Page 104 of Carnal: The Beast Who Loved Me

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Sometime during the night, Carnal jerked awake so suddenly and violently that it shook Rosie instantly awake. She felt the unpleasant tingles from a spike of adrenaline, courtesy of the fraction of her genetic makeup that was human. “What’s wrong?” she asked, but he didn’t answer.

Carnal sprang from the bed and began pulling his pants on. Rosie sat up and looked around, trying to identify something that had caused the disturbance.

“Dad!” he screamed into the dark room.

“Carnal. What’s wrong?” she repeated. She fumbled for the oil lamp, but wasn’t good at lighting it in the dark. With building frustration, she said, “Damn thing!”

She could tell that Carnal stopped momentarily to look at her.

“We have to go now!” He sounded like he was part way to hysteria.

“Go where?”

He didn’t answer, but tore out of the room.

Rosie finally got the lamp to light, blew out the match, pulled her shift over her head, and went after Carnal.

By the time he’d opened the door of the room where he’d slept with Rosie and taken two steps toward the stairs, Free was there with Serene right behind. Charming had come down from the attic room and was standing on the bottom tread. Rosie stood at the threshold holding the lamp, taking in the scene of the strange nocturnal family meeting.

“We have to go now!” Carnal said to Free.

With a textbook inflection of déjà vu, Free’s brow crunched together as he said, “Go where?” It was clearly more than casual curiosity. Free looked seriously concerned about the wellbeing of his oldest son.

“To get Crave. We have to get everybody up and go now!”

Free’s shoulders slumped. “Carnal…”He started.

Carnal snarled. “Listen!”

Rosie watched the expression on Free’s face change from concerned to alert as understanding washed over him. Rosie had no idea what coded message had just passed between father and son. She looked at both Charming and Serene, but they looked every bit as clueless as she felt. Charming’s gaze flicked to Rosie’s questioning look and he shrugged to confirm that he had no idea either.

Free continued to stare at Carnal as they seemed to be conducting a wordless conversation with eyes alone. Abruptly Free ended the semi-mystical connection and turned to Serene.

“The rain,” he said, eyes darting around like he was processing a deluge of thoughts. Carnal nodded. “It’s raining over the wasteland.”

Serene cocked her head, still not grasping the implication any more than Rosie did.

“It’s impossible,” Free said. “If it was just us, then maybe. But we’re counting on the humans and their weapons. We don’t have a plan.” Free started shaking his head. “It can’t work.”

Carnal snarled loudly. “It will work. It has to.”

“I can’t stand it another minute. What are you talking about?” Rosie had taken two steps closer and held up the lamp.

Free and Carnal both turned toward her, but Carnal answered. “It’s raining on the wasteland. That hasn’t happened in decades. What it means for us is that we can surprise the Rautt. Wet sand means we won’t raise any dust.”

“By the time they know we’re coming, they won’t have time to prepare,” Charming offered.

“Exactly.” Carnal looked at his younger brother. “We get Crave out and then have the humans launch their missiles. We’ll raze the place to the ground.”

Serene’s eyes were wide and her hands had come up to cover her mouth.

“We haven’t prepared our people to fight with humans. More importantly, we haven’t prepared humans to fight with us,” Free said.

“No objection you can raise will equal the advantage we could gain from surprise.” Carnal stepped in to his father as if to emphasize his point. “And you know it.” A clap of thunder punctuated Carnal’s impassioned argument right on cue.

There was a tense silence while Free’s thoughts raced around in his head. When he looked at Serene, she nodded, her eyes bright with tears at the prospect of freeing Crave.