Page 67 of Black Mamba

We follow the river north, in the same direction the ship flew. A relaxing silence takes over my mind as I breathe in the fresh air and take in the sounds of the wilderness. Sunlight dapples through the canopy, creating a golden aura of airy light around me and the trees. Walking directly behind Lukys with Greg and Levy following closely behind, my thoughts, at first eager with the idea of finding Jenna, flow lazily. I haven’t felt this at peace in a long time. I’m not burdened by grief, stress, or even my fever. The air is cool and temperate. The soles of my shoes are sturdy but soft. And I’m only getting the faintest whiffs of Lukys’s scent.

Earth takes me in and I fall in love with it. The sounds, the flowers, the cute little birds that soar between the trees… It encapsulates me like a warm embrace—a feeling I used to get the few times my dad hugged me.

Everything is… great until Lukys has to drag each of us across the river one by one because none of us can swim. For the rest of the morning, I’m wet and stuck with the phantom sensation of having Lukys’s muscled back plastered to my front. Feeling his body flex and watching his biceps roll in the water while having my legs wrapped around him has firmly reminded me how much of a predicament I’m in being out here with him. One glance at his bulge and I know he’s not immune.

Eyeing the rippling muscles of his back, I swallow thickly, keenly aware that he had his thumb inside me this time yesterday and that Greg and Levy are walking right behind me.

When we reach the next river, one that Lukys warns leads us between the forest we’re to travel through and the wetlands, we come to our final stop of the day.

“We will crosssss at first light tomorrow.”

Lukys gazes over the water. Standing on the flat, mossy rocks next to him, Greg, Levy, and I do the same.

“Great. So we get to start tomorrow wet too,” Levy grumbles as he wipes his sleeve across his face.

“We have plenty of daylight left. Why don’t we cross it now?” I ask.

He turns from the water and slides his tailtip closer to me before coiling it away. “I would like to have time to catch and prepare your meal. If we stop now, we can have a fire going and something to eat before nightfall. You all need sustenance. Thissss I know.”

Greg and Levy share a look.

“I…” I trail off. “I can keep going if they want to continue.”

“I’m fine with stopping.” Greg shakes his head, facing Lukys. “How long is it going to take us to get to the fires, do you think?”

“Depending on if we need to cross more water as I have never journeyed past the Boomslang’s lands… We will get to where the smoke trails are either tomorrow or the day after. When I last checked, they did not look so far away.”

“Great.” Greg pulls off his backpack. “That’s not as bad as I thought it would be.”

“Like I said, you both could use some sustenance too,” Lukys adds with a hiss, suddenly eyeing Levy and Greg with disdain. “There are other ways to feed yourself outside of hunting if you are bad at it.”

“Trust me”—Levy rolls his shoulders—“we’ve eaten plenty of berries.”

“What about fish?”

“Fish?” Greg walks to a tree next to the river and drops his pack. “What’s fish?”

“The swimmy looking things in the water,” I pipe in, recalling several that Lukys tried to feed me when he’d kept me captive in his nest. After visiting the water with him, I saw them within.

Greg and Levy approach the water’s edge and lean over it, searching for the fish. I set my pack on a grassy knoll beside Greg’s. Afterwards, I look around at where I’ll be sleeping tonight, a little concerned to be out in the open. There are a few bushes interspersed between the trees, and there is plenty of open space for a fire.

“I will gather the fish if you can manage the fire.” Lukys unties and unwraps the net from around his waist. He doesn’t wait for one of us to respond before he dives into the water.

With a splash, he swims across the river. His tail sways back and forth while his arms circle before him. Serpentine, darkly outlined, and mesmerizing, he seems like an entirely different creature. The net drags in the water behind him as he pulls his tail under him and out of sight, lifting onto it and out of the water.

I lick my lips as rivulets course down his skin and over his muscles.

Greg coughs and I jerk, quickly looking away for branches for the fire.

By the time Lukys returns with a half-dozen greenish, spotted fish, we have a small bundle of flames going and Greg is warming up his pan. I keep busy by gathering more wood, afraid if I go idle, my mind will turn to places it shouldn’t be.

It’s going to be dark soon.

Idleness comes for me anyway, and while I watch with Greg and Levy as Lukys fillets the fish and removes the bones, I’m suddenly thankful he’s here and knows how to do things.

His deft hands move with ease as he places the meat onto Greg’s hot pan. It’s then I catch a glimpse of his bitten-off claws and quiver, immediately recalling how his thumb moved inside me, pressing against and testing my walls. I’ve never gone that far with someone else. Sitting on my bent knees, I push them together, holding back a moan.

I watch Lukys out of the corner of my eyes.