Chapter Eleven #2
I give him a wary look while wrapping my arms around myself. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that. We’re kind of exposed out here. What if something happens?”
“Which is why I brought this.” He reaches inside his pack again and pulls out my gingham headband. I watch him secure it on his wrist. “Get this off my arm and you win. Consider me knocked the fuck out.”
I nod. “Okay.”
“Ready?” he asks.
“I guess so.”
I forget how scary Khalil is until the image of my boyfriend slips away and he immediately comes at me with a dark look in his eyes and no warning. Forgetting everything he taught me in an instant, I let out a terrifying squeal and run in the opposite fucking direction.
Two hours later, I’m lying on the ground.
I’m groaning, panting, and sore all over after Khalil indeed made me run a couple of laps around the lake.
He was right there with me, though, encouraging me to keep going, but it only made me hate him even more because being able to talk and run at the same time is definitely a flex.
I barely make it before collapsing into the dirt.
Khalil is crouched next to me with my head gently cradled in his palm as he makes me sip the cool water from his canteen.
Thorin and Ezekiel find us moments later.
“I take it training is going well?” Thorin asks like this was their evil plan all along.
Khalil pulls away, and I groan again, but the sound gets caught in my throat along with the last sip of water I’d been about to swallow.
I spit it out when I catch sight of a shirtless Thorin carrying a doe on his shoulders.
Blood runs down his sweat-slicked chest, and his hair is loose, probably a mistake since he rarely lets it down unless we’re fucking.
He looks terrifyingly wild and untamable.
Zeke is walking next to him. He has a hoodie on despite the warm weather and the hood is up, shielding most of his devastatingly handsome face from view, but I can still feel the heat of his stare. He’s always staring and sizing me up, so I pay it no mind this time.
Let him look.
“Yup,” I answer with zero enthusiasm. “I’m kicking ass and taking names. In fact, I’m so badass, I don’t need any more training today.” My sore muscles twinge, and I quickly add, “Or ever.”
Thorin heaves the dead deer off his shoulders and hoists it over the low-hanging branch.
It looks like he already field dressed it, which explains all the blood.
He then walks over to the lake and cleans up while I stare at the now-tanned skin of his back.
He was really pale during winter, but now his skin has a golden, tawny hue that only defines his muscles even more.
Free of blood now, he stands and turns to face me. “Is that so? Well, then let’s go. I want to see what you’ve learned.”
“No more. Mercy.” I weakly lift my hand and wave my middle finger in lieu of a white flag.
Of course the biggest red flag in history completely ignores it. “Come on, wolf. Show me what you got. Fuck me up.”
I groan again and awkwardly climb to my feet. “You asked for it.”
Thorin stands imposing and confident with his arms crossed while he waits for me to make a move.
I take one step and stumble. He instantly rushes forward, reaching out to catch me.
That’s when I right myself and snag his wrist, using his own momentum against him and yanking him forward until he’s lying face-first in the dirt.
Khalil howls while I stare down at Thorin like the badass warrior goddess I am. He spits out a mouthful of dirt before regaining his feet with amazing speed.
“That was mean, wolf.”
“You mean impressive? I agree.” I hold out my canteen, which he accepts before taking a generous swig. His eyes never leave me as he swishes the water around his mouth to clean out what’s left of the sand. The promise of swift retribution has me smiling and sinking my teeth into my lower lip.
“Very,” Thorin finally answers. “Although I am wondering if you were like this in school.”
“I was bullied in school,” I reveal honestly. “I was an average student with average looks in a stable home. I wasn’t smart enough or beautiful enough to make anyone feel inferior, and I was always well-fed and clean, so the reasons why are still a mystery to me.”
“Is there ever really a good reason for bullying?” Khalil returns.
“True.”
“Besides, one could hardly look at you and call you average, Goldilocks.”
“True again,” I say, making Thorin and Khalil groan.
I can tell Zeke is listening but pretending not to.
“But you didn’t see me when I was thirteen.
I was skinny with a too-large head. The boys in school would call me lollipop whenever I walked past. It…
was an awkward phase for me. My glow up didn’t come until I started putting on weight. ”
“Lucky us,” Thorin murmurs distractedly while eyeing my tits.
I press my finger under his chin to lift his gaze.
“When my dad was killed, it got worse instead of better after they heard how he died. The other kids liked to make up stories or repeat the gossip they heard from their parents about the reasons why. You’d think my father was Ted Bundy or something.
I was never happier than when my uncle pulled me out of school.
I guess that’s what made it so easy for him to mold and control me.
He took me away from my peers and isolated me in a world of adults before I ever learned how to stand up for myself.
Funny how I didn’t finally learn until my anger was at its highest peak.
It was like I had this new superpower I didn’t know how to control, and so it controlled me instead. ”
Thorin silently runs his knuckles down my arm, and I don’t fight the urge to melt into him. It feels safe in his arms. Like a magnet being pulled, my gaze helplessly wanders over to Zeke, who is silent.
Seth would have at least gotten a kick out of me making Thorin eat dirt.
Right now, Zeke is sitting on the shore of the lake with a handful of rocks.
He tosses one, and it skips along the surface.
I can only see his profile, but it’s enough to know he’s uncomfortable.
The scowl on his face seems permanently etched, and I have a feeling I’m the one who put it there.
It’s been two weeks, and he still hasn’t warmed up to me.
Khalil notices where my attention is and walks over to sit with him.
It feels suspiciously like Khalil and Thorin are working hard to split their time between us, making sure neither feels like the odd man out.
I clear my throat. “I assume this torture session has ended. Can we go home now?” I pull my drenched shirt away from my skin with a wrinkled nose. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s a beautiful day, and I’d like to stay out longer, but I can’t stand the feeling of all this sweat sticking to my skin.”
“There’s a nice, cool lake full of fresh water just a few feet that way, songbird.”
I eye the lake and dread pools in my stomach as I’m hit with the memories of falling through the ice.
The low rumbling like rolling thunder charging toward me just before the ice gave way beneath my feet.
The cutting cold burrowing into my veins and freezing my blood.
My silent scream as water filled my lungs.
Endless dark.
No…not endless.
Because Thorin had been there in a flash, plunging into certain death and cutting through the water like a knife to pull me back to the surface. I remember Khalil frantically pulling me out of the frozen water and Seth desperately lending me his body heat.
I look away from the glistening blue surface of the lake and into Thorin’s equally blue eyes. “Will you come with me?”
“I think the better question is, do you really think I’d let you go without me?”
Thorin and I are all smiles as we race to shed our clothes. Of course, he beats me since he wasn’t wearing a shirt, and then he scoops me up bridal style before I can decide whether to shed my sports bra and panties too. Thorin runs full speed into the water while I squeal.
He keeps a tight grip on me when the water becomes too deep to stand in, but I push away from him, and he raises his brows just before I turn and dive underneath the surface.
The fresh water is indeed cool and surprisingly clear, but the deeper I swim, the less I can see.
I can feel Thorin shadowing me like an anxious mother hen as I attempt to show off my swimming prowess.
But the lake is dangerously deeper than I thought.
It keeps going while my heart rate increases with each passing foot.
I feel Thorin grab my ankle a second later, a silent order to stop, and I obey. Immediately, I race for safety with Thorin’s powerful strokes keeping him hot on my heels. I break the rippling surface with a gasp, and Thorin appears next to me a moment later.
“What the fuck was that?” he barks as he wipes the water from his scowling face.
I won’t meet his gaze as I casually tread water. “What was what?”
“Wolf.”
I shrug as I continue to find interest in any- and everything except his probing eyes. “I was just curious.”
“About?”
I sigh. “People die in lakes all the time, and sometimes their bodies are never found.” This time I do meet his eyes as I remind him, “That could have been me.”
“That will never be you. I won’t allow it.”
“Run and we will let you die,” I mock in a deep voice, while cutting him a scathing glare. “I believe it was you who said that.”
“It was bullshit, songbird. All of it. We wanted you to stay. We would have done anything to keep you here. You must know that by now.”
“Easy for you to say now that you love me. And rightfully so.”
“Fuck, you’re infuriating.” Thorin tips his head back and closes his eyes like he’s praying for patience.
“So you’re saying you’re not head over heels in love with me?”
“Ah.” His eyes pop open, and he smirks at me. “So that is what this is about. You’re fishing.”
“I am not.”
He’s full-blown grinning now, and what a beautiful smile it is. If I wasn’t so enamored with his perfect face, I’d scratch it until it was in ribbons. “Come on,” he says before swimming for the large, slanted rock shaped like a miniaturized version of Pride Rock.
How had I not noticed that before?
The rock is only a few feet from where Khalil and Zeke are wrestling each other in the shallow end. I don’t know what Khalil said to him, but Zeke is actually smiling now as the two try to best each other.
I trail Thorin across the lake, and we’re nearly to the shore when Zeke manages to shove Khalil underwater.
They’ve drifted a little farther out so Khalil doesn’t immediately reappear, and Zeke’s gaze narrows as he slowly turns, searching the glistening surface of the lake.
His body is strung tight like he’s expecting Khalil to pop up and strike.
Extremely likely.
But he’s gone long enough for worry to gnaw at me.
“Is he—?” The words die on my tongue when Zeke suddenly pauses too, spotting something swimming past me underneath the water. “What—” His green gaze flies to mine and then he presses his fingers to his lips.
Um…okay?
I want to look and see whatever he does, but I’m too chickenshit. I don’t have a chance to second-guess his command before something jumps out of the water a few feet ahead of me.
I scream.
Thorin has already reached the rock and is reaching up to grab the pointed ledge to haul himself out of the water when Khalil suddenly wraps both arms around his middle and yanks him back in the water.
There’s a lot of splashing, thrashing, grunting, and growling as Thorin tries to break free of Khalil’s hold.
The latter is holding on for dear life.
“Just out of curiosity,” Zeke muses, “what exactly did you think was going to grab him?” It takes me a moment to realize the question was meant for me.
Zeke is making small talk with me. Willingly.
“I don’t know. A crocodile? A bear? The Loch Ness monster? It really didn’t matter. My heart would have given out regardless.”
Zeke snorts and then glances at the massive lake behind us. “I mean, the bear is a possibility, but the rest are not even close to being likely.”
“Come again? I thought it was trees bears can climb. You’re telling me they can swim too?”
Ezekiel slowly nods while watching me carefully. “They’re excellent swimmers, Aurelia.”
I don’t say another word. I just swim for land and pull myself out of the water. I don’t have a towel to help me dry off, so I settle for my sweat-stained shirt to mop up the excess water.
“I’m sorry.” Zeke says after following me. “I, uh…I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“No, no. It’s okay. You didn’t. I was ready to get out anyway. Really.”
Zeke doesn’t respond, and I busy myself repacking my bag. By the time I’m done, Thorin and Khalil are racing each other across the lake, which is a problem since I’m ready to go and they show no signs of winding down. I grumble at the delay and then I glance at the path home longingly.
I really want a shower.
“Come on,” Zeke says, seemingly reading my mind. “I can walk you.”
I glance back at the lake before meeting Zeke’s gaze with my brows raised. “Shouldn’t we wait for Thorin and Khalil?”
Zeke’s lips flatten with displeasure. “Sure. If that makes you more comfortable.”
“No,” I answer quickly, realizing I probably offended him. I force a smile that only seems to put me even more on edge. “It’s fine. Let’s go.”