Free Rebel Pax (Shifters of the Primus Book 2) by Elyssa Ebbott Page A

Primus who knows how to help. But I’m on a platform of branches with apparently no way to reach Jektan. At least fifty feet of empty space stretch between us and the next platform, and without Pax, I have no idea how I’m going to get back to Jektan. I frantically look around, the sounds of Pax’s suffering jabbing knives of panic into me. Come on. Come on. . .
    I see a thin vine that leads down and near a branch beneath me. It looks like I could maybe drop down and then hike up to Jektan. It’s my best shot, so without hesitating, I grab the vine and loosen my grip enough to slide down as fast as I dare. The friction shocks me with white-hot pain across my palms but I do not slow down. My Pax needs me to be strong for him. Strong like he has been for me so many times. And I’m not going to let anything happen to him.
    I land a little too hard on the branch below and my ankle rolls beneath me. I have time to cry out once before I tumble over the edge of the branch. My stomach lurches and I realize I’m falling. I quickly reach a speed that I know means any collision with a branch would be fatal. My arms windmill and my legs kick. I have no breath to scream. I only watch the ground approach with wide eyes and a profound sadness in my heart, not for my own sake but because I know that my death will mean Pax’s death—our baby's death. And I know that when it came time for me to save him, I couldn’t do it.
    I nearly collide with several branches on the way down but eventually stick into a deep patch of decaying leaves in The Dead Sea. They offer little resistance and I’m quickly swallowed up, several feet below the surface.
    My heart thunders in my chest, as loud as gunshots in the deadly silence. My body tries to gasp for air but only rotten plant-matter fills my mouth. The panic and terror I feel mounts until I almost wish some beast from the depths would swallow me and end this nightmare. But then I feel something else. It tugs at my thoughts. I think I see Pax leaping off the platform after me, somehow recovered from his attack. And though I don’t understand how, I know he is coming for me. The same way I know there is a baby growing inside me. Was it when he gave his blood to me in the cave?
    I don’t have time to think about it now. I put all my focus on reaching the surface. If I do that, there is a chance Pax can save me.
    So I claw and kick, not sure if I am moving up or down. My head pounds. My brain is screaming for air and my body is rebelling against me, threatening to suck in a deadly lungful of solid material at any second. I push, pumping my legs, fighting for one more inch.
    My hand breaks through the surface. I nearly cry out in relief but know I have no air to make a sound. When I get my head above the leaves, I breathe greedily, feeling as though every lungful is the most wonderful gift imaginable. But my reprieve is short lived. I realize something is wrong.
    I see Pax land nearby, his huge body streaking through the air like a meteor and plunging beneath the leaves.
    I should feel like I am saved to see him. I don’t. A cold dread seeps into me. I spent enough time in The Dead Sea to know that some sort of beast would be upon us by now. And I also never heard silence in all the time we were down here. But now I do. There is absolute quiet around us, and I can only think of one reason.
    Something has scared the monsters away from this area. But what could scare them ?
    The answer to my question moves. And I realize that what I had thought was a massive Loris tree root was actually a living, breathing nightmare.
    It uses its impossibly huge arms to swing toward me. I only have a heartbeat to look at it—but it reminds me of a gorilla from the vids of Earth, except it has claws, a tail, and skin like tree-bark. And then it grabs me.

16

Pax
    W hen I emerge from the leaves, I see it. The sight strikes me like a physical blow. It is the same beast I had hunted for months. The beast that I was