“Oh, shit!”
I follow her gaze and see our water bottles floating down the river at breakneck speed.
Before I can speak, Rory jumps into the water.
“RORY!” Bonnie screams his name. She struggles out of my arms and launches up, following the river along the bank. “You bloody idiot. Stupid goddamn dumbass alphas.”
I’m right behind her, with Dakota and Vale on our heels.
“Swim, Rory!” Kota shouts.
“Leave the bottles, Alpha, and grab the tree. Swim now. Kick hard. Propel yourself out of the water.”
Rory ignores her.
Vale looks almost as angry as Bonnie does. I wonder who’s going to kill him first, but, to my intense relief, he catches the water bottles and manages to catch a low-lying branch, throwing himself up and out of the water. He hangs there for a moment, clinging to the branch, his lower legs still dangling in the river, and then he swings up and starts sliding towards the bank.
When he gets to us, Bonnie is almost shaking with rage. Her lips are white, her hands clenched, and I think I can hear a shrill whistling sound emanating from her.
“Bonnie?”
Rory dumps the bottles and walks past her.
She growls and leaps after him, grabbing his arm and swinging him around.
“Never, ever do that again!”
He glowers at her, doesn’t even answer, just stares at her before he slowly lowers his eyes to where she’s touching him.
“This is my job, and you are my responsibility. I’m not going to explain to your family why you drowned in a river due to your own stupidity.”
“I saved you-”
“You fucking saved your pride,” Bonnie snaps back. “It would have taken me a couple of hours to go back to camp and get replacements. There is no place forheroes on this adventure. A hero is just an idiot who dies young and leaves his family in mourning, so smarten up, Rory Aster, or go the fuck home.”
She whips around, snatching up the bottles. She goes to the edge of the river and starts filling them.
“Kevin, Rojer, you’re carrying the water for the first half of the trek,” Bonnie snaps.
Rojer simply smiles and picks up one of the containers. I turn to say something to Bonnie, but she’s already climbing the path like a mountain goat. There and gone.
I rub my face and turn just in time to see Vale grab Rory’s wet shirt and yank him up against him, kissing him hard.
“You idiot,” Vale hisses.
“We can’t lose this chance; it’s too perfect. We’ll never get another,” Rory murmurs back. His hand finds Vale’s ass cheek, and he squeezes hard.
He’s right. Oh, I know he’s right, but, damn, the way my heart is racing. Kota looks sick, too. He wipes his mouth and indicates the path. “We'd better get back and get you some dry clothes, Roar.”
Rory does look cold; he’s shivering.
I strip out of my long-sleeve top and toss it to Vale as I pull Rory’s wet T-shirt off him. Kota uses my top to dry him off a bit, and then, they bundle him up in Vale’s hoodie.
“Best we can do until we get back,” Vale mutters unhappily.
I take up the rear. Everything about this trip has been going wrong, and I feel out of sorts, like a house of cards that’s on the verge of tumbling down.
Walking back into camp has me shocked by the transformation. The tents are up, Bonnie is snapping orders, and, to my surprise, people are listening and obeying her.
