The only thing that came out of my mouth was, “Your eyes go black when you use your magic.” He flinched, looking a little embarrassed by my observation.
“I’m sorry if I scared you. I didn’t mean to. In fact, I didn’t even really know that part. All I knew was how I and my body felt when it happened, and I hoped I could replicate it when I found you.” He took his hand and rubbed his neck, looking lost.
I took a step closer to him, chest to chest, as I looked up at his face and said in a heated voice, “I liked it.”
His eyes snapped to mine, searching them for something. When he found whatever he was looking for, he smiled, then he grabbed me by the back of my head and kissed me. Our lips clashed together, taking from each other greedily. Our tongues and teeth explored and bit everywhere we could reach. His hands were on my hips in a bruising grip, but all I wanted was more. With the adrenaline running through my veins and my body buzzing with energy, I ran my hands up his chest.
He let out a soft groans at my touches until I scraped my nails down his chest and he broke from my lips in a moan, “Oh fuck, that feels good.” He pressed into me harder, demanding we go further, when we heard a few voices whispering in the winds, calling for us, and we paused. I heard the worry in Zayden’s voice, could feel it in the air around me and I knew we needed to go back, to let them know we were ok.
“We have to go.” I said with my lips grazing his neck, kissing and biting a trail down to his shoulder before looking at him. He shivered at my soft touches as his eyes looked like they wanted to argue.
“Do we have to?” The desperation in his voice almost convinced me to say fuck it, but I didn’t know when or if the cannibals were going to double back and it would be most inconvenient if they interrupted us.
Almost like he could feel the change in my body, he let me go, not stepping away from me, but knowing what I was going to say. I smiled up at him. “Thank you.”
His eyes got wide for a second, not used to those words coming from my lips. I could see pride and fulfillment fill his eyes as he looked down at me adoringly. “Always. I will always come for you, Emerald.”
I smiled at that, until I heard the fake name I gave them and, for once, it bothered me. For once, I hated the name and wished they would call me Mika once again. Something must’ve shown on my face because he tilted my chin up and asked, “What’s wrong?”
Fear that he did something bad was in his voice and I immediately smiled widely at him, running my hand through his hair as I looked him in the eyes and replied, “Nothing. Let’s go. We need to get to the librarian fast.” He nodded, and we took off to find the others, watching our backs for the creatures, just in case.
Chapter 24
Weturnedaroundthecorner and saw both Rykon and Zayden tip-toeing around, whisper calling mine and Ajax’s names as they peeked around rocky corners.
I took a step forward, but Ajax halted me by holding my shoulder as he turned his head to hear what they were saying better. I rarely have a sneaking buddy, so I played the game and listened for a second.
“Ooooo, I am so pissed at her! If she keeps this up, I will snag that parchment again and tattle on her to the prince!” I rolled my eyes toward Ajax, looking for support when I found glaring eyes staring right back at me, flicking to Zayden and then back to me. Letting me know he agreed with him. I motioned between the two of us and shrugged my shoulders. We’re fine, right? I don’t know why this has to be such a thing.
I heard Rykon’s low tone, “Let’s just find her and Ajax first. Then we can talk about tattling and being upset at her rash actions.”
That was it. I stepped out from the cover we were hiding around as I whisper yelled at him, “Rash actions? You call saving all your butts ‘rash actions’?”
Before I even blinked, I saw a flash of red and Zayden collided into me, wrapping his arms around me and squeezing tight. He kept his voice low, but I still heard the anguish in them. “I was so worried. I wanted to believe you could take out a whole horde of human-like creatures on your own but it just seemed impossible.” He took a deep breath in of my skin at my neck, sighing to himself as he said, “My little heart can’t take much more. I just want to put you in a sex dungeon and throw away the key.”
He felt me stiffen at that, not because I minded the sex dungeon part, it was more the throw away the key part that got me worried. “I’m fine. Let’s meet back up with Hemlock and make our way over to the Librarian. I don’t know how long it will be before they double back to find us.” I looked at Ajax, who was close to yanking Zayden off me, but as he looked at my face, he gave me a nod and headed in the direction we came from.
Rykon had no such qualms as he shoved Zayden off and hugged me. He just as quickly pulled away and cupped my face. “I know why you did it. I think I’m starting to learn that the big bad assassin has a small heart of gold on the inside.” I scoffed, but he kept my face in his hands as he slammed his lips onto mine. All of his anger and worry started to melt after the first few seconds and he kissed me with long and slow draws that worked me up in the worst of ways. Again, this wasnotthe time to have sex but these boys were making it hard for me.
“You better start walking or I’m going to shove my tongue in there and it might touch yours, Ry.” Zayden said, as he got a step closer to us. Rykon broke apart from me and glared at Zayden.
“You tongue me and you’re dead.” He pointed at Zayden and turned to follow Ajax.
“It’s going to happen someday.” Rykon shook his head as Zayden winked at me and scooped my hand in his as he tugged me along. “It’s just some saliva, dude, get over it.”
“Not happening, Zay.” Rykon grumbled as we made our way back to Hemlock and her group. Laughter stuck in my throat, attempting to come out.
If I thought Zayden’s greeting was too much, I was definitely not prepared for Hemlock’s.
As soon as she saw me she ran at me, and instead of giving me a hug she circled her hands around my throat and squeezed as she got in my face with a spitting anger that I have not seen on her face before, “Don’t. Do. That.” She let go of me just as fast as she threatened me, which jarred me from my thoughts and actions. My body was confused about what to do. Should I kill her? Should I reassure her?
Then she smiled at me and slapped me on the back. “Way to go, my green, mean killer bee! I bet you took out a lot of them.” She looked away at the direction I ran like she wanted to go count the bodies. “Man!” She threw her hands up into the air. “I wish I could’ve been there with you. Learn some cool new fancy moves.” She started to punch and kick like she was hitting something and I just let the whole experience go. Hemlock was nuts, but for some reason unknown to me, I knew she wouldn’t really hurt me. And if she did, she knew I would hurt her back.
I called out to her, “Hemlock, we need to head off to the Librarian as soon as possible. I don’t know what movements or patterns these cannibals do and I would like to reach our destination before they come back.”
She stopped fake fighting and turned back to me, her people coming up behind us to join the conversation. “She’s right, Hem. We need to get going.” The big one, Rath I think, said as he looked at the sun, calculating what time of day it was. “It’s past noon and we still have a couple of hours before we get to the location.”
Hemlock nodded. “Usually, they don’t come to the same places within the same day. They’re stupid like that, but let’s not take any chances. Thanks, Rath.” He bowed his head before he headed East. Talican nodded to me. Something like respect shined in his eyes before he looked at Hemlock and followed Rath. The last two people on the trip did the same before Hemlock waved at us to follow, and we did.
