Shaking her head, Zina forced herself to action, marching across the room and picking up the bags of toiletries and clothes they’d bought this morning, tearing off the tags and folding them up, stuffing them inside the backpacks they’d also bought. Getting organized for the next leg of their journeydidat least take her mind off the completely bizarre reaction she was having to Trent.
It has to be the effect of the serum wearing off,she thought, as she zipped up the backpack, her stomach roiling. It always played havoc with her senses. This was just a weird side-effect she hadn’t experienced before, because most of the guys she’d worked with recently had the sex appeal of a pudding.
Pulling in a breath, Zina reached over, grabbing her own bag and reaching inside. Even though she knew no one could have stolen it, feeling the solid black box she kept the eggs in in her hands was a comfort.
Pressing her thumb to the lock and snapping it open, Zina looked down at the three precious eggs inside, feeling her heart swell as she brushed the tips of her fingers lightly over their warm surfaces.
We’re going to take you somewhere safe,she promised them, talking to the tiny creatures who were protected by the eggs’ jewel-like surfaces.I promise you – I’ll protect you with my life. You won’t have to worry about a thing. Trent knows somewhere you’ll be able to live without people trying to use you for your powers.
Closing the box again with aclick, Zina could only hope she wasn’t making them an empty promise.
Chapter 7
Okay. Okay. Get it together.
Trent dunked his head under the freezing cold water from the shower again, scrubbing his fingers through his hair to remove the last of the bleach.
He wasprettysure you weren’t actually supposed to rinse this stuff out with cold water, but right now he didn’t care. None of that mattered as much as the, uh,situationhe had going on in his pants, and the need to take care of it as quickly and quietly as possible.
Cold showers might have been a cliché, but they were a cliché for a reason: theyworked.
Trent shuddered as the cold water sluiced down over his skin, reducing his temperature down from ‘burning hot firestorm’ to ‘smoldering coals’ – which might not have beenmuchof an improvement, but right now, he’d take what he could get.
He’d thought he could do at least a little better than this, but apparently not. He would have been a little more insistent about dyeing his own hair if only he’d known the mere touch of Zina’s hands on his scalp through a pair of baggy plastic gloves was going to turn him into a raging inferno of desire, worse than anything he ever remembered experiencing as a hormonal teenager.
I’m just lucky Zina at least was focused on the job and not on me,he thought, letting out a long, slow breath, andfinallyfeeling the erection he’d had for the last however long – itseemedlike an eternity – start to go down.At least one of us is acting professionally.
How can we be expected to keep our heads around our mate? When she’s so close, and yet so far away?his kangaroo demanded, lifting its head and rearing back indignantly.How can we be expected to behave as if nothing is happening, when our mate’s fingers are in our hair, when she’s leaning over us, pressing her –
Enough!Trent mentally hollered at the animal – if it had been possible, he would have sprayeditwith the shower hose.I just calmed down! Shut up with that kind of talk or we’ll never get out of here!
The kangaroo simply sniffed haughtily at him, as if to signal exactly what it thought of Trent’s standing here hosing himself down, rather than just marching out into the other room, taking Zina in his arms and –
I said enough!Trent thought again, but this time, he knew he had no one but himself to blame.Hewas the one imagining that scenario.
But it’s not the right time just now,he thought. They had to keep their wits about them. He was already compromised – he didn’t need to spring this on Zina too. Suddenly announcing to her that he thought she was his mate was no way to run a mission. Especially since she hadn’t said a word about it herself.
But then, is she a shifter or not?
Pulling in another deep breath, Trent shut off the water and stepped out of the shower. He yanked a towel off the rack, drying himself off – before glancing up at himself in the mirror.
Whoa.
Well, it definitelywasa change, Trent had to admit, staring at himself, and at his newly bright blond hair. He ran his fingers through it, arranging it a little, before deciding that no, that wasn’t going to make any difference to him. But at least, itdidchange how he looked quite a bit. Since the Hargreaves guys – or whoever they were – had definitely clocked him, that was a positive.
Nonetheless, Trent thought as he pulled on his clothes, they still had to actually make it up to Tahnee’s sanctuary safely and then to Jackson’s Ridge, and a new hairstyle wasn’t going to cut it in terms of evading the people who were after them. They’d have to move fast, and they’d need all the luck they could get.
Time to get moving, then.
Zina looked up at him when he pulled open the bathroom door, her eyes going wide.
“Whoa,” she said, echoing his thoughts. “Wow. That’s a change. You look… different.”
“Ah.” Trent ran a hand self-consciously through his hair. “Different in a bad way?”
Zina shook her head, a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips. “No, just different, in adifferentway. Are you vain or something?”
“Maybe a little bit,” Trent admitted, with a laugh. “But it’s not so much that as just not wanting to look like acompletedickhead in public.”
