“Thank you, Zeph.”
“It’s nothing.”
“No, I mean it. You’re kind of amazing at this.”
He turned away, hiding his blush, crawling out of their hiding space. “It’s safe now, and we’ve still got plenty of daylight. Are you okay to push on?”
“It’s downhill from here, right?”
“That it is.”
“Then lead the way.”
“Okay, follow me.”
He slid the pack back onto his shoulders and started the descent down the other side. Maria watched his sculpted ass flex with every step, her body coming back down to normal but something new blossoming inside her. More than just appreciation. She felt seen. Safe. Cared for. And in just a few days he had proven himself more reliable than any man she’d ever known.
“Right behind you,” she said, falling in behind him, ready for the long hike further into the unknown.
CHAPTER NINE
The two days since they’d narrowly avoided becoming lunch for a ravenous pack of Luzzips had passed in a flash. The descent down the mountain had been hasty and quite the exertion, but they’d hit the ground running, darting into the trees at the base and pushing on hard until there was simply no light left by which to safely navigate.
Things were different now. They weren’t just moving fast because of some vague threat. It was quite clear that they were being hunted, and that was more than ample motivation to press on no matter what discomforts they might endure.
As it turned out, the storm they’d seen in the distance had reached them by mid-morning the day after they’d seen it from atop the mountain. It started out as a drizzle but eventually grew to a decent rainfall, drenching them to the bone. Zepharos scaled a tree to get a better view of their situation, albeit a shorter one so as to ensure he was not at the highest point just in case of lightning. They were in luck. This was just the edge of the storm, the much darker, menacing clouds and lightning still a long way away.
“We’ll be wet, but we should be okay,” he announced when his boots hit the ground.
“Then we run.”
“That we do.”
They took off once again, keeping up their near constant exertion, putting even more distance between themselves and their starting point, ignoring the discomfort of the rain. Being wet was unpleasant, but capture would be far worse.
They spent that miserable night under the cover of a hastily made shelter. It kept them dry for the most part, but it was far from comfortable. As before, Zepharos shared his warmth, but the two were still unable to escape the lingering chill from the cool air. It made for an unpleasant night, and neither slept well, but that was the price of freedom. Maria just hoped the next night would be an improvement.
She should have known better.
“Hurry!” Zepharos called to her over the cacophony of the thundering rain. “This way!”
Maria could barely see him through the downpour. Where the prior day had been miserable, this was something far worse. This wasdangerous.
“Where are we going?” she yelled back as lightning flashed bright, illuminating the sky. She counted to ten before the thunder cracked loud above them.
Ten seconds. That means it’s two miles away.
It was the most random thing, but she’d remembered the lesson her father taught her when she was a little girl. It had been the simplest of things, but by making it a game he had somehow disarmed the storm of its terror, and sitting there sipping cocoa with her dad, it was actually fun. So much so that she grew to look forward to those quiet times spent at his side.
“Count, Maria,” he’d told her. “One mile is five seconds.”
And now a bazillion miles from home, that lesson sprung to mind.
She was not, however, comforted.
“It’s getting closer!”
“I know,” he shouted back. “It’s too dangerous to keep going given the terrain. The risk of a flash flood is too high.”
