Free Dauntless by Shannon Mayer Page A

Mara,” he whispered, and I slid my fingers over his lips. The Nevermores continued to rant at the fence, but we ignored them.
    “You don’t need to apologize,” I said. A glance over my shoulder at the pack as I reached for Bastian’s hand. “Let’s go inside.”
    We took a few steps and he stopped. “I do need to apologize. For giving up, for making you carry me and you both through this.”
    I closed my eyes and bit my bottom lip, pausing for a moment before answering. “Would you have acted any different if the roles had been reversed?”
    “Of course not, but I’m supposed to take care of you, it’s my job,” he said.
    I laughed and shook my head. “Bastian, that is a two way street.”
    With a gentle tug, I got him moving again.
    Once inside, I tended to Nero’s wounds first. They weren’t life threatening, but they were going to take a long time to heal. Dan came stomping in as I was cleaning out the holes the sticks had made.
    “Damn it to hell and back. Woman, you nearly got us both killed over a dog,” he snarled, throwing himself into a chair, a grimace on his face. Nero lifted his head, saw Dan and wagged his tail.
    A sneaking suspicion crept over me. “You know what I was trying to figure out Dan?” I asked.
    “What?”
    “How a small puppy like this could have survived for so long and only just now got caught by the pack,” I said, rubbing a small amount of polysporin on the open wounds.
    I glanced over at Sebastian who was sitting quietly at my side, his hands working at a burr on the back of Nero’s leg.
    I looked back to Dan and he flushed bright red for the second time that day.
    “Ok, so I took care of him while you were gone. He took off when the house burned down,” he grumbled.
    I smiled and reached out to touch his arm. “Thank you Dan.” There were cracks in the tough guy veneer after all.
    Sebastian leaned forward. “We can’t stay here.”
    “We’ve already discussed that Sleeping Beauty.” Dan snapped his cigar, barely even recognizable now he’d chewed it so much.
    I rubbed at my eyebrows, an ache beginning to form. “We need to get a boat and get across the straight. They’re still evacuating people out of the Vancouver airport. It isn’t much, but it’s all we’ve got.”
    Sebastian nodded slowly. “Then tomorrow, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll find us a boat.”
    “It isn’t like before,” I said, sitting down beside him. “You won’t be able to sneak past the Nevermores. You aren’t one of them.”
    “I’m not going to sit here and let you and Dan do this on your own. You especially, Mara. Have you even thought of the baby with everything you’re doing? Do you even realize how many risks you’ve taken?” he asked.
    The blood drained from my face; I could feel it disappear. I spoke in clipped words so I wouldn’t start screaming at him. “Everything I’ve done has been in an attempt to keep not only the baby safe, but you, too.”
    “Like taking the bait and going after Nero?” he asked.
    I glared at him. “Like going into a pack of Nevermores to keep you close, like fighting off Donavan to get the cure, like hauling your sorry ass all the way back here to make sure you would live!”
    Silence weighed the room down and it was Dan who broke it.
    “With all you’ve been doing Mara, he’s right. Let us find the boat.”
    I stared at him in disbelief. Only a short time ago we’d been discussing Deep Bay and how we were going to acquire a boat.
    “Fine,” I said. I bent and pulled Nero into my arms and stomped my way upstairs. Dragging out a laundry basket, I made a bed in it for the pup and put it beside the door. Then I all but threw myself on our old bed, the covers a little dusty but otherwise relatively clean.
    Footsteps echoed up the stairway and I rolled to keep my back to the door. It gave out a little creak, and I closed my eyes.
    A weight on the other side of the bed, which I also ignored, rolled me a way to the