Page 7 of Found and Forged
“I am now,” I reassure him, and he turns to start the car.
Valen snakes an arm around my back and pulls me into his side.
“Sentinel City, here we come,” Knox shouts out, and the rest of us hoot and holler our agreement as we pull away and our journey begins.
3
Sabin turns down the volume to Fivefold’s “Lost Within.” The brakes squeak as we slow down, the sound amplified by the quiet in the car.
“Looks like this is the end of the road,” he announces, and I open my eyes and sit up from where I was dozing on Siah’s shoulder. Knox sits up from where he was lying in my lap, and I already start to miss the calm that’s been floating around the car until now.
Dust from the dirt road we’ve been traveling on for most of the day plumes around us as we come to a stop next to the other vehicle. We all sit there for a minute looking around at the short yellowing wild grass and the small hills in the distance that flow into baby mountains.
“Looks a bit like home, only drier and a little flatter maybe,” Valen offers, and a couple of the guys nod their agreement.
Knox opens the door, and crisp air sneaks in to chase away the heat. It’s not insanely cold, but I can imagine the temperatures will drop the higher we hike. We climb out of the SUV we’ve been crammed into for the past couple of days. Moans and groans sound off all around as we all stretch out our limbs and revel in the feel of room to move around. Heat sinks into my core as the guys’ groans start sounding way too close to some of the noises they make when they come, and I smile and look up to the sky as I stretch my back.
I straighten up, and my gaze lands on Torrez and the knowing grin he’s now wearing. I shrug shamelessly, and he chuckles.
“Dibs,” Sabin shouts out, and we all turn to him.
“What are you calling dibs on?” Siah asks, voicing the confusion that I’m also feeling.
Sabin looks around. “Um, shit, I don’t know. Whenever Torrez chuckles like that, I’ve just been calling dibs. It’s hisI smell my horny matelaugh.”
I crack the fuck up. “You’ve been capitalizing on his chuckle,” I ask as I lean over and laugh my ass off.
Torrez shakes his head, his features filled with surprise. “Sneaky Wizard.”
“Knox turns to Ryker, his gaze almost offended. “Fuck, why didn’t we think of that?”
The question sends me into a whole new fit of laughter that has me wiping away tears. “You guys are out of control,” I chide with a smile and then squeal when someone slaps my ass.
I turn to find Valen and the cheeky smile he has plastered onto his face. “We can’t help it if we all just want to spend more time with you.”
“Hey, I’m not complaining,” I explain and rub at my stinging ass cheek. “But that doesn’t make any of you less ridiculous,” I finish.
“Eh, you know you love it,” Knox announces as he approaches me. He pulls lightly on the end of my hair until I tilt my head back far enough that he can lean down and kiss me.
“True,” I admit happily against his lips and then smile as a groan fills the air.
“Can you all keep the PDA on lock? Not everyone wants to live that porn life as much as you all seem to want to,” Kallan gripes as he climbs out of the other SUV and stretches.
Knox’s response is to start making loud obscene noises which makes me laugh more and has Kallan rolling his eyes.
“I’ll remember you feel that way when you find a girl that you want to be all over all of the time,” Becket taunts his coven mate, and Kallan shakes his head.
“At this rate, that might never happen,” Kallan confesses on a grumble and then heads to open the back of the car and pull his pack out.
I leave his words hanging in the air like something fragile I know I shouldn’t touch, at least not yet. I need to talk to him and Enoch, clear things up, but I don’t know how to approach it with them. Hiking to Sentinel City is probably not the best place to do it, especially not with all the other guys around. There’s a lot of unfinished shit just hanging in the air for everyone to try and avoid. We’re all distracted by this new goal, this new mission, but I wonder how long the distraction will last. Reality is bound to come crashing down at any minute, and it’s leaving me antsy and unsure of how things will land and survive the fall.
I give Knox one last peck and then grab my bag out of the back of the car. We all gear up and wait for Sorik to do the same. Nash moves to stand next to me, and Bastien who’s standing on my other side stiffens. I side eye Nash for a second. I suspect that he does this just to get a rise out of my Chosen. I’ve never quite known where I stand with him, and that’s certainly not changed, but he’s becoming an interesting puzzle to try and piece together.
“We’ll hike until we find a good spot to stop for the night. It isn’t too steep, but if any of you need to stop for any reason, just let the people at the front know,” Sorik announces, and we all nod and voice our agreement. “I didn’t run into any scouts or anything before, but that doesn’t mean we might not now. Our traveling party is a bit more conspicuous, so if you see anything orfeelanything out of the ordinary, call it out.”
With that, Sorik turns and starts to make his way away from the cars and out into the hills. Siah moves to walk with him but suddenly stops and looks back at me like he’s confused.
“I think he just remembered he has a mate who might want him by her side instead of by his friend’s side,” Nash informs me, clearly having watched the same reaction I just saw.
