Page 22 of The Hidden
“Made me crash,” I interrupt, and he narrows his gaze at me.
“Saved your life,” he corrects, and then he sets me on a cold rock and hurries away from me like I have something contagious.
“Saved my life, almost killed me, potato, po-tah-to,” I snark as I stand up in an effort to save my ass cheeks from frostbite.
Fuck, it’s cold in here. I fold my arms over my diamond hard nipples and try to rein in the teeth chattering that’s started. Zeph pulls wood from a massive stack toward the back of the cave and has a fire flickering to life in a matter of minutes. I step closer to it and try not to be mesmerized by the fire shadows now dancing over Zeph’s massive and well-muscled body. He bends over a large wooden chest that’s been situated against a wall of the cave and starts to rummage through it.
I tilt my head in appreciation. Fabric smacks me in the face, and it jerks me away from the pervy thoughts starting to rise up in my mind. Maybe if I fucked him once, it would get it out of my system? The eager head nod I can practically feel Pigeon giving me makes me suddenly leery of that thought. I hold up the bunched, dark green fabric in my hands to find a large long-sleeved shirt. I pull it over my head, ignoring the musty smell, and it falls just shy of the tops of my knees. The laces that cinch up the neck dip down to my naval, and I start pulling the leather ties tighter and covering up. I roll up the sleeves until I can find my hands, and by the time I’m done making the large shirt fit, I find Zeph in a pair of too short and too tight pants.
I can see the outline of his cock a third of the way down his left thigh, and I’m not sure which is worse, staring directly at it or at the hint of it now in his pants.How about you don’t look at it at all, Falon? That just might help the too horny for your own good situation you’ve got going on right now.I nod in agreement with my internal scolding and lift my eyes up from Zeph’s dick, vowing that my gaze will be waist high for the rest of this fucked up adventure.
I roll my shoulder, relieved to find that it’s only a little sore now, and I poke at my ribs and breathe in deeply when I discover that they’re at the same stage of healing. I should be all patched up by morning. Zeph shakes out some kind of fur and lays it on the ground next to the fire. He shakes out another one and then tosses it to me, and I mirror his actions on my side of the fire.I guess we’re back to trying to stay as far away from each other as we can. I ignore the irritation that surges through me with that thought.
I sit down on the soft fur and run my hands through it. I thought it was black at first, but now that I’m closer, I can see that it’s blue. I open my mouth to ask what kind of animal this came from and look up just in time to catch a waterskin that’s about to hit me in the face. I stop its punishing trajectory and snatch it out of the air.
“Watch it!” I chide with a glare aimed at Zeph’s back. Is there some invisible line now that he can’t cross to hand me things? He has to chuck them willy nilly at me without any fucking warning?
“What’s your fucking problem?” I ask as I set the waterskin down beside me.
Zeph turns a loathsome glare on me. “Youare my fucking problem,” he snaps at me, his mouth stumbling over the word fucking, like he’s never said it before.
I stand up defensively and take a step toward him. “What the hell did I do?” I demand, fed up with all the unearned hostility that’s been rolling off of him since we stepped into this cave.
“We’re in this situation because of you. I’m at risk, which means my people are at risk, all because ofyou.” His words are coated in venom as he spits them out and steps toward me.
I close the distance between us, pressing my chest against his and rise up on my tiptoes. It only brings my eye level higher up on his chest, but it makes me feel more powerful all the same. “We’re here because one of your people threw me off a cliff. No one has told me where it’s safe to fly. My gryphon didn’t know any better. Maybe if you stopped treating me like the spy you know I’m not, I would have fucking known what’s safe and what’s off limits.”
“You have no business being here,” he shouts down into my face.
“Then let me fucking go home!” I scream back at him. “You think I want to be here with you? You think I like being looked at by everyone like I’m shit on their shoe, being ignored, ridiculed, made to feel responsible for something I didn’t even do? I have white fucking hair, but I amnotAvowed. I know shit-all about your fucking war. You’re the asshole that brought me here. You’re the asshole not letting me leave!”
“I have no choice!” he bellows, his eyes filled with anger.
“Well, I fucking do,” I seethe at him, and then I head for the opening of the cave.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Away! You don’t want me here, I don’t want to be here, problem solved,” I throw over my shoulder.
“They will find you,” Zeph threatens, the words ricocheting off thegive no fucksarmor I just wrapped myself in.
“Maybe.” I shrug, ignoring the twinge of pain it sets off in my shoulder. “If I get caught, I’ll deal with them; if not, I’ll find my own way home.”
I stomp toward the waning light at the entrance of the cave. It’s clear the sun is going down, and the rational side of me argues that setting off into strange and unfamiliar territory right before it gets dark might not be the best plan of action. I ignore the self-preservation instinct and opt to focus on my need to get the fuck out of here. I’ve had enough with all of this shit. It was fun to train and figure out what I was while it lasted, but I have a life to get back to, and Zeph is right, I have no business being here.
I’m pulled back suddenly and pushed against the red and black wall of the cave. Zeph cages me in with both of his arms on either side of my head and presses his mountain of a body into mine.
“You will stay right here,” he orders on a growl.
“Get the fuck off me, asshole, who the hell do you think you are?” I shout at him as I try my hardest to shove him off of me.
“They will catch you,” he repeats, like somehow it should explain everything.
“Why do you fucking care?” I challenge.
My lavender gaze, filled with fire and hurt, slams up against his melted honey stare that’s leaking frustration and fury.
“They would hurt you, force the mark on you,” he tells me, his voice smooth and even, his eyes suddenly begging mine to understand. “I can’t let that happen,” he confesses, and then he shocks the hell out of me by pressing even closer and leaning down to run the tip of his nose up the bridge of mine.
