“So when you say you make everyone nervous when you walk in a room, you aren’t really talking about Team Two members either, are you? Because they’re enhanced as well. It’s their women who don’t know you,” she clarified. “That’s what you’re saying, Jonas. Ken wouldn’t like it if you disturbed her peace of mind, even though you’re up here checking out a threat to her and her family.”
His heart fluttered in his chest. She sounded outraged on his behalf. “Camellia.” He said her name gently, wanting to kiss her again, just because she stood for him and she didn’t know him. He might have deserved her championing him at one time in his life, but Whitney had changed him for all time. “Thank you. I wish I could live up to your good opinion of me.”
“Aren’t you up here checking out a threat to Marigold’s family? It isn’t just Lily and Ryland’s family. You mentioned Briony and Jack. Marigold and Ken. I heard you. Right when we first were talking together. I wanted you to tell me everything you could about them. At the same time, I didn’t want you to say anything more. I was confused and hurt. But I do know you were here for one reason. You felt a threat when no one else did, and you came to make certain the families with wives and children were safe.”
“I suppose I can’t deny that, Camellia. It’s just that with a mixture of all the various enhancements Whitney stuck in me, I can become extremely aggressive. I don’t like it, and I do my best to control it, but that doesn’t mean I’m nice the majority of the time. I’m better outdoors.”
She gestured toward the trail, retreating from his side, dropping a step behind him. “I think I am too. At least, after spending so much time on my own, I feel more at home outside with my plants.”
Jonas knew she was telling him she wasn’t going to accompany him back down to either fortress, not even to the one Team One had built. They were separate from Team Two, a distance away, although escape routes connected them. He didn’t know how Ryland was going to feel about Camellia’s refusal to introduce herself. He would just have to tell Ryland that the man would have to make a trip up the mountain if he wanted to meet her—that was assuming Jonas could convince her not to run.
With a sigh, he resumed walking down the mountain. “You’ll like Jeff and Kyle.” She would. He tried not to think too much about that. “Jeff Hollister and Kyle Forbes are two of the best men I know. Kyle helped me when I was at my absolute worst. Both men stood by me when others would have walked away.”
They continued walking along that very narrow, almost nonexistent trail that wound through the trees. The fog was by turns either dense or thinner, depending on if the wind could penetrate the heavier brush.
“Where was the rest of your team? Weren’t they supportive?”
He found himself with a ghost of a smile on his face. This woman. She didn’t miss anything. “I’d gone off by myself. Something terrible had happened. Really bad. No one blamed me but me. It was well after we’d been broken out of the laboratory and I knew everyone was relatively safe. I had to think things over. I was a mess. Jeff was in bad shape. He had no business coming after mewith Kyle, but he did. I didn’t think anyone could find me. That damn Kyle, he’s pretty crazy.”
The affection and compassion that came his way through the network made him clear his throat against a sudden welling of emotion. He’d thought he’d managed to conceal the deep affection he felt for the two men. But he hadn’t considered that the highway of information connecting Camellia and himself worked both ways. Images and feelings had poured from Camellia to him, but apparently, she was on the receiving end as well. She had just as clear of a picture of him as he had of her. He didn’t like that. She could see the worst in him. The jealousy. The way he wanted to hold her close to him. Keep her away from everyone else.
Her laughter bubbled up. That sound, like bells skipping over water, slid into him, suppressing the worst in the predators and somehow bringing out the better traits. Just like that, everything changed for him. He didn’t feel jealous or possessive. Kyle and Jeff were part of his family. He considered Camellia his woman. Mate. His other half. Whatever anyone wanted to call it. Kyle and Jeff were his brothers. He wanted her to feel about them the way he did.
“You really are a miracle, Camellia.” He felt compelled to point this out.
“I wish it were me,” she answered.
They had reached the circle of rocks where he’d left Jeff and Kyle.
“Coming in,” Jonas called.
Jonas felt Camellia reach out along the networks as they approached the boulders. He stayed very still, needing to see how she communicated. Also, he wanted to know who she communicated with. And what she had to say to them.
7
Blue, Gray, circle back and watch carefully in case I should need you.Camellia wanted to trust Jonas, but as much as she could feel and read his every thought, she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe in anyone wholly.
She was well aware Jonas would know she was calling on the owls to watch over her. She considered disconnecting from him, but then she wouldn’t be able to know what he was thinking or saying to his friends. The moment he sent them private messages, she would be gone. It wouldn’t take much to distract him. She would have help.
“Camellia, stop.”
Her gaze stayed on the ring of rocks. No one appeared in that circle. Her heart began to accelerate. “Where are they?”
“They knew I was returning and I wasn’t alone,” Jonas said.
Camellia cursed under her breath. She’d been so caught up with telling Jonas her guilty thoughts about Marigold that she hadn’tthought to consider what his friends might be doing. Immediately, she reached through the networks at her disposal, looking for them.
Both men gave off surprisingly low energy, as if they posed no threat to her, but she knew that wasn’t true, not when she lifted her gaze toward the sturdiest of the trees a distance away. She used her vision enhancements, studying the trees, looking for a sniper, anything that might give away the fact that one or both of the men on Jonas’s team had a rifle trained on her. It was unsettling that she couldn’t spot either of them, especially when she began to get that tingling awareness that told her she was in someone’s sights.
“Do you know where your friends are?” She wasn’t going to play games with Jonas. Either they were partners, or they weren’t. She switched her gaze to meet his.
“No. It’s difficult to find either one of them when they don’t want to be seen. They would have to move or make noise. I can reach them, but I would have to talk telepathically, and I don’t want you to think I’m talking behind your back.”
“Then include me.” She made it a challenge.
He nodded. “I will, but it’s possible they might think you’re part of a team and I’m a hostage. I might have to kiss you to convince them you’re not part of a larger conspiracy.”
She sighed. “You will never make me believe you don’t have a phrase or a word or code of some kind that allows your team to know you’re safe or for them to spread out and eliminate any other threats to you. You would never have to kiss anyone.”
