Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ARENA
Nav had broken my brain again.
My Arena?
He’d said it like it was an endearment. Trying not to panic, I told myself it was a good thing. If he was thinking of me as his, then he wouldn’t be thinking of anyone else, right?
The rest of what he’d said caught up to me.
Period?
Breast massage?
Why would he think—
I glanced at the wrappers around me, and why he asked clicked into place. It’d been a long time since I’d had something processed, and I’d stress-eaten my way through the chocolate and the chips.
“Ah, no, I’m not close to my period,” I said. It had ended a few days ago, but I didn’t tell him that. Instead, I focused on what I should have been from the start—learning more about him.
“How do you know about all of that?” I asked. “The eating chocolate and needing pain relievers around our periods. Did you…have a girlfriend?”
While the island kept us safe, it also isolated us.
We’d heard the rumors about the grey demons months ago, but they’d always been referred to like that.
Demons. Killers. Dangerous. Not dating material.
Yet, somehow, Nav knew more about women than any of the men I’d previously dated. Not that Nav and I were dating.
“No. The females who are not afraid of me are already taken. The rest still do not look at me, or at my cock, like you do.”
I looked. It wasn’t my fault, though. He’d brought it up.
And it was up alright. Just as hard as he’d been when he’d left.
I thought again of the empty mini hotel lotions I’d found in the waste bin. How many times had he masturbated that I hadn’t heard? Or were all those bottles just from the two times I did? I had so many questions I wanted to ask.
“Would you like to see the house I found? It is safer than this building and has running water and a fireplace. We can go there now.”
He’d found a house already? Leaving the shoreline was a good thing. It would keep my friends from running into Nav when they came looking for me. But giving up my chance to go home still hurt.
“I’d like that,” I said, lying. “Are there a lot of infected on the streets, and how far away is the house?”
“I will keep you safe. I promise.”
That didn’t really answer my questions. But then, his answers wouldn’t have changed my decision.
“Okay.” I stood and looked around the room. “I’d like to take—ah!”
The surprised way we looked at each other after my startled yelp—due to him picking me up without warning—was a bit comical.
“I can walk,” I said.
“We’ll get there faster if I carry you.”
“What about all our stuff? I don’t want to leave the clothes or food behind.”
“I’ll come back for it.”
Coming back for it wasn’t safe for my friends. What if he ran into them?
He watched me, waiting for my answer.
Even though I didn’t like leaving everything, I nodded, and he pressed his forehead to mine before leaving.
The sun was making good progress across the clear blue sky already. It warmed my skin as I tipped my face back for just a moment to soak up its warmth. The air smelled like spring. Clean. No rot or woodsmoke.
I caught Nav watching me instead of leaving. We were standing in the open right outside the main door. Wasn’t he worried about infected showing up? I was and nudged him.
His lips quirked at the corners, showing his amusement. Then he frowned and looked away from me. Focused. His head turned slightly as if he were listening.
I looked around, too, straining to hear anything other than the wind in the dried grass nearby.
“Your friends are coming,” he said after a moment.
“Friends?” I echoed, feeling a hint of panic.
“The engine is the same.”
He couldn’t possibly tell just based on the sound of the engine, could he? Then I thought of Maggie. With her hearing aids in, she noticed changes in the sounds of engines that no one else did.
He turned and started toward the marina road.
“Wait,” I said, pressing my hands against his chest.
He paused.
“Let’s go to the house.”
“You don’t want to greet them?” he asked, frowning.
“I thought you were trying to get what I wanted so you could get what you wanted. Don’t you want to have sex with me anymore?”
His pupils went wide just as the faint sound of an engine reached my ears.
I ran my fingers lightly over his skin to keep him focused on me.
“Show me the house you found, and I might be more willing. Okay?”
He pivoted and started sprinting away from the lake.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and blinked at how fast he moved. Faster than I would have ever thought possible. No wonder he returned with supplies so quickly.
He paused at a car with a broken-out window. Another ‘eep” escaped me when he bent over with me in his arms. He just held me tighter with the single arm under my legs as I clung to his neck and he picked up the tire iron on the ground.
Straightening, he banged it against the street light.
The metal-on-metal gong rang out loudly.
“What are you doing?” I hissed.
“Calling the infected.”
My heart dropped into my stomach.
“What?” The word was barely more than a breath. “Why?”
“To protect your friends.” He hit the light again.
An infected called out from not too far away.
“What about us? You’re going to call more in, and the area will be crawling with them.”
“They have been here since the day you came. This will call them away from the water so your friends can dock their boat safely.”
He banged on the metal a few more times. The infected calls increased, proving his words true.
I spotted the first one running our way and tapped Nav’s shoulder urgently. He looked where I pointed and started walking—yes, walking—down the road.
It didn’t matter to me that his stride was faster than the infected’s shamble. The idea that he wasn’t in a rush to get away worried me.
“What are you doing?” I asked in a harsh whisper.
He blinked at me. “Carrying you.”
“Why aren’t you running?”
“The infected will not be able to keep up if I run.”
“That’s the point. Run, Nav!”
He sped up to a jog. It was half-hearted at best after his first sprint.
More infected appeared from between houses and the side roads, joining the first one. Soon, a dozen trailed behind us.
Nav paused again and hit another pole.
“Are you trying to get us killed?” I asked, clutching him as I fearfully watched the herd close in on us.
“Never. You are safe, Arena. I promise.”
“I don’t want your promise. I want your ass running the rest of the way to the bathtub you already promised me. Please!”
He dropped the tire iron, held me tightly, and started running as he had in the beginning. The infected did lose us after only a few blocks, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Another minute of running, though, and Nav slowed again.
Before I could say anything, he turned toward a brown bungalow. The windows were all intact, and there was a curl of wood smoke coming from the chimney.
“I started the fire before I left to make sure it worked,” he said, going to the front door.
Someone had already broken the lock—probably him since he seemed to like opening doors that way—so it opened with a nudge.
The inside of the house was a little warmer than it was outside, but only barely. He set me on my feet near a makeshift bed set in front of the fireplace.
“Stay here, and let me check the house again.”
He rested his forehead against mine before walking away.
I stayed by the door, looking at the lock and thinking of the infected wandering outside. How was staying here safer than the hotel? The lock was broken, and we didn’t have stairs to confuse the infected. All they would need to do was push their way in.
“No infected entered while I was gone,” Nav said, reappearing from the hallway. “I will return to your friends to make sure they are safe.”
“What? You’re going to leave me here? The lock’s broken. All an infected would need to do is push its way in, and I’d be dead.”
He glanced at the door. “I will block it from the outside.”
“Can’t you just fix the door?”
I could fix it myself, but my safety wasn’t the point. Keeping him here until the islanders saw my signal was.
He moved to the door and tested the deadbolt.
“This one still works. If any infected come, it will keep them out until I return.”
“But I’m scared.”
His hand captured the back of my head, and he pressed his forehead to mine.
“You are safe here, Arena, but your friends are not. I will find them and bring them to you.”
“But I don’t want to share you,” I blurted, desperate. “I want you to myself.”
He pulled back, his heated gaze searching mine.
“You…want me?”
“Isn’t that what you want? For me to want you? Me to be willing?”
His gaze dipped to my mouth.
“Yes. I want you to want me.”
“Then stay. You already found a house with a fireplace and running water. And I’m feeling pretty grateful for that.” I ran my hand down his chest, playing a dangerous game to keep his attention. “Do you want me to show you how grateful I am?”
He gave me a pained look.
“Yes. I will get your clothes and be back.”
My scowl wasn’t pretend. “You’re going to go look for my friends, aren’t you?”
His expression turned desperate as he grabbed my hand, which I’d removed to cross my arms.
“Females are precious, Arena. Many of my brothers still have no females of their own. If your friends might accept my brothers as you’ve accepted me, I must save them.”
Wait…what? Was he talking about collecting a harem for his kind?
I thought of Lynn, grieving and numb to everything…Lettie, one slightly minor inconvenience away from losing her shit…and every other female survivor on the island.
No.
Never.
All I needed to do was keep Nav distracted long enough for my friends to see the bra and leave. Another twenty minutes maybe? Easy.
I reached between us, wrapped my hand around his dick—well, I tried too…he was huge—and tugged it like I was closing a door.
He grunted and stumbled forward a step, his gaze a little unfocused.
I dropped to my knees and opened my mouth.