“Say whatever you want,” he muttered. “The point is I’m going to keep protecting you, whether you want me to or not.”
***
“You’ve been quiet,” Emma said as we trudged along the trail. “Everything all right?”
The trail ran along a small river, the water trickling as it glided across rocks and curved and turned along its bed, following the centuries-old weathering that had formed it. The water was lower than it should have been, however, and despite how close we were to the edge, our shoes remained bone-dry.
“Just thinking,” I muttered.
Behind me, Liv snorted in amusement. “She’s been ‘just thinking’ for days,” Liv called over me to Emma.
I shrugged, still trudging down the path without looking at either of them.
“What about?” Emma asked.
“Nothing in particular,” I said. I had kept my frustrations over Sam to myself, not even venting about it to Liv during work. It was my problem, and it was one that had been going on for years and that I didn’t want to share.
Unfortunately, Liv knew me well enough to answer for me, even if I hadn’t told her a single thing.
“My guess is it has something to do with a certain, shaggy-haired shifter who just so happens to be her mate,” Liv said.
I shot her a glare, and she gave me a wide-eyed, too-innocent look.
“Everything okay?” Emma asked, bringing my attention back around. We clambered up a slope, leaving the river and beginning to climb the trail between brush and cacti. “Something the matter?”
The last thing I was going to do was tell my brother’s mate about my history with Sam. “He’s just…” I trailed off, trying to find a way to explain it. “Presumptuous. He thinks that just because we’ve mated, he has some sort of right to me, and that he can just do whatever he wants without getting called out for it. He’s labeled himself as my protector, despite us barely knowing one another.”
Emma cracked a grin as she turned back to look at me. “Trust me. I’m just about the best person you could turn to for this,” she said. “You know how Elias can be sometimes.”
I burst into laughter. “Yeah, he’s always been like that. How do you handle it?”
Emma laughed. “I tell him that if he keeps it up, I’ll stop sleeping with him,” she joked. “That eased things quite a bit.”
Liv and I laughed, and some of the tension that had pierced through me eased. Emma’s head had swiveled back toward us as she walked a few feet ahead. So she didn’t see the several creatures running toward us.
“Emma,” I croaked, even as I couldn’t take my eyes off the creatures scurrying toward us.
Emma’s grin vanished as she turned, and her entire body went rigid as she caught sight of whatever monsters had appeared. They cackled as they scurried forward, jumping in lurching movements as much as they were running. Their skin was the color of ash, their ears pointed, their faces almost feline, their fingers too long. When one of them grinned, I caught sight of bright-white, pointed teeth.
“What the hell are these things?” Liv asked, her voice high-pitched and petrified.
“They’re the demons Sam warned me about,” I said. Suddenly, his concern didn’t feel as absurd and unnecessary as I had thought.
“Run,” Emma said, but when we turned, more imps had materialized to block us. They had us surrounded.
A high-pitched cackling sound that grated my ears reverberated through the air as they stepped closer, flanking us and closing the gaps between them until there was no way we could escape. My heart pounded as dread began to seep through me. I didn’t know what they wanted, but something told me, as I watched them all, and the way they leered up at us, that they hadn’t stumbled across us by accident.
Emma didn’t say anything, though her eyes darted all around as she tried to keep track of each of the creatures. Slowly, she twisted the cap off her canteen.
One moment, there was nothing. Next, a burst of water whipped out, slamming into the nearest demon, shoving it backward. It let out an inhuman squeal as it flew back.
The next one jumped forward, and the water followed it, knocking the creature into another one that had been mid-leap. Emma’s eyes remained narrowed with concentration as she stared at our attackers, determination etched across her face.
“I’m not going to be able to beat them,” Emma muttered to us as her water continued to rush all over the place at her command. “We need to get away.”
We started doing just that, sprinting back the way we had come until we came to a bend, and the demons pinned us in on all sides. In the middle of it all, my hands suddenly beganto burn. I glanced down. For a brief moment, in the light of the water swirling all around, I could have sworn I saw tendrils of flame flick from my fingertips. A moment later, the light shifted, and the mirage was better.
“Elias is coming,” Emma said to us, pulling me back to the present.
