Shadowed Threads by Shannon Mayer Page B

Milly, a better person than Milly. I put a hand on her shoulder and gave her a smile, then eyed up her left arm. Broken for sure. Shit, this was bad. “Let’s go. Can you lift her again?”
    With Pamela holding Eve up in a spell, we moved her down the edge of the mountain. We walked for close to an hour, moving slow both so Pamela could maneuver Eve, and so I could help Pamela manage the downed logs and other obstacles. This far south, it was a lot warmer than where we’d come from, and it didn’t take long to work up a sweat in my lined leather pants. Suddenly they weren’t feeling like such a good idea as I slowly broiled in my own sweat.
    We found a small grove of trees where, thank the gods, there was a run-down shack that would provide some cover for Eve and Pamela.
    I slipped out of the trench coat and laid it over a low hanging tree branch, then turned to Pamela. “Let’s get you out of that coat and take a look at your arm.”
    I helped her out of the short leather coat, working it carefully down over her arm. Pamela’s face paled even more, and she swayed on her feet. I helped her sit down and then ran my fingers lightly over her arm. Broken, but clean. She sucked in a sharp breath as I prodded it.
    “I feel like you’re always leaving me behind,” she said softly as I helped her out of her long-sleeved shirt.
    With a flick of my knife, I sliced her shirt and twisted it into a sling, tying it around her neck in a loop we carefully settled her arm into.
    “It won’t always be like this. There are going to be days when we go on a salvage that you’ll wish you were back here with Eve, hanging out in a piss poor shack.” I grabbed my short leather jacket and zipped it up, then slid the long trench coat over Pamela’s shoulders.
    Eve bobbed her head in agreement with me. “Rylee is right. My mentor, Eagle, he told me much the same. We are young yet, we will not always be in the midst of the battles. Not until we are ready. If we try too soon, we put not only ourselves in danger, but those that are there to teach and protect us.”
    Damn, and why again had I brought the whole crew with me? Gut feeling … right. Slowly, I was learning that sometimes I had to just run with things. Even when I turned out to be wrong. Then again, Pamela had saved my ass with Blaz. Or maybe I just needed to meet him? Maybe our paths wouldn’t have crossed if we hadn’t gone back for Pamela and Alex? In my world, there was little in the way of coincidences. For some reason this was all happening as it was. I just had to figure out why.
    “Eve, what was that all about, with the dragons? Do you know?” She’d lived in Europe in her early years and had more knowledge about the creatures specific to the area than I did.
    Her beak stuttered with several sharp clacks before she answered me. “My mother told me that the dragons were too tied in their prophecies. That instead of living each day, they were always looking to the future.”
    “And the blood mingling? How problematic is this going to be?”
    She settled onto the ground just inside the shack. “According to what my mother told me, I would think not that big of a deal. They see signs and prophecies in the smallest details. In things that don’t really matter.” Eve attempted a shrug, then winced as her wings shifted.
    I pushed all that away, had to. Whatever ‘mingling’ of blood Blaz and I had, it was clear he wanted no part of it, or me. Which was just fine. And if Eve was right, it probably meant nothing anyway.
    Pamela moved to my side, her eyes serious. Crap, she wasn’t going to let this go.
    “Alex gets to go with you,” Pamela said.
    “You volunteered to stay, remember? And Alex isn’t a child,” I said, adjusting my weapon straps. “He might act like one, but he isn’t. Whatever his life was before, he was a grown up when he was turned into a werewolf.”
    Alex nodded his head along with my words. “Alex grown up.”
    I lifted my hands in