Page 70 of Hunting for her Heart
“It’ll take us a couple of hours,” Ronan tells me after a few minutes. “You should try to get some sleep.” I feel tooworked up to sleep, but I don’t tell him that. Instead, I nod and turn my head to rest my cheek on his shoulder as I wrap my arms around his neck, happy to finally have him back.
In this position, my core presses against his abs, and it’s a bit arousing, but the action from the day must catch up to me because soon I find I can't keep my eyes open.
At one point, I open my eyes and find myself being laid down with one of my Vikings. I snuggle into their chest, too sleepy to even know which of them it is as they whisper, “Shh, go back to sleep.” And I do just that.
Chapter Twenty-One
Bo
The mix of the fire crackling and rain pouring down outside is like a comforting embrace. Not quite as soothing as holding my little mate, but she is still fast asleep, cuddled up to Hawk, and we want to let her sleep in.
Last night had been eventful, to say the least. I’m still furious that those men were able to take down all three of us so easily. But we had no idea something like that knock-out potion even existed. Hopefully, nobody else out here will try to cheat.
Thankfully, we’ve finally made it to day six. Tomorrow, we can take her back to where the Hunt began and officially claim her as our prize. The whole thing is completely ridiculous, of course. She’s our fated mate. There is no way that we would ever let her be claimed by anybody other than us. Even if that meant killing every man on this damn mountain.
“I don’t think anything has grown,” Ronan says, his eyes on the grass surrounding the firepit. I look into the cave, where the grassy parts end, and have to agree with him.
“We’ve only had the fire going for about five hours. It wasn’t instant before, either. And the fire had always been going for hours in those cases.”
He nods as he stares at the cave in thought. “Was the fire out each time it happened?”
I tilt my head as I try to remember. “It definitely was in here. But in the waterfall cave, I think it was still going.”
“Hmm,” is all he says in response.
“We could try,” I say with a shrug. “Extinguish it now and see what happens.”
He considers that before he suggests, “Let’s keep it going until Willow wakes up, giving it a bit more time to… work its magic or whatever it does, then we’ll put it out.”
“You think it’s the wood?” I ask as I tilt my head at the fire. We’d just used fallen trees and cut them as logs; they didn't look like anything special.
“Or the rock we used to spark the flame?” he suggests.
My eyes widen, and I nod. “Yeah, the flint rock we found in the other cave, we brought with us and used here too. That must be it!” I say excitedly as I find the rock and inspect it.
It has more of a shimmer to it than the other rocks we’ve seen, which is why we thought it'd be good to use as a flint.
I pass it to Ronan and he nods. “You could be right. Maybe there’s a clue in the prophecy we need to reconsider?”
I replay the words in my mind, but they don’t give me any new ideas. “The flint rock seems to be the most likely answer right now. We’ll do as you say, let it go for another couple of hours before we put it out, then we can wait and see what happens.
“We’re almost out of time,” he says, looking over at Willow.
“We’ll figure it out,” I reassure him. “Even if we have to come back here after winning this stupid Hunt.”
He nods. “You’re right. We don’t need to leave straight away.”
We continue to watch the fire silently for another hour. My gaze keeps moving over to Willow. We left her in her dress, not wanting to strip her when she was unconscious without her permission, but I’m dying to take it off her now and get another peek at her beautiful, pale skin.
Seeing her without all those bruises and cuts makes me feel like I’m doing something right. Not to mention, her ribs are already less pronounced than they were the first time we saw her.
Ronan refused to tell me what they said to one another after Hawk had climbed down the tree with her last night. But from the way he’s been eyeing her for the last hour, something tells me he’s desperate for her to wake up too.
Unable to take it any longer, I stand and quickly move out to our makeshift bed and lie down behind her, wrapping my arm around her waist as I hum against her neck in appreciation of finally touching her again.
This reminds me of how determined she was to share the blanket with all of us. Not lying down until everyone had made room for me. It had made me fall for her even more, knowing she cared about me being comfortable.
I never expected a mate to be so considerate. I mean, my mother has always been the kindest person I know, but I know not all women are like that. Many of them seem more… expectant of their mates' care. But Willow seems more like my mother. She doesn’t take us for granted and appreciates everything we do for her. The little things and the big.
