But Ivy wasn’t paying attention to her husband. She had her eyes closed and her face turned up, sniffing the air.
“Shit,” Clayne muttered. He dropped his pack and started digging in it.
“Ivy?” Landon said.
Ivy finally turned her attention to him. “I heard you. And I’d love to take a look at the dead hybrids, but later. Right now, I’m more concerned with the live hybrids coming this way.”
Angelo swore and reloaded his magazines. Butler did the same. On the far side of the clearing Tate and Brent picked up the dead hybrids’ weapons and raided their ammo pouches. Probably not a bad idea.
Beside Angelo, Clayne was reloading his M4 magazines faster than Angelo had ever seen anyone reload. Then he did the same to his .45 clips.
“I swear that if we get out of this alive, Danica can have her wedding in any damn church she likes,” Clayne said. “That includes the Vatican.”
Angelo laughed. “I’m going to tell her you said that. Though I think there might be a long waiting list of people ahead of you.”
Clayne slammed a fresh clip into his .45 with a growl. “I have a way of dealing with waiting lists.”
***
“Stop wiggling around like such a baby,” Kendra said. “It’s just an antiseptic wipe. Sheesh, I’d have thought someone your size would be tougher.”
Declan chuckled. “It doesn’t hurt. It’s cold.”
“Oh.” She cringed. “Sorry.”
She fell silent as she went back to cleaning the three long, ragged wounds that started at the top of his left shoulder and ran diagonally across his chest. She’d already cleaned the other claw marks on his chest, but the ones on his shoulder concerned her the most. They were deep. She thought about putting on her NVGs so she could see better, but she hated those things—everything looked so green and washed out. She’d do a better job working by feel.
Declan had attempted to tell her he didn’t need her to fuss over him, but she wasn’t putting up with any of that. The moment they’d gotten far enough away from the attack site and found a good hiding place, she’d ordered him to take off his shredded uniform top and T-shirt.
She’d been really worried about his wounds; there’d been a lot of blood on his clothes. She had no idea what kind of nasty jungle crud those hybrids had been carrying under their claws. The last thing she needed was for Declan to get some kind of hybrid-induced infection while they were out here fighting for their lives. And working at the DCO had taught her one thing—shifters healed quickly. She had to get his wounds cleaned before they started closing over and trapped dirt and possible infection inside. Fortunately, after she’d gotten his top off and wiped away the worst of the blood, she realized they weren’t nearly as bad as she’d thought.
“That was a lot of shooting we heard before,” she said as she ran the wipe over his skin. “Was it as close as it sounded?”
Declan growled a little as she hit a tender spot but shook his head when she asked if she should stop. “I’m okay. Keep going. As for the shooting, it might have been only a few miles away, or it could have been fifteen. All the valleys, canyons, and cliffs around here can do crazy things to sound. But I agree with you. There were a lot of people—or hybrids—shooting.”
She’d hoped his shifter hearing would be able to pinpoint the source of the gun battle. But she still had reason to hope the sound might bode well for them. “Do you think it was a rescue party looking for us?”
Declan was silent as he considered that. As she waited for him to answer, she let her fingers trail along his ribs and abs, looking for other damage. She didn’t think he’d gotten scratched anywhere else, but she wanted to check and make sure. The act of slowly and gently cleaning his muscular body, checking for other wounds, running her fingers here and there was extremely mesmerizing for some reason. At first she told herself she was doing it to be thorough, but as she continued to trail her fingers over places she knew the hybrids had never gotten near, she finally admitted she was touching him because she liked it.
She blushed, but she didn’t stop what she was doing. Declan had a really nice body—even with the ragged claw marks. It was dark in the shelter, so she couldn’t see much, but she didn’t need to see his body to enjoy it. The sensation of his warm skin under her fingers was enough.
“It might be a rescue party,” he answered, his voice soft. “But it’s just as likely those shots were from a pack of hybrids executing a random group of hikers or ecotourists they stumbled across.”
Kendra shuddered. God, she didn’t want to think about that. Instead she focused on the positive. “But there’s still a chance it was Tate and the other guys. Shouldn’t we try to rendezvous with them?”
He pondered the question before answering. Kendra took the opportunity to let her fingers wander farther, from his thick, muscular neck, down across both broad shoulders, and around his big biceps and finally his forearms. Declan didn’t seem to mind her ministrations, and she sure didn’t mind doing them. If she closed her eyes and blocked out all the plant smells and animal sounds, she could almost imagine they were back home in her bedroom, enjoying a leisurely massage instead of fighting for their lives in the hybrid-filled jungles of Costa Rica.
“Before we started running into all these hybrids, I would have been the first to say we should be heading in that direction,” Declan said, pulling her back to the here and now. “But now, we can’t take the risk. There are just too many bad guys running around the jungle right now. And all that shooting is bound to draw even more hybrids in that direction. We’d literally be walking ourselves right into their hands, then end up having to fight our way through who knows how many of them, exposing ourselves and likely using up what little ammo we have left. And what do we do if we get there only to find out that it wasn’t Tate and the guys? It’d be over for us.”
She sighed, knowing that he was right. “Sorry. I was just hoping. Silly, I know.”
Declan put one of his big hands on her leg and gave it a soft squeeze. The squeeze was nice but not nearly as nice as the warmth of his touch. “There’s nothing to be sorry about, and it wasn’t silly. I had the exact same thought when I heard those shots. If I thought the risk was worth it, we’d be heading there right now. But I really think our best bet is to use the distraction offered by whoever was doing that shooting and keep moving northwest as fast as we can.”
Kendra moved her hands up his well-muscled arms to his equally chiseled chest. She had a thing for really muscular chests. Or maybe she just had a thing for Declan’s muscular chest. Either way, she kept swiping here and there with one of the medicated wipes, using the flimsy prop to justify what was really nothing more than a massage now.
Declan didn’t complain. In fact, she was pretty sure his eyes were closed. No shock there. He’d just fought off three hybrids, not to mention hadn’t eaten for the last two days. He was probably wiped out, and her gentle touches were likely putting him to sleep. She smiled in the dark. She was glad she could do something simple like this for him in return for the amazing job he was doing keeping her alive.
But as she glided her fingers down the center of his abs and along the light happy trail of fine hair toward his belly button, Declan stiffened. “I think I’m good, Kendra. I don’t think any of those hybrids got me that low.”
