“Mollie—”
“We should go; we have to move while we can.”
She scrambled from his lap when he eased his hands away from her. Mike battled his disappointment while she folded the quilt and gathered the rifle. She didn’t look at him as she worked.
Chapter Seventeen
When Mollie glancedat her watch, she saw it was almost one o’clock before Mike stopped walking and settled onto a group of boulders. Striding away from him, Mollie stopped at the edge of the cliff and gazed at the water a couple of hundred feet below.
In this area, the woods offered them shelter right up to the cliffs, and the cliffs were higher than they’d been by the lighthouse. She tasted the salty water on her lips as the wind whipped up the sea. Usually, she would have found it all soothing and beautiful, but she had no idea where they were, where her sister was, or where the monsters hunting them were, and nothing was comforting in that.
Despite her aching feet, trembling legs, grumbling stomach, severe thirst, and all-around misery, Mollie would have preferred to keep walking. Stopped again, she might have to look at Mike, and she couldn’t do that without blushing.
Move away from the edge!Mike snarled the command in his head as Mollie stood far too close to the cliff for his liking. He bit back the harsh words in case they startled her into stepping over the edge.
“I’m going to find you something to eat,” Mike said.
When Mollie turned, she discovered he’d risen from the rocks and stood only a few feet away. She’d never heard him move. “I’m good. I can go longer without eating.”
“And how much longer can you go without water?”
Thatshe couldn’t continue much further without. The ache in her head was from dehydration, as was the cramping in her legs. It was a good thing it wasn’t hot out, and Mike had done the running, or she would have dropped by now.
Mike’s jaw clenched when Mollie glanced away from him. She was hungry, thirsty, exhausted, and weakening from it. She lagged more and more with every passing hour and mile they traversed. His fangs pricked and slid halfway free before he regained enough control of himself to retract them.
He studied the slouch of her shoulders and listened to the steady beat of her heart. She was so strong in some ways, yet so weak in her mortality.She doesn’t have to be.
The impulse to change her following on the heels of the sudden thought rocked him back a step. His fangs slid free when his gaze fell on the delicate curve of her neck. He could change her, make her immortal, take away her mortal hunger and thirst, and replace it with an inhuman one far more incessant than the ones she dealt with now.
Struggling to get baser instincts he’d never possessed before under control, Mike turned away from her. Years ago, he’d learned how to deal with his thirst for blood, but he’d never dealt with this compulsion to change another. He’d never expected to have to deal with it unless he encountered his mate and she turned out to be mortal.
Mike’s head swiveled toward where Mollie stood at the edge of the cliff as a new idea occurred to him.
Is she my mate? His fangs lengthened again as he contemplated the possibility while studying her. He’d never reacted to someone the way he did her, but they’d barely spent any time together. However, in the short time they’d been together, he’d come to know her better than most of the other women he’d encountered over the years, and unlike them, he planned to learnmoreabout Mollie.
He had to get her out of this mess before something happened to her. He didn’t know how he would react if that occurred.
But first, he had to take care of her.
“There’s water nearby,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“I can smell it,” he said. “And where there is water, there will also be animals to hunt.”
“I’m coming with you.”
He didn’t disagree with her; he wasn’t ready to let her out of his sight. “Come on.” He held his hand out to her.
After a hesitation, Mollie took it and ducked her head as a blush crept into her cheeks. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him again while he led her through the woods. When they arrived at the small stream, Mike released her to hunt, while Mollie made her way to the edge of the shallow creek.
Around her, the birds sang and fluttered through the trees, but even they seemed more subdued than typical birds. It was as if they couldn’t erase the horrors of the night from their minds either. Kneeling, she pushed up the sleeves of her shirt and washed away some of the grime on her hands. If her mouth weren’t so dry, she would have drooled at the tantalizing water sliding through her fingers and over her skin.
Do not drink it. Do not drink it.She had to repeat this over and over again as she resisted cupping her hands and bringing the cold water to her lips.
Unable to take any more, she retreated from the creek and settled on a rock with her back to the water. Shrugging the rifle off, she held it before her as she studied the woods and listened for anything unusual while Mike stalked the forest animals.
* * *
