Magma clears his throat. His brows pull together while he thinks it over.
“Rub yourself in mud and dirt,” he says. “Use those leaves and the moss. Get the scent of the jungle all over you. It’s a pity we can’t start a fire, because you could have used the ash. We need to mask your scent.”
“Okay.” I nod. “I can do that.”
There’s a low spot a few yards away where the ground stays wet, thick with moss and ferns still beaded from the last rain. I walk over and crouch down, and the mud is cold when I sink my fingers into it. It squelches up between them, dark and smelling of rot and rain and green things. I scoop up a handful and hesitate for half a second, because some prim little voice in the back of my head is still saying “that’s dirty, Carla,” and then I think of that male’s nostrils flaring, and I slap it onto my arm and start rubbing. I do the other arm. My shoulders. My collarbone. I drag a wet fern frond across my skin and crush moss between my palms and smear the green-black paste of it over my stomach, down my shins, over the tops of my feet. Then I get to work on my breasts and cake them with mud.
“Your hair too,” he says from behind me. “It scents of orange blossoms.”
Of course it does. I bought that shampoo specifically because of how it smells. Fourteen dollars a bottle, and now it might get me killed.
“Oh. Okay.”
“I’m going to find what’s left of your clothes,” he tells me.
“Don’t bother.” I don’t turn around. “He ripped them to shreds.”
“Not for you to wear.” His voice is matter-of-fact. “I want to bury them. We need to leave no trace of you on this island. If any of the feral males catch wind of a human female out here, we’ll have a big problem because they’ll start hunting. We don’t want that.”
“I see.” I nod, and the panic swells up again, cold and fast, because of course. Of course my torn blouse lying in the mud is like a signpost. Of course every single thing about me is a signpost. I’m a trail of breadcrumbs shaped like a person.
“We’ll get through this.” His eyes are on me. “It’s going to be fine.”
I nod. “I hope so.” I want so badly to believe him. I want to wrap myself up in those five words and live there.
“We will. Keep putting that mud on you.” He turns and walks off into the trees, and I watch him go, because apparently, I have no self-control left whatsoever. His back is a wall of shifting muscle, and his ass is… Meaty is the only word for it. Sculpted and powerful and completely bare, flexing with every stride.
I make myself look away. I stare hard at a fern instead.
Then I get back to work. I dig up a fresh handful of mud and work it into my hair, roots to ends, raking my fingers through until the strands clump and stick. Goodbye, orange blossoms. I pile more onto my chest, over the lace, into the dip between my breasts, up my throat. I rub crushed leaves over the back of my neck. By the time I’m wringing the last of it through my ponytail,I’m more swamp creature than woman, and that’s exactly the point.
I’m just finishing up when he comes back through the trees.
“Did you find them?”
He nods. “I buried them.”
“Good.” I let out a breath.
“Your face too, and…” He clears his throat and looks off to the side. “Between your legs. Sorry.” He holds up both hands. “I swear I’m not trying to be rude. It’s just…you have a scent down there too. I can smell you from here.”
I stop breathing.
He can smell me. From there. He can smell my…vagina. From fifteen feet away, through mud and moss and jungle rot, this man can smell my girl parts.
Holy shit.
There is no recovering from this. There is no version of my life where I un-hear this sentence. My face is on fire.
I nod, because what else is there to do? He turns away to give me privacy, and that’s when I notice that his dick is bigger than it was before. Bigger and harder, the head flushed dark, standing up against his stomach now instead of pointing at me.
It’s not me. He said it himself. He’s not attracted to me; it’s the fight, it’s his beast, it’s the adrenaline still burning through his system. Dragon biology. That’s all this is.
I scoop up more mud and smear it across my cheeks, my forehead, my chin. Then, with all the dignity I have left, which is none, I smear mud over my inner thighs and between my legs. The cold of it makes me hiss. I must look like something that crawled out of a horror movie. Honestly, at this point, I’d welcome it. Nothing in this jungle should want anything to do with me.
“There. How’s that?” I ask when I’m done.
He turns back and sniffs at the air, head tilting, nostrils working. “Much better.”
