Genesis: A Soul Savers Novella Read Online Free PDF Page A

threw Jordan a worried look. The hot seed within him sprouted and his anger grew again. Father was truly ill, possibly even dying. This can’t happen! It went against everything Jordan believed in. And if Father died … all of Jordan’s plans would die along with him. The anger sparked hotter.
    “Why were you out before the sun rose?” he demanded of Cassandra, trying to distract himself from this sudden anger. She glanced over at Father, who appeared to have fallen back to sleep, and then she turned away, as if to hide her pink face. She began putting away the goods he’d brought home.
    “I helped a soldier after a battle last night. I was worried about him so I went back to where I—” She cut herself off with a gasp and turned to Jordan with wide brown eyes. “What if those … those things got to him? Maybe that’s why I couldn’t find him.”
    Jordan narrowed his eyes. Cassandra had always been the compassionate one. She’d inherited their mother’s healing skills and couldn’t stay off a battlefield, even when she should be home where she belonged. So her concern didn’t surprise him. But he heard something else in her voice that he didn’t like, fueling his anger. He drew in a deep breath.
    “How badly was he injured?” he finally asked, trying to sound sincere with his concern.
    “Just some cuts and a lump on the head. I thought his comrades had come back for him, but … Jordan, what if … ?”
    She swallowed hard and fear filled her eyes. She seemed to care more for this soldier than any others. That’s what he’d sensed from her just a moment ago. Why did it irritate him so much? He didn’t know. But he did know this gave him an excuse to get out of that hut. Away from their dying father. Away from his annoying sister. And a chance to hunt down those strange creatures. He started gathering his weapons.
    “I’ll go search for him and see.”
    “You can’t go out there. It’s too dangerous!”
    One side of his mouth pulled into a lop-sided grin. At least she still cared about him.
    “Don’t worry about me, little sister,” he said. “This will be fun!”
    He was through the door before she could stop him—or throw anything at him. She hated it when he called her “little sister,” because she was, in fact, a few minutes older than him. He liked to tease her, though, because he towered over her tiny body with his tall, muscular build.
    He felt free as soon as he left the confines of the tiny hut. He sucked in a deep draw of air and blew it out, then sprinted for the woods.
    Cassandra’s pursuers had left clear enough paths of their retreats. The men’s footprints led in the same direction as Cassandra had said the battlefield was, but the wolf had gone a separate way. More interested in the wolf, Jordan followed the large paw prints.
    He couldn’t shake the feeling he had made some kind of connection with the animal. Why had it looked at him so … intelligently? Why had it backed off when it saw him? Did the wolf feel the darkness in Jordan, the darkness that had been deepening and growing for years, making him feel isolated from the rest of his family? But it hadn’t feared his darkness as many animals—and humans—did when they sensed it. The wolf had almost seemed to protect him, changing its target from his sister and him to those two strange men.
    Jordan growled at himself. It’s just a wolf. An animal. And I’ll slay it for making my thoughts sound like a madman’s. He quickened his pace.
    The wolf prints eventually circled back toward the battlefield, but just as the trees began thinning at the woods’ edge, all evidence of the animal disappeared. No more paw prints. No fur caught on tree bark or low branches.
    Jordan searched in a widening circle but all he eventually found, near a boulder only a few paces inside the woods, were human footprints. From Cassandra’s soldier? He peered out at the battlefield, where a dozen men carried their fallen comrades to a pile