Page 22 of Knot Their Soldier: Part Three

‘Viper?’

I reach for him through the bond, expecting the same strange but healing connection I have with Shade and Blaze. The thread hangs slack between us. It's there, but distant and unanswered.

Shade goes still.

"Fuck," he breathes. "Oh shit."

Panic spikes through him so fast it cuts through the haze in my head, making it painfully obvious that our bond is once again attached. Blaze must feel it too because his arms tighten around me, and the air changes, heavy with fear I don’t understand.

"Shade?" I whisper.

He scrambles to his feet, looking around like he’s lost something vital. "They left. They don't know. Fuck. We have to find them."

They don’t know what?

That I’m alive?

Shade looks terrified.

"Are they doing what I think they're doing?" Blaze asks, still holding me firmly. His hands are steady now, and his voice has lost the bite of anger from earlier, replaced with a growl of worry.

Shade nods once. "Viper was in a bad way. Knox didn’t think there was another option."

I frown, trying to make the pieces fit, but my mind is slow and my body is weak. "What option?"

Neither of them answers.

Blaze eases me back onto the ground and rises in one fluid motion. "Fuck. Try the radio."

Shade shakes his head. "Knox didn’t take it."

Blaze’s jaw tightens. "The bond?"

"Nothing," Shade says. "Not since…"

His eyes flick to me, and he squeezes them shut like he’s shoving a memory away.

He abruptly turns to Blaze.

"What can you hear?"

Blaze stills, head angled toward the forest. His jaw flexes as he listens.

"Two clicks northeast," he says. "They’ve stopped. They’re talking, but I can’t make out the words."

"We have to move," Shade says. "Now."

They turn toward the trees, already falling into a plan I’m too foggy to understand.

Panic continues to surge from them through the bond.

My heart stutters.

"Wait!" I shout, and the word cracks through my aching throat.

They stop, turning to me with twin expressions of frantic determination.

"Please," I rasp. "I don’t understand. I can’t follow what you’re saying, I can’t even stand, and you can’t leave me. Not this soon after…"