Chapter 13 Willow
Chapter Thirteen
Willow
Iwake in the morning with a start, forgetting where I am for a moment. I must make some sort of noise because Ronan looks over from where he’s sitting by the fire, taking his turn to stand guard.
He pushes to his feet and walks over to me as I turn to glance up at the giant man holding me. My eyebrows rise in surprise when I see it’s Bo, who appears to be asleep. Hawk is now sleeping on the ground beside me, and I realize they must have rotated positions several times in the night.
Ronan squats down in front of me, his single large leaf seeming to barely cover him. My hand twitches with a strange urge to reach out and push it aside, desperate to see what he’s hiding behind there.
“Do you need to relieve yourself?” he asks quietly, thankfully not commenting on where I was staring. His question makes me aware that I do, in fact, have a very pressing need right now. I nod, and he reaches down to grab me under the arms and lift me to my feet.
Bo stirs, his eyes opening slowly until he sees me standing. He jumps to his feet, on alert. “What’s happened?” he asks in alarm.
“Nothing. It’s morning, and I need to take Willow out to relieve herself.”
“We’ll all come,” Hawk says as he sits up and stretches his arms.
Glancing at our clothes, I realize we didn’t consider the fact that if we put them back on, they are just going to get wet when we go back through the waterfall.
“Don’t worry about that for now,” Ronan says, seeing where my gaze is. “We’ll come back here right after we’re done.”
“Maybe we should take everything now,” Bo suggests. “We wanted to go searching for a crate, right? And we need to start searching for the charm,” he says, glancing between Ronan and Hawk.
Ronan nods, then looks over at the waterfall as if assessing it for a weakness. They tell me to wait as they start packing up all our clothing and shoving it into their bags. Except for their sandals, which won’t fit.
They are doing so much to help me; I wish I could do something for them.
Thinking about what Bo just said, I wonder if I can help them find the object that will save their island.
I hadn’t realized it would be in this forest, but now that I think back, I recall something about a forest in the prophecy, so that must mean they believe it’s here somewhere.
Wanting to help, I ask. “What does it look like? The charm?”
“We have no idea. That prophecy is the only clue we have,” Bo explains.
“It’s pretty vague,” I say in thought.
“I wondered if it could be some sort of rare flower,” Hawk says, surprising me. “It’s fragile and could break easily.”
“But how would we ever know which one is the right one?” I ask.
“I’m not sure,” he says with a shrug. “I always assumed we’ll know it when we see it.”
He and Bo lift their filled bags above their heads as they step into the water and find a spot where the water appears to be falling the slowest. It’s not quite a gap in the falls, but the closest to it, and if they move through fast enough, our stuff might not get too wet.
Ronan squats down in front of me as he instructs, “Climb on.” It takes me a second to pull my gaze away from his backside. Once again, I have the strange urge to touch it. Never in my life have I thought about a man’s butt before yesterday.
I wrap my arms around his neck, my legs around his waist as he moves into the water and swims toward the falls. “Hold your breath,” he tells me before he takes us through.
Hawk and Bo are climbing out of the pond, but Ronan stops halfway to them when he can stand. “Loosen your grip,” he says, placing his hands on mine. He somehow manages to quickly spin around to face me, and my legs re-tighten around him, but this time, I’m pressed right up against his front.
I inhale sharply as I take in his wet black hair, dripping down to his shoulders and trailing down his chest to where our bodies meet. His green eyes bore into me as he presses his lips tightly together.
“We should wash the poultice off now,” he says as his eyes trail down my body, leaving my skin feeling heated in its wake.
He wraps an arm under my ass and lowers us so only my head is out of the water, then he uses his other hand to start rubbing down my arms. Once they’re clean, he moves his hand to my stomach, waist, and back before working on my legs.
“Have I missed any?” he asks, his fingers blazing a trail up my thigh.
I shake my head. “I don’t think—Ah!” I scream, launching myself against his chest tightly when something touches the back of my thigh. “Something touched me!” I tell him as he quickly turns us away, and all but runs toward the others.
“What is it?” Bo asks, looking past us as Ronan steps out of the pond.
“I’m not sure. She felt something touch her.”
“It might have been a fish,” Hawk suggests. Ronan sets me on my feet, and I turn back to face the pond. Nothing looks out of the ordinary, but when I turn back to face the other three, they’re all staring at me with so much intensity I have to take a step back.
“W-What?” I ask nervously as I start to look down at myself. Was there something on me?
“Your skin…” Bo says, taking a step closer. “It’s beautiful.”
I frown at him in confusion before I realize what he means. I lift the arm that had the fingerprint-shaped bruises on it and see that they are completely gone now.
“Do you feel better?” Hawk asks, his eyes moving all over me and making me feel exposed. I nod and he bends down to his pack and opens it up, pulling out my dress. “Would you like to get dressed?”
Relief fills me at being able to wear clothes again. “Yes, please.”
“We’ll hold it up for you, then you can slip off your leaves and tell us when to lower it,” Bo tells me as he and Hawk do just that, holding it over my head. Ronan turns away as the other two close their eyes.
“Lower it,” I tell them once my leaves have dropped to the ground. I quickly get my arms in the sleeves, feeling good to be covered again. It’s easy to feel safe around these guys, but I know there are other men out there, hunting me. Not to mention creatures like the trolls.
“Let’s find a spot for you to relieve yourself,” Hawk says, guiding me into the trees. He points to a large one and hands me some of the toilet paper leaves. “You can go behind that trunk. I’ll stand on this side.”
“Do you have to be so close?” I ask, feeling embarrassed about him hearing me.
He frowns at me, as if contemplating other options, before he lifts his gaze and glances around. “I don’t want to go too far and risk leaving you exposed.”
“Why don’t you go over there?” I say, pointing to another large tree about thirty feet away. “And I’ll stay on this side of this one.” He presses his lips together, not liking the idea, but in the end, he concedes, nodding his head as he moves in that direction.
The second he disappears behind the tree, I quickly take care of business.
It’s a little hard holding up my dress, but since I still don’t have underwear, it’s not too bad.
I use the soft leaves he had given me to clean myself up, then readjust my dress as I step away, making sure I’m properly covered as I glance down at my bare feet.
Suddenly, a large hand covers my mouth, silencing any noise I might make as I’m pulled back into a hard, unfamiliar chest. I struggle, trying to yell and pull away, but I’m lifted off my feet, and someone else wraps their arms around my legs.
Silently, they jog into trees, carrying me away from Hawk, Bo, and Ronan.
Panic races through me, and I dig my nails into the back of the hand holding my mouth, but he doesn’t let go. He doesn’t even speak, as if fully aware that any noise will bring my Vikings down on him.
My hand is pulled away from his, and they hold it against my side as they keep moving.
My strength wavers, and I stop fighting.
It’s been over ten minutes and I haven’t managed to escape yet.
I may as well wait for them to stop. The entire time, my panic and fear grow, worried that the further away we get, the harder it will be for my Vikings to find me.
They will search for me? Won’t they?
It feels like an hour passes before they finally slow, then set me on my feet and release me. I jump away from their hands, my back colliding with a large rock wall as I stare at them with wide eyes.
Fear races through me when I see seven men standing before me.
Seven. I had thought there were two, maybe three, but seven?
How will I ever get away from so many of them?
They form a semicircle in front of me, caging me against the wall as they all stare at me with varying degrees of delight and amusement.
“I’m Calder,” the tallest man says as he steps forward. “These are my brothers.” He points to each as he speaks their names. “Milo, Warren, Ellis, Valen, Rhydian, and Declan.”
All seven of them are brothers? My fingers dig into the rock wall behind me, unsure what to do or say.
“What is your name, precious one?” Warren asks as he steps forward beside Calder.
I bite my lip nervously, not wanting to tell them anything about myself. When I don’t answer, they exchange an uneasy look.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” Calder says, but the look in his eyes makes me feel like he means the exact opposite.
“You are very lucky we chose you,” one of the others, Valen, I think, says with a smirk. “We are seven strong. You will want for nothing as our mate.”
“I don’t want to be your mate.” The words slip out before I can even consider that telling them that might be a bad idea.
A few frowns are exchanged before Calder steps closer, only a foot of space between us now. “You say that now, but you will come to love us soon. We will care for you and protect you from those cannibals,” he says, his lip curling up in distaste.
“They don't eat people,” I tell him in their defense.