding now, but there is no telling for how long. We need to get to the surface now."

"Seriously, stop," Myka said, stopping his own movements. "The tunnel will hold."

Alice let out a groan but stopped walking. Together they set Ashleigh down. Myka grabbed the pack and immediately began searching through it. The first thing he found was the emergency beacon Axel had given them, but it was broken. Myka suspected this had happened when the bat creatures had taken him.

"How do you know it will hold?" Alice asked.

"Sit. I need to wrap your leg," Myka insisted. He was already pulling the medical supplies out.

Alice did as told, but she kept peering around for any signs of the walls caving in or shaking.

Myka first wrapped Ashleigh, trying his best to pack her wound. Then he moved to Alice. He cleaned her leg and then wrapped it. Commenting that she was lucky the root missed anything important.

"You make it sound like I had a choice…." Alice grumbled.

"Pretty sure this was a bait wound," Myka commented, looking at Alice with a raised brow.

Alice opened her mouth to argue but closed it and looked away.

"Just finish what you're doing so we can get out of here," she huffed.

Myka chuckled.

Alice looked over at Ashleigh, who was still not showing signs of regaining consciousness.

"Is she alright?" she asked.

"Her pulse is a little weak," Myka replied. "She lost a lot of blood from that wound, but I think she is more worn out than anything."

Alice nodded. Ashleigh had said they needed to make the fight quick. She must have known it would drain her to use Lily's power.

"Are you seriously not worried about this tunnel caving in any second?" Alice asked.

"It's fine," Myka sighed, pulling out a bottle of water and handing it to Alice. "Drink."

"How do you know it's fine?" Alice asked, giving him a look that told him she wouldn't let it go.

Myka took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"Because most of the charges were placed deeper into the mountain… like straight down, a long way," he said. "The explosion will cave it in, not out."

Alice furrowed her brow.

"How could they have been placed deep? You weren't gone that long. There is no way you had time to dig a hole or go down and back up one that already existed."

"I didn't," he sighed. "I had some help."

Alice stared at Myka.

"I am getting bored having to ask at every sentence. Please just tell me what happened," Alice sighed.

Myka laughed.

"I followed the roots that led out of the tent. The pulsing from the ley line was coming from the same direction," he began. "That's when I discovered that there was a deep hole, that the roots went down. I placed a few charges around it, but I knew to really fix the problem, I needed to place them down inside.

"But there was no way I could do that, and that was when a voice, Lian, I believe was her name, told me to listen."

"Lian?" Alice asked. "Isn't that the one that Ashleigh first met? The mother of Autumn?"

"I think so," Myka replied. "She said she could only talk to me because the ley line was close to spilling into our world. So anyway, I did what she said, and I found someone to help me."

"Who? There was no one else inside the mound."

"There was… one of the fae creatures... it was still breathing but dying," Myka replied softly.

"What??" Alice questioned, her eyes wide in shock.

Myka took a deep breath.

He explained to her what the Dark Queen had said and how he felt it inside of him, the power to command the creature if he wanted to. Finally, he told her how he asked it to help him, and in the end, the beast agreed and even had a feeling of gratitude as it disappeared down the hole.

"I think it wanted to help," Myka said. "Like it was happy to die, knowing it helped stop her."

"Wow…" Alice whispered. Then she looked at Myka. "So, you think she is controlling the fae creatures? Against their will?"

"Not all of them," he replied. "But some of them… their song is broken. Interrupted. Like that bear in the forest, the hybrids are not a part of nature… but others, like the frog, are being used."

Alice sighed.

"That sucks," she whispered. "I'm pretty sure that even out of her control, they would still try to kill us, but it sucks that they are being used."

Myka nodded.

"Why didn't you want to tell me?" she asked.

Myka swallowed and looked away.

"Wasn't sure how you would feel, knowing that I apparently can steal someone's will," he replied.

Alice smiled and nodded.

"I see," she said. "It's scary. That's not a power anyone should have."

Myka nodded.

"But," she continued. "If I would trust anyone to use it responsibly, it would be you."

Myka looked back at Alice, she smiled at him, and he smiled back.

"Thanks," he said.

"No problem," she replied. Then straightened her back with a wince of pain. "Now, can we please head up toward the light of day?"

"Wait, what happened to your arm?" he asked, only now noticing how she was not bearing weight on it.

"Dislocated the shoulder," she replied. "I put it back."

Myka leaned forward and touched her shoulder. She hissed and slapped his hand.

"Alice, you should have told me! It's not fully set, and we need to put your arm up in a sling. How could you not say anything while we carried Ashleigh together?!"

"It was set!" Alice argued. "But then we had to carry Ashleigh. It might have slipped out again. It's fine."

Myka rolled his eyes.

"Brace yourself," he said.

"Myka, it's fine, I can–" Alice protested, but her words were cut short by an anguished howl as Myka reset her shoulder.

The blinding pain and the energy she had already expended on the trip up through the tunnel crashed into each other, and Alice lost consciousness.

"Alice?" Myka called as she slumped forward against him.

He eased her back against the tunnel wall.

"Crap…" he whispered. Looking back and forth between the two women. "Now what the hell am I going to do?"

Myka sighed and fell back against the wall behind him. There was no way he would be able to carry them both out. But he needed to get them to the surface as soon as possible.

As he sat there trying to think of how he could do it, he heard something, the sound of movement in the tunnels coming from the direction of the surface.

He quickly got to his feet. He didn't know what to expect. Would it be hybrids? Fae monsters? Feral wolves? It could be anyone or anything, but whatever it was, he would fight like hell to protect his family.

He positioned himself before the women, holding a dagger in each hand. He readied himself in a defensive position as he saw the light coming toward him.

"There!" he heard a voice shout.

Another few seconds later, he saw three people running toward him, he didn't recognize them, but they didn't seem hostile. Still, he didn't know them.

They stopped moving.

"Whoa…" one of them whispered, noticing the weapons. "Take it easy. We are here to help."

"Who are you?!" Myka shouted. "Why are you here?!"

"Put the damn weapons down, you idiot!" came a shout from the back of the group.

Myka straightened up, lowering his weapons right away.

"Peter?" he called out.

The three men in the front stepped aside as Peter approached with an irritated look on his face.

"Peter!" Myka shouted, dropping the daggers and jumping at his mate.

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