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Was he jealous?
Would I mind if he was?
Did I want him to be?
A howl split the night air, and Lachlan’s head popped up, his entire body going tense. Then he stood quickly.
“I’ll start the watch now. Make sure whatever it is doesn’t get any closer.”
He tromped off into the surrounding brush just as Trace stepped up to stand beside me and Merrick in front of the fire. The heat from the two large bodies next to me seeped into me even more strongly than the warmth from the fire, and I shifted uncomfortably, trying to master the reactions my body was having.
For the first time, I found myself almost hoping for a monster attack.
As long as we were fighting, I’d be less tempted to do… other things.
“Ugh.” I scowled, slapping the back of my neck. “Can we just go back to when there weren’t any bugs in the godsdamned jungle?”
Trace laughed, looking back at me as he stepped over a huge log. “Sorry, Snow. They haven’t bitten me once. They must be drawn to the evilest member of our group.”
Lachlan snorted up at the front and glanced back at us, his green eyes twinkling. “Ye can say that again. Aria is definitely the most evil.”
I wrinkled my nose and flipped him off, but there was no real bite in any of our remarks. We kept poking at each other because it was what we knew, because it felt comfortable, but in recent days, the four of us had become almost close with each other.
Teaming up against life-or-death threats had the effect of forcing you to get to know your teammates very well, very fast.
“Sure, sure,” I drawled, pretending to think about it. “You say I’m the evilest—which I take as a compliment, by the way. But I’m pretty sure Merrick can match me. At least on the evil scale.”
Merrick was behind me, so I couldn’t see his reaction, but my neck suddenly prickled with awareness, and I was sure he was gazing at me.
“I don’t know, Ari. Maybe it’s not the evil at all. Maybe they just think you’re fucking delicious.”
Another bug buzzed by my head, but I barely even noticed it. Merrick’s voice had been low, not even intended for the whole group—almost like he hadn’t even meant to say it out loud.
A flush of heat filled me, and I slapped at the bug in irritation, taking out my sexual frustration on the poor insect.
It’d been two weeks since we’d left the dome behind.
Two incredibly long weeks.
While it wasn’t the company that had made it long, it was still two weeks in the jungle, sweating to death and fighting off some of the strangest monsters I had ever seen. Just the day before, we had faced a swarm of bee-like creatures with wings that looked like butterflies. They weren’t pretty or sweet though. They’d had fangs, and they’d wanted to eat us.
Thankfully, our fight skills and my magic skills were improving, and we were starting to function even better as a team in dangerous situations, so none of us had gotten injured. Despite the buzzing insects that were swarming around me today, it was nice to take a trek that didn’t involve fighting for our lives—at least, not so far.
Carefully ignoring the prickle of Merrick’s gaze, I scanned the area up again.
We were coming upon a clearing, and I fully expected that we would stop there and rest, maybe eat some of the last bit of food contained in the pack.
I wasn’t sure how everyone was doing on the tiny rations we’d been spreading out as long as we could, but I was hungry all the time, never satisfied—even two minutes after eating. We’d run out of rations in a few days, and I wasn’t looking forward to hunting or foraging in this place. None of the plant life looked edible, and I had no desire to eat anything we’d killed so far.
As they stepped into the clearing, Trace and Lachlan came to an abrupt stop. My pulsed picked up.
Ah, fuck. What now?
“What? What is it?”
I picked up the pace to join them, Merrick right behind me.
Trace pointed forward as I stepped up beside him. “Well, at least we know what that fucking riddle meant now.”
