Chapter 23 Hawk
Chapter Twenty-Three
Hawk
“It’s unbelievable,” Bo whispers. I nod, my eyes roaming the cave as I try to absorb what I’m looking at.
"What's going on?” Willow asks. We all spin to see her standing as she yawns.
I lick my lips as I take in her naked body. I’m immediately taken back to this morning and everything we shared. She’s mine now. Ours.
My mind is no longer plagued with worry of her not choosing us; now I just worry about getting her out of here unscathed. Luckily, we only have one day left in this forsaken forest.
She sees where we’re all staring, and as if she’s just realized she’s naked, her eyes widen, and she wraps her arms around herself.
I quickly grab her nightdress and move toward her, not wanting her to feel uncomfortable a moment longer.
I pull it down over her head, and she pushes her arms through as I pull down the hem.
“Is that better?” I ask with a tentative smile.
“Thank you,” she says softly, smiling back at me and telling me she’s not upset we were staring. She grabs my hand and squeezes it.
Unable to resist, I bend down and press my lips to hers gently, using my hand to angle her head just the way I want it. A small gasp of surprise turns to a soft moan as she relaxes into the kiss.
She seems taken off guard by my kiss, and a rare smile escapes me as I pull back and tell her, “Hello, mate.”
It takes her a moment to compose herself before she swallows heavily, then licks her lips as she whispers, “Hi, Hawk.”
I gently guide her to where the other two are standing just off the blanket as I tell her, “Come look.”
As I pull her to stand between Bo and me, her flushed appearance disappears, and her eyes widen.
“Where are we?” she asks in shock.
I understand her confusion. I, too, was disoriented when we woke up after our nap, believing to have been transported somewhere while we slept.
No longer are we in our cave with gray stone covering the ground, walls, and ceiling. Instead, we find ourselves in some sort of magical oasis. Everything is covered in greenery.
I can spot at least six different colors of flowers growing from only a quick glance. Trees and bushes grow randomly all over the place, and even a few birds fly from branch to branch, chirping away.
The sun shines in through the crack above, telling us it’s no longer raining.
“We haven’t moved,” Ronan confirms for her. “This is the same cave.”
She glances at the now-dead fire and shakes her head. “I don’t understand. How did this happen so quickly?”
“A better question is, why did it happen so quickly this time?” Bo asks.
“Does this confirm that it’s the flint rock?” she asks.
Ronan nods. “It’s still our best guess.”
“Maybe the storm magnified its power,” Bo suggests.
“Perhaps,” Ronan says as he stares down at the black logs.
“What do we do now?” she asks. Unable to resist touching more than her hand, I pull her into my side and wrap my arm around her shoulders, leaning down to kiss her head.
Bo steps in front of her, staring down at her with a grin. “First, I think you owe me a good morning kiss.”
“But it’s not morning,” she says in confusion.
“Anytime my mate wakes up, I want a kiss from her,” he tells her with a satisfied grin.
Before she can respond, he bends down and wraps his arms around her waist, hoisting her up against his chest as he smiles in amusement. “Good afternoon, Willow.”
“Good afternoon, Bo,” she parrots back right before they kiss. Her arms find their way around his neck as her little legs dangle down, almost two feet off the ground.
When he’s done, he walks her over to Ronan and gently sets her on her feet as he tells him, “Your turn, Chief.”
“I told you, don’t call me that,” Ronan huffs at him, but when Willow turns to face him, his annoyance is forgotten as she smiles up at him.
“Good afternoon, Chief,” she says with a grin of her own.
“Hmm, maybe there is something to that name,” he says as he grabs her waist and pulls her close.
“I’ll call you whatever you want,” she says, melting my heart with her sweetness.
He tilts her head back as he bends down and kisses her. The kiss is brief, but by the way her eyes shine, I know she’s already thinking lustful thoughts.
“Hello, my tiny treasure.” He lifts his head as he turns her and pulls her back against him, wrapping his arms around her front as they both stare at the cave.
“As for what we'll do this afternoon, we have a few options. It’s the last day here, so we could move closer to the finish line so we don’t have as far to go tomorrow. ”
“That’s where all the men who haven’t claimed a woman will be waiting,” I tell him, not liking that plan.
He nods. “Yes, I thought the same. The cowards are probably hoping to get their hands on a woman at the last minute.”
I see her tense as her fingers dig into Ronan’s forearms.
“Don’t worry, Willow,” I say, stroking my hand down the side of her face. “We won’t let anyone lay a finger on you.”
“I know,” she says, giving me a nervous smile.
“Fuck, I can’t wait for this to be over,” Bo says, running a frustrated hand down his face. He glances at Willow then smirks. “I can’t wait for my mother to meet you.”
“Do you think she’ll like me?” Willow asks nervously.
Ronan huffs in amusement as Bo grins at her. “Like you? She’s gonna love you. Probably more than she loves me, her own kid.”
“What if she doesn’t think I’m good enough for you?” she asks.
“Nonsense,” Ronan says, squeezing her against him. “Miryam believes in fated mates. The second she sees us return with you, she’ll know exactly who you are, and she’ll be thrilled.”
“You just wait,” Bo says with a nod. “She’ll hug you before me.”
Willow doesn’t say anything, but the tension seems to fade as she listens to him talk about his mother.
He isn’t lying either; everything he says is absolutely true.
His mother is amazing and probably the kindest person in Redmere, always willing to lend a hand to anyone who so much as looks like they need assistance.
She’d probably make a great chief, except for the fact that she can’t say no to anyone, and sometimes a chief needs to make hard decisions.
“Maybe we should do some more testing with the flint rock,” Ronan suggests, bringing me back to the present.
“It might be hard to gauge if it works here now,” Bo says, glancing around the cave. He isn’t wrong. It’d be near impossible to tell if anything new was growing in here.
“We might have to take a chance with the flint rock,” I say, unsure how to test it. “If it’s wrong, we can always come back.”
He presses his lips together in a thin line before nodding. “Alright, well, since we’re staying here for the rest of the day, we need to eat some food, then I think it’s time for Willow’s swimming lesson.”
“Really?” she asks, and I can’t tell if she’s nervous or excited.
“Yes. They’ve both given you a lesson, and it was enough to stop you drowning when the grimclaw attacked, barely. But for my own peace of mind, I need you to be proficient at it. Redmere is an island and has several great swimming spots inland. It’s imperative that you are safe.”
She turns in his arms and smiles up at him. “You’ll teach me this time?”
“I can’t be any worse than them.”
“Hey!” Bo says with mock irritation. “I think I did pretty good.”
“You did.” She glances at me. “You both did.”
We move to sit around the fire, and Ronan insists on feeding her.
Ever since the first day, she’s never refused our need to hand-feed her.
It’s not necessarily a fated mate thing, but it is a Redmere thing.
Or perhaps it’s a warrior thing. The need to protect and take care of her has always been strong.
And now, cementing the bond between us, I can feel a piece of her in my heart.
If I think hard about it, I can literally feel it leading me right to where she’s sitting across from me.
I’ve felt it since I first met her, but it’s so much more tangible now, almost as if I could reach out with my hand and grab the tether.
When it’s time for the swimming lesson, neither Bo nor I want to be apart from her, so we join them. We quickly realize it’s the way we should have been teaching her from the beginning. With more than enough hands to hold her up while we demonstrate how to move.
It only takes about thirty minutes before she’s able to paddle from one side of the pond to the other. Even if she does look close to going under eighty percent of the time, she still makes it without her head going under.
Bo scoops her up and spins her in a circle as he yells in celebration. “You did it!”
“I swam!” she says excitedly, and I feel a small burst of happiness in my chest. I’m not sure if it’s my own emotion, enjoying seeing her like this, or if the bond is sharing some of what she feels, but either way, it makes me smile.
“Can we go in the hot spring now?” she asks, when their celebration finally stops.
“As you wish, little mate,” Bo says as he sets her on a large rock and hoists himself out of the water. He lifts her back up as Ronan and I follow them toward the hot spring, hanging back a little to talk.
“Do you think we’ll have much trouble tomorrow?” I ask him. “Trying to get her across the finish line?”
He stops walking, but continues to stare at her as his lips press together in a tight line. “We might. A handful of them will be no match for us. But there could be dozens waiting to attack us at once.”
“You think they’d work together? They can’t share their claim.”
“But it’s possible they have a temporary truce to try to dispose of us before they attack one another.”
“We need a plan,” I tell him as he turns to look at me.
“We’ll think of something.”
A soft moan has both our heads snapping toward the hot spring.
She’s sitting in Bo’s lap in the water, her back against his chest, and although I can’t see what’s going on from here, I can see his hands moving below the surface.
“But right now,” Ronan says as his eyes darken with heat. “Our mate needs us.”
And as I follow him into the hot spring to give Willow our undivided attention, I pray that we get through tomorrow and can bring her this sort of pleasure every day for the rest of our long lives.