35. Doom Us Both
THIRTY-FIVE
DOOM US BOTH
Seven
J ack’s fingers curled around mine might have been the most comfort I’d ever experienced. The male watched us both from where he’d taken a seat at the small table. His small table.
Because this was his small cabin in the woods.
And his bathtub that we’d been almost about to …
Kill him for interrupting you! the whisper snarled.
A not-small part of me still wanted to do just that. Not because he’d stopped us from making a very big mistake. But still, I craved the blood of this Pure Shifter. I’d been raised to see them all as filthy, depraved, murderous monsters. And what Jack had told me about his experience with them …
But this is not one of those who hurt him , I reminded us firmly. Jack said we needed to give him the benefit of the doubt. And … can we really trust anything we were taught in that place?
The whisper growled but said nothing.
“I’m Clay,” the man said. Jack’s fingers tightened on mine. Did that name mean something to him?
But he cleared his throat and gave a small smile, holding out a hand in an odd gesture. “Jack. And this is …” He looked sidelong at me. “This is Blossom.”
My cheeks heated, my blood thrummed. I liked this name he’d given me. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to share it. I’d never been given anything precious before he gave me that name.
He gave my hand a reassuring squeeze.
Numbers aren’t names in this world, his monster murmured quietly inside my head.
I blinked, forcing down a more violent reaction. The monster had never spoken into my mind before unless we were both in our other forms.
He doesn’t want to arouse suspicion about where you have come from , he added, then fell silent.
The male—Clay—smiled at both of us, and something in me relaxed. Unless he was very, very good at hiding his true intentions, I didn’t think he meant us harm. Not immediately, anyway.
“So, how did the pair of you find your way this deep into the Taiga? I mean, I understand our kind wanting to go off grid, let our other side out to play properly, but usually anyone who comes into this part of the forest comes through my village. This is my pack’s lands, and it’s just good manners to check in with the pack before you go traipsing through our neck of the woods.” His eyes flicked from Jack to me, dipping to my chest for a split second before he met my gaze, a flicker of something immensely sad … and old … in his eyes.
“We’ve come across from the west,” Jack said, his tone open, friendly. He might have been lying, but even to me, it was very convincing. “We knew there had been Shifters close by here in the past, but the scents were weeks old, so we didn’t realize we were trespassing.”
Clay leaned back, snatching up the small box I’d noticed on the table earlier and toying with it.
“Well, you’d be right that we haven’t been out here in weeks. This is where we spend our full moons. Only reason I’m here now is to get the clearing prepped for tomorrow night.”
Jack froze, his palm suddenly clammy in mine.
“The full moon is tomorrow?” he asked, his voice suddenly faint.
“Yes, I assumed you were already feeling the approach. The lead-up to the full moon sends us all a little … wild. You’re welcome to join in our festivities, if you’d like. We welcome all Shifters … Drinkers, too, if they’re in the area and enjoy a party.”
Jack’s throat bobbed in a swallow, his face pale. I clenched my jaw, biting back the growl forming low in my throat.
Jack’s last experience with Shifters at the full moon had been horrific. No wonder this news was disconcerting to him.
I squeezed his fingers reassuringly and stepped forward.
“I think we will be on our way. We really need to get to a town. Could you point us in the right direction? We got a little turned around in the forest.”
I was not as good an actor as Jack; that much was clear from the stilted, almost angry sound in my words. While this Shifter didn’t seem threatening, I almost felt like he was laying a trap for us. Making himself friendly enough for us to trust him … and then he would pounce.
Clay looked from me back to Jack and then to me again. His eyes tracked our matching jumpsuits.
“Either of you play?” he asked, holding up the little box.
“Yeah, I do, a bit,” Jack said beside me. Clay opened the box, tipping out what I recognized as a set of the symbol cards Jack had been using that day in the mess hall. “I’ve tried to teach her, but she’s a lost cause,” he added with a grin that only looked slightly forced.
I could have laughed at how true that was. I’d barely been able to comprehend what the purpose of ‘playing’ and ‘fun’ were, let alone wrap my head around what all the cards meant. Not that there had been a whole lot of time for me to learn. Because I’d smelled my blood in his cup, and my reaction had inadvertently triggered some sort of riot.
It seemed odd, looking back at it now, how extremely the other hybrids had reacted to my anger. Even before I’d knocked that cup from Jack’s hand, the air had been charged with tension. Like they’d been waiting for a signal to attack.
But that was ridiculous, wasn’t it?
“Well,” Clay said, knocking me out of my thoughts and back into the cabin, “let’s play. Five draw, one round.” He began doing the same tricky flipping of the cards that Jack had done so expertly.
“If you win, I’ll take you in my truck to the outskirts of Healy. It’s about as close to a town as you’re gonna get this far into the Alaskan wilds. If you need to get somewhere bigger, you should be able to hitch a ride to Fairbanks easy enough from there.”
Jack’s face gave nothing away, but his fingers twitched in mine. These words, these places, meant something to him. Perhaps not in the sense that they were places important to him … but I could practically hear his mind ticking, placing our location against his understanding of this big, wide world.
“And … if I lose?” Jack asked quietly.
Clay grinned up at him, and there it was … the predator in this male. He’d laid his bait, and now it was time to trap us.
“Then you will tell me the truth about how two Shifters, who smell a bit too much like Candies, happen to be wandering one of the most remote forests in the United States, wearing what look like prison-issue onesies.”
I still could not wrap my head around the rules of this game. I’d been tasked with going outside to collect a bunch of pebbles from the outdoor shower. I had no idea what they were for.
Back inside, the pebbles were divvied up between the two males, then some went into the center of the table, and cards were handed out. Five to each of them, the rest in their pile beside Clay, their symbols facing downwards.
Jack’s face was a cold mask. He was determined to win this. To get us out of this place.
I couldn’t watch. I couldn’t handle the tension between them while simultaneously not understanding anything about what they were doing. I busied myself with the fire, building it with small pieces and then taking the little booklet with the matches in it, the small flame that produced quickly catching on some of the dry leaves.
The two males murmured occasionally but were otherwise eerily quiet. I wondered why Clay cared so much about the truth about us. What was his agenda if all he wanted was facts?
I took two of the smaller mammals that I’d hunted earlier, skewering them as best I could on sticks and holding them over the fire. Soon the crackling of cooking meat, and the smell of it stole my full attention. I was starving.
Two orgasms will do that to you , the whisper said slyly. I ignored her, but my cheeks burned. He’d been so close to slipping inside me. And in the moment, I’d wanted nothing more.
Maybe I should be thanking Clay for helping me avoid that disaster , I told the whisper tartly. Her response was to hiss.
“Straight,” Clay murmured, and I turned to watch him place his cards on the table. He had a mix of black and red ones, but they were laid out from a jack to a seven.
Jack’s face was impassive, stoic. I was sure then that whatever we needed to win this game, we didn’t have it.
But then he laid out his cards, and that wicked gleam lit his eyes.
“Straight Flush,” he said, leaning back in his chair and folding his massive arms over his chest, the hint of a smirk tugging at his lips.
Clay looked from the cards up to Jack, one eyebrow raised.
“How old are you?” he asked Jack.
“Nineteen.”
Clay’s face broke into an impressed grin. “Your poker face is strong for such a baby!”
Jack’s grin morphed into a scowl, and my heart lurched because until that moment, he’d never looked nineteen to me. But he was so young and so new to his reality. And he was handling it so well, all things considered.
I pulled the now-roasted meat out of the fire and took it over to him, handing him the skewer, lingering close as he took it, looking up at me. His expression sent heat blooming through every cell of my body.
“And what about you, Blossom?” Clay asked. “How old are you?”
I couldn’t tear my eyes from Jack as he wrapped his mouth around the meat and bit down. My core clenched, imagining that bite in my flesh.
“Twenty-five,” I murmured.
“You’re very lucky, to have found one another so young. But you haven’t completed the Join yet. I assume that was what I interrupted earlier? If so, my profound apologies.”
Jack chewed his meat, giving a tiny shake of his head. He didn’t want this male to know that we had no intention of completing the Join.
“Well, the full moon tomorrow night will take care of that for you,” Clay added, almost as an afterthought. I stiffened. Jack’s face paled.
“But … I just won our game,” Jack said, his tone tentative. “And you said that if I won, you’d take us to Healy.”
Clay’s calculating stare took both of us in. “I did indeed. But I did not specify when that was to happen. It would be stupid of me to head into a Candy town this close to the full moon. To leave the pair of you … unJoined, but with the blood call so strong that tomorrow night is going to be … intense … in an environment where you cannot succumb to your needs without attracting far too much human attention.”
Clay stood, heading over to where my kills were laid out on the bench, selecting one, then taking it over to the fire, skewering it, and holding it over the flames.
“I will take you once we are recovered from tomorrow night.”
Jack took a violent bite of his meat, chewing it viciously.
I needed air. For the first time since we’d escaped, I needed more space, more openness. More distance from Jack, because if what Clay was saying was true … and deep in my blood, I knew it to be so … the full moon was going to doom us both.