Page 87 of Diamond

I frown and he catches it, shooting me a toothy smile before adding more. "You have more injuries than I do. Let me take care of it and you can help later."

A smile tugs at my own lips and I grumble an agreement, "Sure."

I know I forget sometimes, but he really does have my best interests at heart when he gets bossy. He was willing to leave Olivia behind just to get me to safety, even though rescuing women seems to be the thing keeping him sane.

I still get chills at how ready he was to just walk away, but on a deeper level, I must admit, it did make me feel pretty special.

"I'll stay here with Roshan and Darya. Make sure to tell me if you need any help."

Kuret drops his bag onto my thigh and strips his shirt off, leaving me breathless. I have to turn away to cough. "Are you alright?" He places a three-fingered hand on my shoulders and I shake it off, still coughing and nodding my head.

He looks at me funny but places his shirt on the ground and walks away.

I watch his retreating back and my eyes cannot help but betray me; they're glued to every movement his body makes. While his back is turned to me, I can indulge myself in a good long look at him.

It's not like he doesn't take his liberties—I see him watching me all the time. Once he's back, we are hopefully going to touch each other again, and this time not to check for injuries.

When I was much younger, I used to watch these cheesy soap operas withmamanand the scenes she liked the most were theones where the male lead was doing some physical labor without a shirt.

I never quite understood the appeal.

Watching Kuret haul those tall, heavy logs from forest to the cave makes me feel likemamanwatching her shows and giggling, just without the giggling part. Only a moan wants to rise up and the only thing protecting my pride is that I've somehow managed to contain it.

In between ogling him, I take some time to gather large handfuls of the long grass and pilling them as high as I can on the cave floor.

I settle down on the carpet of grass and the argila fold their creepy legs and sit on either side of me. I place a hand on each of the heads and scratch.

Spending time with the argila always seems to have a way of calming me down and sitting here running my hands through their silky fur makes me feel more hopeful.

When he has carried enough logs, he starts to make holes in the ground and pierce the sticks through the ground. He repeats these actions over and again multiple times until there's a respectable barrier mounted at the mouth of the cave. Then, he pulls out one of the odd genali knives and starts to sharpen some other slimmer sticks into the semblance of a stake, pointing them sharp side out through it for extra security.

After making sure the barricade is secure, Kuret attends to both of the argila, setting down grass he gathers from the valley andsecuring them to a stake he had driven into the ground earlier before sauntering off deeper into the valley. The flash of the memory of him straining to move that last log makes me squirm.

I feel ashamed when I realize I should have been doing more instead of just gathering a bed and gawking. Olivia deserves better than this, but it also feels like I'm at the end of my energy.

43

Kuret

I'm outside of another one of the caves, hopeful that I am right about genali not being able to come in now, but knowing there's no way for me to be completely sure.

I can still hear Nasrin and the argila. Her breathing has been elevated since I started working and I'm hoping it doesn't mean she is more injured than I realized.

She would have told me, I remind myself.

I'll need to scout this one thoroughly, and I suppose many others.

My mind instantly goes back to the emerald-haired female, Olivia, and I hope that Nasrin is not thinking too much about her being missing. While I might not be completely in agreement with her plan to find the captured female, I will do my best.

If not because of Ree, then because I know it is what Nasrin wants and I want to make her happy.

If I had my way, we would already be heading to Ree and I could return to hunt for the other woman, but Nasrin has made it clear that she will not allow that to happen, which is why I'm stuck here.

Thinking about the other woman, something occurs to me finally. I had been dismissive of what Nasrin said about the kidnapper she had seen, partly because it sounded implausible and partly because I simply didn't want her to be right, but looking back at it, I can make some assumptions.

The monster must be a cave dweller and it probably is the reason those sinkholes kept appearing at random. It must have been after her even before the genali attacked.

Did it know they were there and decided it couldn't wait any longer?

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