My piggly wiggly avoided eye contact, smothering herself in the mud.Lovely.
Two more steps and I could snatch her, two more steps. I moved, slow and steady, keeping my arms out to my side as if she’d jump right into them. I licked my lips, then parted them to ease my breathing so she didn’t hear me panting like a couch potato forced to exercise.
One more step.
She snapped her head up, took one look at me, and bolted. So I did what I thought best: I lunged.
And missed.
And instead, ate mud.
From the absolute ruckus behind me, I assumed my failed attempt to catch her had also triggered Laken’s, as both of our pigs ran in circles, hollering away.Okay, I might’ve messed that up.
Laken pulled me up from under my arms and I stood, barefooted and ready to barrel into some pigs. Except as they both hauled around us, I couldn’t tell which was which.
“Which one’s mine?”
“I don’t know.” He kept calm, even during the pig masquerade. He shuffled around me so we were back-to-back.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” My little boiling pot ofI didn’t get the last word in last time, so let’s argue about it againbegan to simmer and spill over the top. Wiping mud from my dress, I gathered it in my hand. “Oh, you mean like how you said you didn’t know how you’d get out of the room”—I whipped around, slinging a handful of mud—“so you used me for bait?”
Mud splattered across Laken’s dreamy face, and he stopped moving.
The world stopped moving. The pigs stopped moving.
He is the Gods. He is the Grace. He is Mud Face.Laken’s ocean eyes were aimed at me like a tidal wave ready for landing. The brown, wet trail bled down his face and over his brow. Lifting his hand, he wiped it clear enough it wouldn’t get in his eyes.
I raised my brows.
Laken stood so close our filthy stains nearly smeared against each other. Dark-blond hair once highlighted by the sun now appeared to be low-lighted. My muscles pounded. My heart raced.
He slung the mud off his hand with a dramatic flair. “Iused you for bait because I knew I could save your ass and you couldn’t have saved mine.”
I was appalled. “Oh, I am plenty good at saving ass.”
He must’ve thought I was joking by the look he gave, shifting around to take another look at the dirt covering my rear. “You couldn’t even save yours!”
Yeah, well… well? “Okay, and?”
I didn’t give him time for a smart-ass remark. Taking my hand, soaked with mud, I slapped a good handprint right on his formally dressed ass cheek.
Reeling back, shocked, and maybe a bit vexed, he held my stare like it was a showdown. I shrugged without any regrets weighing on my shoulders. “Now we both have dirty asses.”
He took a step forward and laid a muddy hand around my throat.I am not into this. I am not into this. I am not into this. I am not—
“By the look on your face”—his burning gaze ghosted from my eyes to my lips and back up—“I’d say you have more than a dirty ass.”
I swallowed.Motherfuc—
Doors blasted open, wood pieces splintering as two guards stampeded out of the mansion. Laken and I snapped up our heads, both of us freezing until he said, “Tackle those pigs.”
Determined, I nodded. “You got it.”
Not because I thought I could, but because I knew Laken needed me to, so he could handle them.Themas in the two boulders with swords hurling toward us.Themas in the onesstanding at least half a foot taller than Laken. I’d take my chances with the pigs.
Facing the pork chops, I handled it like they were two of my own. “Alright, you little bastards.”
Without being able to see Laken behind me, I listened carefully for his voice, or more specifically, his cries. But nothing came. A lot of loud clashing and grunting. I hoped his fight was going better than mine because after two failed tackles, I stood with mud-crusted hair looking like I’d walked out of a swamp I disappeared in ten years ago.
