“Surrender now, and I’ll let you go,” she says.
Ciprian winks at me, then relaxes in her hold and rubs his face against her tits. “Why the fuck would I want to do that?” he asks. “I’m happy where I am.”
Celine releases him and shakes her head, but I don’t miss the pink flush in her cheeks. Ciprian’s flirting is calculated.He’s as freaked out as the rest of us; he’s also determined to keep the morale up. I’m thankful for it.
Alistair thrusts his hand through the hole and crooks his fingers. “Come,” he demands.
“Bossy,” Ciprian mutters, his teasing tone long gone. I shoot Celine a glance, but she’s already collecting the backpacks. One by one, we pass them to Alistair.
I kneel to give Celine a boost, but she drops into a squat, retracts her wings, and jumps to Alistair’s hand instead, easily walking up the packed dirt wall of the bunker. We get a glimpse of her round ass squeezing through the hole before she disappears.
Ciprian groans and bites his fist. “Why is it so sexy when she does stuff like that?”
“Because independent women are hot.” I smile and pat my bent leg, offering Ciprian the boost instead.
He shakes his head. “Normally, I’d be all over that, but you’re hurting.”
“I’m—”
“Don’t say fine. You forget I grew up with shifters. If you haven’t shifted in a while, it hurts—horribly if Gideon’s whining was anywhere close to accurate. It’ll get better the more you do it, but for now you’ll have to accept my boost.”
I want to tell him to fuck off, but the matter-of-fact way he talks about it makes it seem okay to be sore. Sighing, I stand.
Ciprian laces his fingers together, and I step into his hand and lock my body.
The next thing I know, my head pops out of the hole as frigid slush slides down the collar of my shirt. I hiss and grab Celine’s hand, letting her yank me the rest of the way out.
I turn to help Ciprian, but Alistair is already sticking his hand through the opening. By the time Ciprian realizes who’s helping him, it’s too late to refuse. He shoots a dark glare at Ali and lets go before he’s steady, stumbling into the trunk of the tree.
Alistair pretends not to notice.
“Did your parents make you memorize all the landmarks?” Celine asks, ignoring them entirely and focusing on the quiet woods around us.
I nod. “There’s a portal on the other side of this forest.”
Celine rolls her shoulders back. “Can we make it there before the next eclipse?”
“We’ll have to hurry.” I shield my eyes and check the position of the sun. “But if we time it right, we can sneak away as the darkness falls and the guards take cover from the cold.”
Celine smiles grimly. “Smart. Should we expect”—she flinches, then shoots me an apologetic wince—“to run into any monsters?”
“I’m not sure,” I admit. “If it’s like it used to be, the shifters in power on the mainland use this realm as a penal colony. Most of the monsters here aren’t free to wander around.” I point at the shifter realm. It’s barely visible through the collection of floating shrapnel—the monster realm’s version of an electric fence.
“It used to be that if a monster agreed to have their beast side permanently bound, they were allowed to return to the mainland and live freely. When my parents left, there were dozens of monsters actively resisting and using this realm to hide, but that was decades ago. Most of them have probably been captured or killed by now.”
“And how does the government decide which shifters get classified as monsters?” Celine asks, her lips pressing into a thin, angry line.
I laugh bitterly. “Beats me, but if you’ve got big teeth and a small population, chances are you end up on their list.”
When no one immediately responds, I kick myself for being too blunt.
“That’s fucked up,” Celine finally says.
I force a blandsmile and nod.
Celine laces her fingers with mine, then nestles our clasped hands in the front pocket of my hoodie. “Maybe the guards won’t shelter from the eclipse today, and we can bust some heads on our way out.”
She sounds so hopeful that my next smile is real.
