13. Gratitude
P rotect her. Protect her. Protect her.
The mantra fills my mind, my veins, every fiber of my being as we careen over the edge of the waterfall. My stomach lurches into my throat at the weightlessness.
I.
Am.
Her.
Shield .
I squeeze Luna flush to me so hard it must be painful, but I won’t—I can’t —let her go. My heart beats out of my chest harder the longer we’re mid-flight, until we plunge into churning water so unyielding it feels like breaking through concrete.
Water fills my ears, and Luna screams into my hand as we tumble around, but I don’t let her escape, keeping my palm against her mouth and nose so she doesn’t suck water into her lungs.
We roll in the icy-cold depths, pinballing rocks along the way.
I twist us to avoid impact, but I can’t see through the mud, silt, and debris displaced by the storm.
Pointy, hard, objects of all shapes and sizes collide into me, but it’s when Luna flinches from getting hit that I wince.
All the while I kick, trying to right us. When Luna tries to do the same, she cries out into my palm.
Fuck, she’s in pain.
I did this to her. I hurt her. If it wasn’t for me, she’d be safe ? —
No. Can’t think about that now.
The water is equally violent the further up we go, but we finally break the surface with a heave, and I let go of her mouth. We both suck in huge breaths, our lungs desperate for air.
We sail in the rapids, and I grab every branch I can, cursing when they rip from their trees, until my shoulder smashes into a boulder. Air bursts from my lungs, but I claw for a crevice and keep Luna in the vise of my other arm.
Something tugs on the crossbow that’s still miraculously strapped to my back.
The water pulls at Luna’s tulle skirt, trying to take her away from me.
I squeeze harder around her waist and slingshot us from one boulder to the next, pushing off at an angle to use the water’s momentum to hurl us through a pitch-black fissure.
We’re shot out the other side on another waterfall, quickly plunging into a pool below. My feet touch the bottom this time, and I propel off, shooting us through the calmer water with my arm out to keep us from hitting anything else.
We splash through the surface, sucking in oxygen, but hearing her alive is the sweetest sound. Catching my breath, I swim one-armed to the rocky riverbed and drag us into shallow water.
Luna slides out of my arms onto all fours, coughing and sputtering. Pain radiates over every inch of my body, but I’m behind her, gently pushing her forward to help her up as she crawls over pebbles and sharp stones.
Finally, the soft, silty bank dips under my hands.
I grab a thick exposed root and wrap my arm around her waist to pull us both onto land, collapsing beside her on my back, not caring that my crossbow jams into my spine as I quickly check for paint on the trees.
I don’t know where we are, my crossbow might be wrecked, and depending on the paint color, we’re either safe or we’re fucked.
I squint through the rain dripping from the canopy. A lightning bolt flashes, revealing a beat-up shack beyond and a splotch of paint on the closest oak.
Red.
Relief sags from my bones until lightning flashes and thunder claps a mere second later, the electricity in the air raising the hair on my arms. We need shelter now .
I shake out the water from my ears, and the first thing I register in the cacophony of the cascading waterfall, the rumbling storm, the roaring rain, is Luna hyperventilating.
“Luna?”
She tugs her bodice, trying to get it off, and I curse, sitting up and grabbing the fabric at her back to rip the shit in half.
But the water’s shrunk it so tightly I can’t even get my fingers down the back.
Her arm stretches behind her, trying to reach the clasps, and my heart pounds painfully as I wave her hand away.
“Fuck, I’m getting it. Just hold on for me.”
I tremble as I undo one impossible clasp after another until the whole thing falls off her chest and onto the ground.
She sucks in a ragged breath that shreds me in two, and I roll her onto her back so her lungs can fill, keeping her arms splayed out with my hands on each wrist so she doesn’t curl around herself.
“You’re okay, Luna. You’re okay. Breathe, alright?”
At a loss of how to help, I wait for her breaths to finally slow, then exhale the terror gripping my chest and let her go.
“Jesus, you scared me.” One of those strange, stressed, manic laughs bursts out of me, and I sit back, raking my hands through my hair. “Thank fuck you’re safe.”
Even in the dark, I can see her eyes shine with rage.
“I’m safe ?” she growls, her voice a ragged rasp. “No thanks to you .”
“No thanks to me? You would’ve died if I hadn’t jumped in. Those were damn near Class VI rapids. Some Olympians don’t even attempt those.”
“And I wouldn’t have had to if you hadn’t forced me to run and fall in!”
“Ah hell no. I gave you the choice.” I throw my arm up. “You’re the little bird who decided to go swan diving off a cliff to your death.”
She sneers, sitting up on her forearms. “And I’d do it again to get away from you.”
“Be my guest.” I gesture tiredly with my arm. “River’s right there.”
Her only response is crossing her arms and scowling.
I scoff. “You’re a piece of work, you know that?” I lean over her, resting one hand beside her head to block the rain from dripping into her eyes. “I saved your life, yet you think you’re the one that gets to have the attitude?”
Anger thins her lips… until she suddenly melts underneath me. Her brows furrow in something I’d swear was guilt, and I’m immediately on high alert.
But then she touches me.
Her hands slide over my shoulders and cup my neck, fingers brushing through my hair. Entranced, I climb over her more to slip my knee between her legs, caught in this tenderness so freely given that I’m not sure I trust it. But… what if it’s real?
My mind goes hazy. I’ve starved for her softness.
“You’re right,” she whispers.
“I… am?”
She nods slowly, then squeezes her legs around my knee. “I haven’t been grateful, and after that? I don’t want to think about what could’ve happened. God, just thank you.”
Holy shit. I was afraid I’d never hear those words, at least not until I’d convinced her to love me.
I swallow as she bites her lip. For the first time, I truly register that she’s naked from the waist up, and like the dog I am, my eyes drop to her breasts. I want to lick them, flick my tongue over the small buds, peaked from the cold rain and icy spring water.
A shy look crosses her face. I wipe her hair off her forehead to better see that sweet expression, tugging free a feather that clings to her hair for dear life, the crown itself long gone.
When she slowly pulls me down, I close the gap, my heart pounding faster with every inch.
My hand shifts from caging her in to holding her waist.
Our lips brush tentatively until she teases my mouth open. I’m lost in her touch as her nails scratch my scalp, and my hands glide up her slick torso to cradle her head.
“You’re mine, Luna. No one else has had you, and no one ever will.”
“ Orion ,” she whispers, shivering. From cold, rain, or from us, I’m not sure, but I press my body heat into her anyway. I sink my tongue into her open mouth again, mimicking what I want to do when we finally have the time. This will have to tide us over until I can get us safe.
But my cock is rock-hard right now, and it’s taking everything in me not to give in. I’ve waited this long for her, hopefully a few more days won’t kill me.
“Say it for me, baby,” I beg. “Say you’re mine.”
“Orion, I’m… I’m your…” She swallows, gathering her courage, then whispers, “I’m your worst fucking nightmare.”
My jaw drops, and she brutally bites my lip and slams her knee into my dick. Blinding agony shoots from my crushed balls to my dumbass brain, nausea rolling through me.
“Fuuuuckkkkkk,” I groan.
“I am not yours,” she sneers with a cruel, satisfied smile, then shoves me off.
I collapse onto my back and crossbow, curling into a fetal position and clutching my junk, fighting the urge to throw up.
“Don’t chase me this time, asshole. I’m escaping you whether you like it or not.”
She breaks into a jog, but two steps in she cries out and stumbles over a root.
I can’t even check on her, because, Christ , did her bony-ass knee hurt. When I finally turn my head, she’s already climbing rocks and exposed roots onto drier land, favoring one leg.
She’s hurt.
I suspected as much, but seeing it sends a pang of guilt through my chest. Why I have guilt while doubled over from her kneeing me in the balls, I have no earthly idea. I’m fighting delirium.
She finally hobbles onto raised land, half-naked, feather bodice in one hand, and catching herself on tree trunks with the other.
There’s no way she’ll get far, and now I’m even more pissed because she’s made it impossible for me to go after her and stop my reckless little bird from getting lost—and who knows what else—in the forest.
Breathing through the throbbing ache, I crawl to my knees and unhook my crossbow from my back.
How it survived those boulders slamming into me, I don’t know, but the attached quiver’s still full with a mix of real bolts and darts.
The one already locked and loaded seems unaffected too.
Hopefully I don’t have to use it, but if I do, it should work like a charm.
With her in my sights, I call out, my voice rough.
“Stop.”
“No!”
“Alright, but you’re forcing me to do it for you. You already proved once that you’d get yourself killed in these woods, you don’t gotta prove it again.”
“Go… fuck… yourself!” she yells, limping around a tree.
I sigh. “How about the other way around? As soon as you wake up, that is.”
“As soon as I… wait, what?”
I brace the crossbow on a root and pull the trigger.
The bolt is so fast I can’t see it, but Luna jolts with a yelp as the dart finds its target. She plucks it out and turns unsteadily on her feet to glare at me, holding it up.
“You shot me… in the… ass ?” she yells.
She stumbles, catching herself on a tree trunk. Angry eyes bore a hole into me as she slides down, all the fight leaving her slower than it should with a full dose. But that’s just a testament to how strong she is.
As her eyes flutter closed, I can’t resist one more parting shot.
“Looks like I was right. Your wish won’t come true after all, birdie. There’s no flying away from me.”