My face mirrors the shock on hers.
“But you hate this place nearly as much as I do,” she protests.
However, he’s already getting up, brushing his knuckles gently across her cheek on his way to the sink. “I do,” Lucien agrees. “But in the state you’re in, you’ll likely only make it a day before needing to return. We should stick around until you’re fully charged.”
Cambria thumps her head on the table and Dorian pats it consolingly. “I was getting along just fine until you three showed up,” she complains.
“No you weren’t,” I snort and she turns her head to look at me. “You were existing in a little bubble of denial. You were surviving, not living. That’s not ‘just fine’, Cambria.”
She flips me off, but there’s no heat behind it. “Way to call me out, jerkwad.”
I shrug. “Maybe you need it. You spend every waking moment pretending things are good enough as they are so you can make your peace with it. A little slap of reality isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”
Dorian runs his fingers through her hair, letting the multicolored strands slip through them like silk. “Instead of worrying about a bed today, let’s avoid town. Is there anywhere around here not filled with bitchy fae or face eating tigers?”
She sits up, looking more awake. “You three up for a hike? It’ll take most of the day, but if we head out soon we should get there before nightfall.”
It’ll mean camping then, and we don’t have a single supply for it, but it sounds like the best idea I’ve heard all week.
“Then what are we waiting for?”
***
“Iwouldn’t exactlyconsider this hiking,” Dorian huffs out, paling when he risks a look down.
Her hair is tied back and she’s drenched in sweat like the rest of us, but she has a huge grin on her face. “Semantics,” she manages between breaths.
We’re a few stories above the ground, the incline so steep we may as well be free climbing the side of the mountain. It’s primarily rock, with a sparse forest covering it. The trees are spaced enough that nothing can really sneak up on us, but it offers a bit of coverage from anyone on the ground getting a clear view. We had to go way out of our way before even starting to climb, bypassing the direct path through the dense forest in favor of the less risky edges. We unanimously decided that anything lurking in there that’s enough to drive a tiger into the city is something we have no interest running into.
“Fuck, this is fun for you, isn’t it?” I pant.
I’m not out of shape by any means, but a few hours at this pace is a hell of a workout. Despite the state she’s in, Cambria grins, looking better than she did before we set out.
“A little bit,” she admits with a laugh. “Nature combined with the thrill. This steep, if I lose my footing, I might just break my neck.”
Lucien glowers at her. “You’re psychotic.”
She full on laughs at that, a rock breaking loose beneath my foot as I lurch to get a hand on something, joining Luce in glaring.
“I’d say more of a thrill seeker than psychotic,” she argues. “It makes me feel alive. All the adrenaline, the burn in my muscles; it’s intoxicating. Practically foreplay.”
Lucien sits down on a boulder and wipes sweat from his brow. “We need to find you a better hobby.”
I flop down on the ground near them, leaning my back against the rock to catch my breath. Dorian follows our lead and it forces Cambria to slow down for a minute, climbing onto Dorian’s lap. He doesn’t bat an eye at the dirt or sweat, wrapping his arms around her stomach and resting his chin on her shoulder.
“Or my humans need to step up their game. Maybe that desk job isn’t good for your health, Luce,” she teases.
His tight expression smooths out a bit as she starts falling back into her usual self again. “That feels a bit like a challenge, little fae. You don’t think I can keep up with you?”
She hops back up to her feet and fixes her ponytail. “Think? Iknow.”
I groan, getting to my feet. “Thanks a lot, asshole,” I throw at Lucien. “As if this wasn’t bad enough, now you’re going to make us run?”
Lucien’s amber eyes flash in the late afternoon light. “Only one of us needs to keep up with her,” he counters.
“So we should make it more interesting,” Dorian adds, feeding into this nonsense.
“Why?” I groan in exasperation. “When did you guys become such masochists?”
