Yolanda Sfetsos - Alex Wales - Promise

Now isn’t the time to get us back on that track.

She kept looking into his eyes but didn’t say anything.

“I know what I saw. I felt the residue of the beast’s craving, and watched him kill and tear into a person.” He pushed a few dreadlocks away from his face. “We have some sort of animal loose within our walls, and I have no idea how that’s possible.”

“You said no one could get through.”

“They can’t.”

“I did!”

“You came through with me.”

“What if something broke through at the same time?” Alex had an eerie feeling crawling through her body.

“No, I would’ve felt it. No one can cross in and out of the walls without me.”

“Really?” That seemed a little odd.

“Yes.”

“What about the roaring beast we heard out in the jungle?”

Damon took another step. “I’ve lived here all of my life and have trekked around the entire planet, because Eden isn’t a very big place at all. In all my travels, I’ve never seen or heard a creature that roared.”

“We both heard it, right?”

He nodded, looking thoughtful.

None of this made sense, and as she pondered her own thoughts, something horrible struck her. What if whatever was loose in the gardens had somehow landed with her? She’d been carrying a lot of sealed barrels for Sackor, and she had no idea what was in any of them. After the incident with the worms penetrating her skin, who knew what else was in those barrels? She’d assumed it was liquid, some sort of lager or something, but there were ways to store animals in a similar way, right? After the crash, maybe something got out.

When she’d rushed out of the ship, she hadn’t even bothered to check the cargo area.

“Alex, is everything okay?”

She nodded absently. “So if we both heard the roar, there’s obviously an animal loose on this planet…” A vicious, hungry animal-one that happened to be outside in the jungle at the same time we were and somehow penetrated the walls. She couldn’t bring herself to add the last bit out loud. It raised too many questions.

Damon nodded. “It still doesn’t explain what it is.”

“What did this thing look like, anyway?”

“It was shaggy and wild, but I didn’t get a proper look.”

“Was it big?”

“The same size as a man. Why?”

She swallowed the lump in her throat, and released a quick breath. Surely something as big as a man couldn’t fit inside a barrel, could it?

Levi rushed into the room, shouting, “Damon, Damon!”

Alex jumped. His sudden appearance threw her line of thought out of whack.

“What’s wrong, Levi?”

The teenager stopped in front of him, bent over to take a few breaths, and said, “There’s been another attack!”

“Where?” Damon’s eyes darkened. “Wait a minute. Where’s Milo? He wasn’t attacked, was he?”

“No, he went to alert the Priestess.”

“Of course,” Damon said with a quick nod.

Levi was still trying to catch his breath, but he was now able to stand upright. “We were heading home after cleaning up and stumbled on a bunch of limbs, as well as some clothes.” Levi’s gaze strayed to the floor in front of him. “I think it was a man and a woman.”

“Damn it! No one was supposed to be in the area.” Damon pushed his hair back and away from his face. He looked angry and anxious. “You need to show me where it happened.”

Levi nodded. “Damon, I need to tell you something else, first…”

“What? There’s more?”

The teenager looked at Alex for just a moment, before holding up his closed hand in front of him. “We found something near the dead bodies.”

Damon leaned over. “What is it?”

“It’s a key,” Levi answered, opening his hand.

The first thing Alex noticed was the glint of bronze. Then, she made out the familiar curves and swirls on the bow of the antique key, before noticing the leather cord it dangled from.

The familiar choker was now bloodied.

Alex instinctively reached for her neck, even though she knew her lucky charm wasn’t there. It’s in Levi’s hand. What the hell is he doing with it?

Damon grabbed a hold of the leather cord and lifted it, until the key dangled between his fingers. “Where exactly did you find this?” His brow furrowed with concentration, as if he were trying to read it like he’d done with Laurie.

“It was lying on top of the discarded clothes.”

She knew what he’d say next-what Levi had obviously already noticed. It explained why he was acting a little stranger than usual around her. Damon would see the inscription on the back of the bow. The words her father had carved into the back: For you, Alex.

Sure enough, only a few seconds later, Damon turned to look at her. His gaze wasn’t accusatory. He just seemed to want an explanation, anything to clarify why a key bearing her name was found beside mutilated bodies.

She released a heavy breath, but it made her lungs feel tight. It felt as if an invisible pressure was pressing against her chest. Every inhale felt like a struggle as she tried frantically to think about how to explain her way out of this, and how she could voice it.

How could she tell Damon that none of this was possible, because the last time she’d worn the choker was on Anteris, seconds before stripping her clothes off and heading for the shower? That the only time she ever took the necklace off was when she showered with her lover, Ulric, and that she’d forgotten the choker he now held on Ulric’s bedside table.

Such an answer would only reveal personal details about her life she wasn’t ready to share. It would only confuse her further, because how could her lucky charm wind up at the scene of a crime on this planet if she hadn’t been wearing it when she’d left the space station? Unless…

“Do you recognize this, Alex?” Damon finally asked. His voice sounded a little tinny, too far away.

She nodded, hoping this was the only question he wanted to ask her right now. Alex felt a sense of claustrophobia engulf her-something that only struck her when she felt emotionally smothered.

Someone who spent so much time inside a ship, space stations, and spaceports, didn’t physically feel constricted by enclosed areas. Yet, emotion could affect her this way.

“Yeah, it’s mine…I lost it…” Her lips were dry, so she licked them. It wasn’t enough. She needed a drink, maybe some of that water making Damon delusional enough to think he could use magic.

She pressed the back of her head against the wall, realizing she was losing her grip. Her legs weakened, and she slid to the floor, landing on her butt. Everything about her felt heavy, lethargic.

Alex squeezed her eyes shut for a second, hoping she’d imagined all of this.

When she reopened them, Damon was still holding the familiar leather cord with the original key to Promise swinging from it.

Damon crouched in front of her. “Alex, are you okay? What’s wrong with you?”

She felt as if she were suffocating but managed a nod. “I need some air.”

“Okay. Come on.” He helped her to her feet.

For once, she appreciated having someone else to lean on, someone to support her when nothing in her world made any sense.

Although, she wasn’t sure how Damon would react when he found out the truth. As well as how he’d feel about the possibility of her being responsible for indirectly bringing a beast capable of killing without mercy into his peaceful home.

The coincidence is too big to ignore.

What have I done? More importantly, how did Ulric fit into any of this?