12. DEVRIM: RUNNING FROM OUR OWN

I had never been more thankful for Obsidian’s paranoia than I was at the moment because if it wasn’t for him we would still be stuck in that cabin, surrounded but Pride members who were set on killing our mate.
“Where are we going?” Ezra asked. “
My eyes darted over to Obsidian. “Do you have any more hideouts we don’t know about?”
“There’s only one”—his eyes darted to Vanya before they locked with mine again—“but I don’t think that it’ll be any safer.”
I knew that Obsidian had heard what Vanya said about the cave. It was one of the reasons I had used to convince him to stay with us instead of leaving like he wanted to.
“I’m sorry,” Vanya breathed, glancing at us. “I—”
“Don’t fucking say it,” Ezra interrupted her.
Vanya blinked at him and after staring at him for a moment, she lowered her head.
“I’m going to hand her over and then I’m going to watch as they rip her to pieces after giving her a taste of what life was like in the facility.”
My claws dug into my palms as I tried to calm down. The pup was dead and anyone who threatened Vanya was going to suffer the same way the pup had.
“We need to keep moving,” I told them. “Where does this tunnel lead to?”
Obsidian hesitated. “To Reeves’s house.”
“You were spying on him?” Vanya gasped.
“He’s not that fucking important. It’s the closest house to town.” He started walking again. “We can stay there for the night until we can figure out what the fuck is going on.”
“No.”
He froze and slowly turned to face Vanya.
“It’ll be the first place they look for me when they realize that I’m not at the cabin,” she said.
“By the time we get there they would have already checked out the place,” he growled. “We can’t go to your apartment.”
“What about Betsy?” Ezra asked. “We can stay there until we—”
“No,” Vanya interrupted him. “No.”
She looked at me, her eyes saying the words her lips couldn’t form.
“She’s right,” I said softly. “We can’t involve any humans. Before we involve anyone else we need to figure out why they’re suddenly going after Vanya.”
Silence settled between us.
My eyes darted from a pacing Obsidian to Ezra and then Vanya who was slumped against the dirty wall, chest rising and falling as she tried to catch her breath.
I closed the short distance between us and pulled Vanya to my chest. Obsidian growled, making me roll my eyes. With her against my body, I could feel exactly how she was being affected by what was happening. Vanya was trembling but I wasn’t sure if it was because of the adrenaline or the cold.
“Are you cold?” I asked her.
We were a few feet underground and because we could regulate our body temperature, it hadn’t even occurred to me to ask her if she was cold. Vanya’s nod made me feel even worse.
We should be taking better care of her, especially after the shit that has happened.
“Devrim,” Obsidian warned softly.
I sighed and pressed my lips to her cheek. “Rosebud,” I whispered, pulled her closer, “why didn’t you tell us that you’re cold?”
“Devrim,” Obsidian growled.
I growled back at him. “She’s freezing.”
He was next to me in an instant, forcing me to step back so he could pick her up. “Fucking stubborn woman,” he muttered in her ear. “Turn off the light Ezra. I’ll carry her.”
“The brothers can help,” I said, making Ezra pause. “They won’t turn against us.”
Obsidian didn’t immediately turn down the idea which gave me hope.
“Then we’ll risk putting them in danger,” Ezra said.
I ran a hand through my hair in frustration. If we could just figure out why the hell this was happening? Everything was fine. The pride hadn’t said anything when we claimed Vanya as our mate.
“There’s another option,” Obsidian said softly as he turned around to face us. “It’s the only one we have at the moment and we’re the only ones who know that it exists.”
There was only one place I could think of and he was right, nobody knew about it except us and the man who had built it but he had died years ago. I stared at the back of Vanya’s head.
The last thing I wanted was to open old wounds with everything already happening.
“It’ll be cold,” I told him. “Colder than on the island.”
“Which will make that much safer. Nobody would expect us to go there with Vanya,” Obsidian said. “We can stop at Reeves’s house to gather some supplies.”
He turned away and started walking without waiting for a reply. Ezra and I glanced at each other. With a shrug, he switched off the flashlight of his phone and started following them. Turning, I glanced over my shoulder into the dark tunnel before I hurried to catch up with them.
Obsidian’s plan was great but I was worried about how badly the winter was going to affect Vanya.

***

My mouth dropped open when we reached Reeves’s house. From where we stood it was easy to see the damage that had been done. At the moment Reeves had a lot of haters—both human and pride—so it was unclear who had vandalized the house.
Ezra shook his head. “Should we risk it?”
“It’s empty,” Vanya said. “When I was here to grab my stuff most of the staff had already left. Joy fired them before she left.”
“Would they have done this?” I asked her.
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past them.”
I studied the house again. Some of the windows had been broken and the words painted on the walls similar to the way they had done in Vanya’s apartment.
“Stay here until I come to get you.” Obsidian darted off before I could utter a word.
“He shouldn’t go in alone,” Vanya said.
Throwing an arm over her shoulder, I pulled her to my side in a way I had seen some human males do to their females. She sighed as she relaxed against me. I was happy to feel that her skin wasn’t so cold anymore but she still needed better clothing if we were going through with our plan.
I mentally made a list of all the things we would have to get as we waited for Obsidian to give us the all clear.
“What were you talking about?” Vanya asked, breaking me from my thoughts. “The place that nobody knows about?”
Swallowing, I hesitated, debating on how much to tell her. “Remember Darial?” She nodded. “He. . .well he—”
“Liked his privacy,” Ezra interrupted. “He didn’t want to be part of the pride so he decided to build his own home.”
“Where?”
I leaned down to press my lips to her ear. “Somewhere where the humans never ventured.” Straightening, I smiled down at her. “We’ll explain things to you, rosebud, but here isn’t the place.”
It looked like she wanted to argue with me but she nodded instead and snuggled up to my side. A few minutes later a low whistle pierced the air, making me flinch. I glared at the house even though Obsidian probably couldn’t see me.
“Let’s go.”
Surprisingly the inside of the house had been left untouched, well what was left of it. It was nearly empty. The furniture was still there but the things used as decorations were all missing.
Vanya’s scoff made my eyes snap to her. “Joy took the valuable stuff,” she answered my silent question. “She’s probably going to sell it.”
“It doesn’t bother you?” I asked.
“No.” Her eyes darted around. “It was her and father’s stuff. None of it belonged to me.”
Obsidian entered the room with a notepad and a pen in his hand. He walked over to the small table near the door and placed the pad down.
“Since most of the stuff had been stolen, I don’t suppose we’ll have any luck with finding a car in the garage.” He looked at Vanya but she ignored him.
Narrowing his eyes, he stared at her for a few more seconds before he turned his focus to the pad. We all stood silently as he wrote. When he was done, there were four pages with a list on them that he handed out to each of us.
“It’s what we need,” he explained. “What we can’t find here, we’ll have to pick up along the way. The most important is winter gear: jackets, boots, gloves all that. We’ll need blankets, lots of them.”
“Is it in such bad shape?”
His eyes darted to me. “You know that once the snow hits it blows the power out.”
“I thought that was fixed?” Ezra huffed. “I don’t like having to collect snow for water.”
Vanya rolled her eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about and at the moment I don’t really care. I’m going to take a shower.”
“There’s no time,” Obsidian growled.
“I won’t take long.” She glared at him. “I just want to warm up and it’s not like this is going to take a few minutes”—she held up the paper—“it’ll take hours to collect all of this.”
“Vanya—”
“I know.” She spun around and hurried up the stairs.
Growling, Obsidian stormed off and disappeared down around a corner. Ezra chuckled, making me glare at him but he was already walking off. With a sigh, I looked down at my and headed for the kitchen.
I wasn’t so sure about leaving anymore.