Chapter 21
Magma
I stop walking, and Carla nearly bumps into the back of me.
“What is it?” she whispers.
“I want to get our bearings and check to see what it’s like out there.
It’s been quieter out there today.” I suspect that the ferals have stopped trying to cross the ocean to Draig Island.
Based on the attack earlier, I would say that they are back in the jungle. That makes this hike so much riskier.
“I want to climb a tree and take a look around.” I point at the grove up ahead of us, and Carla looks to where I’m pointing, looking at a stand of trees that punch straight up through the canopy.
They’re far taller than anything around them, their trunks pale and buttressed, wide at the base.
“Let’s go over there, and I’ll climb one of those kapok trees. They’re very tall.”
“Okay.” We walk over there, and she studies the trunk nearest us, then me. “Wow, these are some tall-ass trees.”
“They should be high enough to see past the canopy.” I look at the lowest branches, a good twenty feet up. “If it’s clear up there, I might be able to shift and fly us the rest of the way.”
Her face does something hopeful at that. “That would be amazing.”
“We’ll see.” I don’t want to promise her something I can’t deliver. “Wait here. Don’t wander.”
“Don’t you worry, I wasn’t planning on it.”
I almost smile. I find a foothold in the buttress root and start up.
She’s been quiet since the river. And insisted on walking on her own after I rebandaged her feet, even though I know she was still hurting. I guess I’ve been a little quiet myself. I should not have had sex with her. That’s the bottom line.
I lost control, and I hate it.
I climb past the first branches into thicker growth, finding the next handhold, then the next.
Maybe she regrets it. I wouldn’t blame her.
I keep my hands moving, the rough bark dragging at my palms as I climb.
I check the canopy below me through gaps in the leaves, scanning the green for any wrong shape, any wrong stillness.
This grove is dense enough that I’m mostly hidden as I climb, which is the only reason I picked it.
A Red looking up would have a hard time seeing me.
I keep close to the trunk and use the broader branches as cover where I can.
I think I scared her.
I was not in full control of myself. My dragon was right there under my skin the whole time, close enough to taste, and he wanted things that are just plain wrong.
He wanted me to bite her. Wanted to mate her and claim her for himself.
He wants to keep her. I hardly know her, and she and Flint have a thing.
I’m pretty sure they had sex. He didn’t deny it when I told him he’s usually “one-and-done.” He’s not the type to settle down, and yet he mentioned that it was something he might explore with Carla. That means he has to care about her.
Fuck!
I shouldn’t have gone there. I crossed a line.
I’m such an asshole for putting a finger on her.
I should be respecting and protecting her.
Instead, I fucked her hard. I was so much rougher than I meant to be, and the whole time the animal part of me was already planning a third.
And a fourth. I wanted to fuck her mouth.
I wanted to fuck her ass too, which is just plain wrong.
I wanted to put my seed over every inch of her so that no male who came near would try to claim her, Flint included – especially Flint – and that thought alone should have been enough to stop me cold.
It didn’t.
I’m so messed up.
I get a hand on the next branch and haul myself up, breathing hard now, more from what’s in my head than the climb itself.
And the worst part, the part I can’t get away from no matter how high I climb, is that having her hasn’t fixed anything.
I thought it might burn itself out. Scratch whatever this is and let me get back to thinking straight.
Instead, it’s worse. I still want her. I want to put her against that tree and make her come so hard she forgets her name. So hard she never forgets me.
It can’t happen again.
Once, I can live with. I can lock it away. Twice is no longer a mistake. Twice is a pattern, and patterns get people killed out here.
I reach the upper branches and finally break through into open air, the canopy falling away beneath me in a long green roll, and for a moment, I just breathe.
Then I scan the area.
We’re moving in the right direction. That much is good.
I can make out the dark smudge of higher ground a long way off, the kind of elevation that usually means a settlement nearby, and beyond it, barely visible in the haze, something that might be stonework catching the light. The castle. It has to be.
It’s a hell of a lot farther than I hoped. I really thought we’d covered more ground even with Carla injured. She’s been pushing herself hard.
And yet, I underestimated the distance. It can happen in the jungle.
I think we’re in for at least another two days at the pace we’ve been keeping.
I might have to insist on carrying her. I’ll explain the situation, and I’m sure she’ll understand.
We need to get back. It’s so damned dangerous out here.
Luckily, these males don’t seem to operate in large groups.
They seem to be loners with the odd smaller group of them.
That’s been our saving grace thus far. Also, there has been a lot of fighting, so my battles haven’t drawn as much attention as I think they normally would.
Still, we need to be more careful now that it’s getting quieter.
I scan the sky.
There are Reds flying in the distance and on more than one side. There are definitely fewer than yesterday, but they’re there.
The jungle below looks empty, even though it most certainly isn’t. Somewhere under all that green there are males who would tear me apart given the chance. I don’t want to think what would happen to Carla. It makes my hackles rise, and a snarl starts to form in my throat.
Mine!
Keep!
I ignore my bastard dragon. We are going to have to agree to disagree on that one.
I sigh. It’s too far out for a flight. Even if the sky were clear, we’re too far from anything that would let us land and disappear if we needed to. Shifting out here, this far from cover, would paint a target on us that every Red within ten miles could see.
Maybe when we’re closer.
I scan our immediate area and find what I hope will be a good place to shelter for the night. It’s easily an hour’s hike from here.
I climb back down faster than I went up, the bark biting into my palms, and drop the last six feet silently to the ground.
Carla is exactly where I left her, picking at a loose thread on her ruined skirt.
“Well?” She looks up. “Please tell me it’s good news.”
“We’re going the right way.” I keep my voice even. “There are too many airborne dragons for me to attempt a shift and a flight. I’m sorry, but we have to keep going on foot.”
Her face drops.
“We need to keep moving while there is light, but we need to make better time if we want shelter. The sun is going to start going down soon.”
“Okay.” She gets up onto her feet, wincing before she’s even fully upright.
“I’m carrying you.”
“Magma, I can—”
“It’s not negotiable, Carla. You’re going too slow,” I snap, feeling bad, but I’m not taking it back. “We need to be under cover before dark.”
Something crosses her face. It’s a look of hurt. It’s there and gone, quick enough that if I weren’t watching for it, I might have missed it.
“Alright…um…sorry,” she says again, quieter this time.
I don’t apologize. I can’t afford to soften it, not today, not with this much ground between us and shelter. Not after what happened. Distance is important.
She doesn’t fight me when I pick her up. She leans against my chest, and I do everything in my power not to react to the way she fits there, the smell of river water and mud, and underneath it is all her. I keep my jaw locked and my eyes on the trail ahead, and I walk.
We make good time after that. Better than we have all day.
The ground starts to change underfoot, the soil giving way to broken stone, and the trees thin enough that I can see the shape of what’s coming. A rocky outcrop rises out of the jungle floor ahead of us, gray stone streaked with moss, taller than the canopy around it.
I put Carla down at the base of it.
“It isn’t safe for me to shift here.” I look up at the rock face. “But I might be able to find us somewhere to sleep tonight. I’m hoping there’s shelter up on that rocky outcrop.”
I don’t tell her how much farther there is ahead of us. She’s had enough today. Once we’ve eaten and slept, the distance will feel like something we can manage, instead of something that might bury us.
“Stay here,” I say. “I’ll be right back.”
She nods, looking exhausted.
I find a route up the rock face that isn’t difficult for me, and a few minutes of climbing brings me to a shallow overhang on the far side, a slab of stone jutting out far enough to create a pocket of shadow beneath it. I duck inside.
It’s bigger than the space under the fig tree two nights ago.
There’s a smell coming from somewhere deeper in, the dry, musty scent of bats, and when I look, I can make out the dark smear of guano in a crevice toward the back.
Nothing else lives here. There are no fresh tracks, no scat, nothing that says we’d be sharing the space with anything that bites.
It’ll do.
I climb back down for Carla.
The light is going gold and low through the trees by the time I reach her, the kind of light that means we don’t have long before full dark hits.
“It’s a bit of a climb,” I tell her. “Get on my back.”
She doesn’t argue, which tells me how tired she really is. She climbs onto me and gets her arms around my neck, her legs around my middle. I start up the rock face, careful with every handhold, taking nothing for granted with her up there.
I get her into the overhang and put her down on the stone floor.
“Wait here. I’ll find us something to eat and something softer than rock to sleep on.”
She nods, already looking like she might fall asleep sitting up.
I go back down into the trees while there’s still enough light to see by.
Carla
I must doze off, because the next thing I know, Magma is climbing back into the overhang with his arms full.
“Hey.” I sit up, and my body protests the movement. “Did you find what you wanted?”
He nods and puts everything down between us without a word.
There are two coconuts he cracks open. A handful of small, dark purple fruits I don’t recognize, about the size of plums, piled on a broad leaf.
And something that looks suspiciously like a fish, already cleaned, that he must have caught somewhere close.
I didn’t even know we were near water again.
“What are those?” I point at the purple ones.
“Jaboticaba.” He puts the leaf down between us. “They grow straight off the trunk. They’re sweet, but their skin is a little tart.”
“Oh. Never heard of them. I’m really hungry, so I’ll try anything. Thanks so much.”
“Good, because the fish is raw. We can’t start a fire out here. It’ll draw the Reds to us like a beacon. Just pretend you’re eating sushi.”
“I happen to love sushi.” I smile at him, but he gets busy arranging palm fronds along one side of the overhang, smoothing them flat, and then layering a few more on top. He doesn’t end up returning the smile, which stings.
“Is that for sleeping on?”
“Yes.”
I wait for him to say more. He doesn’t.
We eat in silence for a while. The fish is good, smoky somehow even though I never saw a fire, and the jaboticaba bursts tart and sweet against my tongue.
Under any other circumstances I’d be making a much bigger deal out of how strange and wonderful it is to be eating fruit I’ve never heard of in the middle of a jungle that wants to kill me. Tonight I don’t have it in me.
“Is there a river close by?” I ask.
“Yes.” He nods.
“Oh my gosh. How did you catch that fish? You don’t have fishing line or a hook.”
“With these.” He lifts his hands. “Shifters are quick.” He starts to smile but then doesn’t.
I’m strangely disappointed in how subdued he is.
“Are we still on track? Like, are we close to the town?”
“We’re going the right way.”
That’s not really an answer, but I don’t push. He’s not looking at me. He’s looking at the fronds he’s still smoothing flat, even though they don’t need any more smoothing. His jaw is tight.
I think about asking him what’s wrong. I turn the words over a few different ways in my head, and then I let it go, because I’m fairly sure I already know the answer.
It’s me. It’s what happened earlier. He regrets it happened. Maybe he even blames me for it happening.
I get it. I do. I think he even feels guilty since Flint is his friend.
I swallow the last bite of fish and don’t say anything else.
“You should get some rest,” he says after a while.
“You’re right.” I nod, even though he isn’t looking at me to see it.
He stands and goes to the back of the overhang, near the deeper crevice.
“Here.” He gestures at the bed of fronds he made. “This is your spot.”
“Thanks.” I crawl over and lower myself onto it. It’s better than the ground, the leaves giving slightly under my weight; the smell of them is green and clean.
He doesn’t lie down next to me.
He moves a good five or six feet away, near the mouth of the overhang, where he has a clear line of sight on the jungle below, and starts arranging his own bed there instead, alone, a stretch of bare stone between us that might as well be a mile.
I watch him do it and try not to feel anything about it. I should be happy I have my space. I am happy.
I don’t know what I expected. It’s not like I thought we’d cuddle together for the night, his arms around me, my back against his chest, his breath warm at the back of my neck.
We had sex because we were both there and both wanted it.
We might die out here, but none of that comes with cuddling attached. It isn’t like that between us.
And yet, I didn’t expect to get his back and his cold indifference either. I don’t deserve it. It takes two to tango.
I could reach out and touch him if I stretched, and instead of facing me he’s turned the other way, watching the trees.
He doesn’t say goodnight.
I lie there for a minute, waiting, in case there’s a word or two still coming. There isn’t. His breathing changes within minutes, deepens and slows into the rhythm of sleep.
I stare at the back of his shoulder, the dark lines of his ink barely visible in what’s left of the light.
I don’t know why this stings the way it does. We’re not together. We were never going to be together. I knew the rules of this before I took off my bra and had sex with him.
I turn onto my side, facing away from him, and pull my knees up toward my chest. I listen to the jungle settle into its nighttime sounds around us: the clicks and rustles and the occasional far-off cry of an animal or a night bird.
Eventually, I sleep too.