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“You heard this?” Jorik asked, his moss-green eyes wide like he didn’t quite believe it.
I nodded, still smiling. “Yeah.” Then before I allowed the amazing mood to fade, I ditched all my weapons and my clothes and dove into the cool, fresh water, laughing as my head popped out and I took in the two men staring at me. “Oh my God,” I said, still laughing. “This is amazing. So much better than that salty ocean water. You guys, come swimming. It’s cold, but it’ssorefreshing and clean.” I scooped water into my mouth and moaned as the cool, fresh liquid slid down my throat. “And it tastes so good.”
Even if I died tomorrow, getting to swim in this glass-clear stream and drink such fresh water would be worth all of it.
Rix’s mouth was the first to drop open, then Jorik’s.
Giggling because I was just so happy, I dove back under the water and swam around, opening my eyes just in time to see a fish swim by.
A fish! A real fish!
Popping back up with a smile that hurt my face, I blinked the water away only for the sinking feeling of dread to fill me. Rix and Jorik were gone.
“Hey Cat!”
I screamed and spun around in the deep water to find Rix right behind me, grinning like a cat who’d just licked up a whole bowl of cream. His long lashes were spiked from the water, and his brown eyes twinkled with mischief. He was up to something.
I eyed him warily and just as I was about to ask him what trick he had up his sleeve, his lips puckered and he shot a long stream of water out of his mouth into my face, chuckling gleefully as I growled and lunged for him. But I didn’t get more than a step before Jorik popped up on the other side of me startling me again. “You were right. This is amazing,” he said.
I breathed out a sigh of relief but hit them each with a warning glare anyway. “Where’d you put your weapons and clothes?”
Rix rolled his eyes. “You need to be more careful. Everything is stashed and hidden in a hollow log. You can’t just drop your weapons like that.”
“It’s all accessible from the water’s edge,” Jorik added. “Just in case we’re attacked.”
“I guess I’ve got a lot to learn,” I murmured before swimming off toward the softly tricking waterfall.
“Somuch to learn, Angel,” Jorik said, catching up to me. “Can I ask you a question?”
Nodding, I stopped at a spot that was shallow enough for me to stand but only let my shoulders stick out of the water. My hair was slicked back against my head, and my entire body tingled and shivered slightly from the cool water. But it was exhilarating, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
This was what it felt like to be free.
“Whatwereyou taught by your tutors?” Jorik asked, standing in front of me, less than two feet away.
Rix swam over and stood beside Jorik, his longer-on-top light brown hair falling roguishly over his forehead. With a flick of his head, the swath flung out of his eyes and back up onto his crown. Then he shot me another one of those sky-illuminating smiles, like he could hear my thoughts and knew I was admiring his blatant beauty.
I pushed those confusing thoughts out of my head and with a shrug, I reached out and grabbed a twig that was swirling in a small whirlpool. “Math, English, science—like chemistry and physics. How to create a simple bomb—though I’m sure nothing like what you were taught or can do. Some engineering—all geared toward weapons and vehicles and warfare, of course. Very little geography, since they said that if I were ever sent out on a mission, I’d have a handler who would take care of logistics and location. I did helicopter flight simulations, so I guess technically I could fly one. The same for a few different kinds of airplanes, motorcycles and other vehicles. I’ve never driven arealvehicle, but I’ve clocked thousands of hours driving a fake one in a simulation lab.”
“So no biology?” Jorik asked, scratching his broad chest with his right hand, which made his biceps and forearms bunch and flex. Why did I get such a weird sensation in my belly whenever his arm muscles did that?
I pushed the thought of his arms out of my mind and focused back on his question, shaking my head and letting my mouth dip into a small frown. This was something that continued to upset me. I’d asked so many questions of my tutors. About the way the world worked, the human body and nature, and those who told me anything had been …removed.So eventually, I just stopped asking out of fear of getting anyone else hurt.
“Not really,” I finally said. “I mean, I understand very basically how the human body works. I know of some animals from a few textbooks. But everything else, I begged my tutors to tell me, and some of them did—only to suffer the consequences afterward.”
“Yeah, Moord was a real sadistic prick,” Rix muttered.
I twisted my lips and nibbled on the inside of them for a moment. “I’m not supposed to know abouthowHellcats are made or that the Stratera virus was synthesized from the genusPanthera. And then later DNA from the immortal jellyfish was injected into the Hellcat embryos as well—which is why I heal so fast. But I do. I’ve always been…”
“A curious cat?” Rix asked with a lopsided grin.
That drew a smile from my own lips, and I nodded. “Yeah. Which is probably another reason why I was never sent on a mission. I ask too many questions, and they were worried I’d get distracted or defect or something.”
“I think you’re just too valuable to risk losing,” Jorik said, the heat and sincerity behind his words making me pause and a breath snag in my throat.
I swallowed, and for a moment we all just stood there looking at each other.
Despite the cold water, a warmth wormed its way through my body, settling in my lower belly and between my legs. I squirmed in the water from Jorik and now Rix’s unrelenting gaze and how unapologetically he seemed to be waiting for his words to take root inside me.
