I wanted her back, but she would be in my bedagain because she chose to be there, and not because we both lostcontrol of ourselves.
“This isn’t what I wanted it to be likebetween us,” she whispered.
“Isn’t it?” I grated.
She recoiled from me. “No, never.”
“Go, River.”
She hesitated before spinning on her heel andfleeing for the other tent. She looked back at me from the flap andopened her mouth to say something but stopped herself then duckedout of view. My breath exploded from me.
This was going to be an excruciating journeyif I didn’t get her back soon.
CHAPTER 5
River
When I finished packing and left his room, Idiscovered Kobal was no longer inside the tent. Walking outside, Ifound him waiting for me a few feet away and looking more incontrol of himself as blood no longer dripped from his palms. Thesun beating down on him brought out the lighter strands of brown inhis dark hair and emphasized the muscles in his arms andshoulders.
Love and desire swelled forth within me, butI quickly tamped them both down. I’d seen the ravenous gleam in hisamber-colored eyes as he’d watched me just minutes ago. More sothan his bloody palms, those amber eyes gave away his lack ofcontrol. I knew they only turned that color when he was highlyaroused or ready to kill. Since I knew he would never hurt me, itcould have only meant one thing.
The amount of restraint he’d shown only mademe love him more, but I couldn’t give into the needs of my body andheart. It felt as if my heart had been carved from my chest andstomped into the ground when I’d turned away from him in the tent,but it was the best for us both, wasn’t it?
My gaze went to his neck. My heart sank andsomething inside of me screamed when I saw the bites I’d left onhis neck had completely healed and faded away. Any demon would knowI was his without his marks on me, but would they know he was minewithout my marks on him?
It shouldn’t matter, but it did.
He never looked back at me as he led metoward the twenty vehicles waiting to make the trip. Most of themwere pickups, but a few cars were going too. The decision had beenmade to leave the heavy-duty military vehicles behind in case wefailed in our mission.
They would need the vehicles here to defendthe wall and to recruit new volunteers if we died. Plus, it wouldbe easier to carry enough gas with us for the smaller vehicles, andif one or more of them broke down along the way, we’d have backups.All of the vehicles were loaded with food, water, and gasoline. Ifelt like we would be riding in ticking bombs, but it was betterthan walking the whole trip.
We’d been told all of the radiation from thenukes our government had released on the center of the country hadbeen absorbed into Hell, where it had no effect upon the demons andcreatures within.
I didn’t know who the human guinea pigs werethat tested that theory, but we’d been assured their skin hadn’tfallen off and they hadn’t sprouted tails. They’d also takenradiation samples and found nothing in the air. There had been someradiation detected in the ground still, but not enough to be ahealth risk or to warrant biohazard suits, though I still wouldhave preferred one. I was strange enough without growing a thirdeye or an extra hand.
What effect the radiation had on the life inand around the surrounding area before being absorbed by Hell hadbeen minimal. Again, this is what we’d been informed, but I stillcouldn’t rid myself of the certainty we’d come acrossskyscraper-sized spiders and mosquitos, or people who had turned tocannibalism and now resided in the mountains.
I shuddered at the possibility. They had saidwe would encounter many horrors during our journey, and after themadagans and revenirs, I knew they would be bad. I really hopedthey were all demonic horrors and not man-made ones too.
How much my view of the world had changed intwo months was not lost on me. One day, I’d been hoping to catch afish. Now I was hoping not to encounter mutated creatures but onlythings from Hell on our way to Hell.
“We’ll be riding in this one,” Kobal said tome and slapped the bed of a white pickup truck before walking awaywith his shoulders set rigidly.
With a sigh, I tossed my bags into the bed ofthe truck before walking around to the passenger side and the manstanding by the door. I recognized him from the group of humansoldiers I’d been training with for the past week, but we’d neverspoken to each other and I didn’t know his name.
He’d always stood out to me more than theothers because he’d been the one to defend me to Eileen before shetried to kill me. He was also one of the men to have had theunfortunate experience of holding one of Eileen’s arms while Kobalripped off her head.
His indigo gaze ran over me as I neared. Hisdark brown hair had been shaved down to stubble. With his shouldersthrust back, he looked like a proud military man; the opposite ofme. Extremely handsome with a square jaw and chiseled features, hehad to be at least six feet two inches of solid muscle, but forsome reason he appeared small and boring in appearance to me.
A shadow fell over us, drawing my gaze toKobal as he stepped next to the driver’s side door of the truck.Hewas why everyone looked so muchsmaller and less attractive to me now. His gaze raked over both ofus before he tugged the door open.
“Get in,” he commanded gruffly.
“You first,” I said to the man and gesturedat the door.
I refused to be stuck in the middle of thetwo of them and so close to Kobal. I didn’t trust myself aroundhim, especially not after what had just transpired in the tent. Hewas too much of a temptation, one whose lap I might climb into andtear the clothes from in order to get at the flesh underneath.
The man looked like I’d told him to climbinto an occupied coffin, but he opened the door and slid into themiddle. Thankfully, the truck didn’t have a hump in the middle ofthe floor; otherwise, I would have felt bad for making him sitthere. I slipped off the katana on my back and placed it in the bedof the truck before adjusting the holster and guns at my side.Taking a deep breath, I slid into the truck and closed the dooronce more on life as I’d known it.
