“She’s scared enough as it is,” Quinn glared at Trey. “Keep talking like that and she’s going to assume we’re leading her into a trap.”
“I’m not convinced we aren’t.” Trey’s voice was hard, devoid of emotion. “I gave her my points so she wouldn’t have to face this, but here we fucking are.”
“I’m starting to think we shouldn’t have brought her here,” Quinn muttered.
“Jesus H Christ,” I snapped, steadying myself against a stone as I struggled to my feet. “I’m not scared. I’m freezing cold and grumpy. I don’t care if I’m walking into a trap anymore. Anything is better than sitting here getting colder while you lot argue over what you think is best for me. Could we just get on with this?”
“Wait,” Ayaz grabbed my hand, snapping my body against his. Fire flared through my body where we pressed together. “There’s something we have to do first.”
“For fuck’s sake,what?”
Ayaz’s hand stroked my cheek. His fingers seared my skin – a heat that burned through my body and right down to my toes, replacing the frightful numbness inside me with a delicious glow.
“Those two have had the pleasure of a kiss.” Ayaz’s breath caressed my lips, melting away the numbness. “If we all end up destroyed in there tonight, I think we should have ours, too.”
Wait, I could die in there? I—
Ayaz brought his lips toward me, and all rational thought fled my head. A trail of heat stretched between us – drawing us together like a moth to a flame. But who was the flame, and who was the moth? Who would burn up in the other’s conflagration?
Mentally, I fought against his approaching lips. This was the guy who put maggots in my food. Why was he hovering like he was about to kiss me? Why did Iwanthim to kiss me?
Ayaz paused an inch from me, the question written in his dark, ageless eyes.
A groan of assent escaped my throat. The fire drew me forward, pressing my lips to his. Heat flared through my face as our lips touched, as his fingers slid around the back of my neck, as his tongue roused something hot and needy and primal from the dark depths within me.
Ayaz kissed with a wild possessiveness, claiming me with his mouth. He kissed with his whole body, fitting himself against me in perfect union. He threw everything he had into that kiss, leaving me gasping, breathless, reminding me that underneath all his monarch posturing he and I were born of the same fire.
He was a scholarship student, too. Has he had his hair tarred and rotting meat shoved in his locker? Has he been led to a rickety boat and commanded to row away as fast as he could? Has he stood here once before, unsure of what he’d find on the other side of this rock?
He sure kissed like it, like he wanted to drive out my fear and my questions and all the unfairness of the world and replace it with this smolderingwant. And with his fingers tangled in my hair and his lips made of fire and this ache pooling inside me, I would let him a hundred times over.
Ayaz drew away, his dark eyes sweeping over me. His rich scent clung to my lips, and the force that pulled us together was stronger than ever.
Quinn whistled. “That was hot.”
I touched my finger to my lips, now scorched by his touch.Yes, yes it was.
“We’re wasting time,” Trey snapped.
“That wasnota waste,” Ayaz muttered. His hand lingered on my arm before falling away.
I swallowed hard, trying to bring my hammering heart back into line. “Clearly, all this stuff you told me about being dead is bullshit. You’re not an eskimo—”
“Edimmu—” Ayaz corrected.
“—because nowaydo zombies kiss like that.”
Ayaz grinned, holding my arm as we scrambled up the side of the cavern and squeezed through the hole Trey had made. On the other side was a sheer drop. Quinn went first, sliding on his ass down the smooth stone. He turned around and held his hands up toward me.
This whole cave trip felt like a pointless exercise to force me to trust the guys. I had to take Quinn’s jacket or freeze. I had to allow them to lift me across the water and toss me between them down this drop, or I’d fall and break my neck. I was reserving judgment until we got wherever we were going, but there was going to have to be someseriousfuckery at the other end of this tunnel to make me believe all of this wasn’t some messed up attempt to get me to like them.
Part of me still wondered if I’d walked into another of their traps, but then I caught a glimpse of Trey’s ice-blue eyes – wide and frightened, the edges ringed with silver fire. In the flickering lantern light, his hair shimmered with crimson highlights. He nudged me, but it was surprisingly gentle. “After you.”
I squeezed my eyes shut as I slid forward, toppling off the edge of the shelf. A yelp escaped my throat as I fell, before Quinn’s powerful hands gripped my sides and he lowered me down.
“Oof,” he grunted as he lowered me to the ground. “You might want to lay off the bacon in the future, Hazy.”
“You’re such a cock,” Trey said as he slid down beside us.
