Page 16 of Wild Life

Did it matter?

We were close enough to exchange air, his exhale my inhale.

My heart was about to burst in my chest, a whimper escaping my lips.

And then my body was cold. He had retreated, cruelly ripping away the life he had injected into my veins. His nostrils flared, as if to blow off the steam he’d generated.

Cryptid backed away, almost stumbling on his steps, his molten glare never leaving me. Where there had been pure carnal desire before, there was something new.

Doubt.

Before I could gather the right words to speak, he had run off into the jungle faster than he had just attacked.

Chapter 8

Sins Never Wash Away

Aleki

There were two ways to survive being stranded on a deserted island. The first: hunt.

Hunting was more about instinct and less about logic. Intuition over brain. All five senses worked together, triggering a primal desire to attack.

When I had first landed here, I’d had to learn quickly how to hunt. Dad had drowned during the boat wreck, which meant Ma and I had been left to fend for ourselves when we washed up on shore. Barely one week on land, and Ma had fallen ill and passed away soon after. Finding food had become my responsibility. I had started small, setting traps to catch mice and birds. It had taken many tries and a lot of failures to be able to hunt larger mammals like deer.

With time, I had proven to be an excellent hunter. I had learned to submit to my yearnings. The inner need I couldn’t control. I allowed them to run free during a hunt, the urges coursing through my veins. None of my actions during a kill were filtered. I wouldn’t have thought I could ever stop myself once the rush kicked in.

But I had. I’dhadto.

It was like stopping suddenly mid-sprint. You shouldn’t do it. I had stopped cold, and I was paying for it now.

The adrenaline hadn’t crested naturally, and I needed my body to come down from it…from her. I could feel her all over me, through my skin, in my blood…stifling all logic. My senses were only registeringher.

What had I been expecting to do to her back there? Snap her neck? Bite her flesh? Or something more? I couldn’t pinpoint the emotion, but it was much bigger than the desire to kill. It was consuming my whole being, and there were not enough words in my collection of books to describe what it was.

The second way to survive being stranded was to find clean water.

I headed straight for the closest source. Water cascaded down the giant rock formation, spilling into a clear, turquoise pool. Large boulders surrounded the bank, encasing the private retreat.

My oasis.

My flesh burned so hot that it would melt at any second. I was a sweaty, sticky mess and needed to cleanse not just the outside, but my insides. I needed to wash away whatever it was that still pulsed through me.

I dropped the basket containing my blades and the three iguanas I had caught earlier and stripped the cloth from my waist. I dived headfirst from the rocks and broke the surface with a splash. Bubbles floated around me as I submerged myself in the cool, crisp lake. I was weightless, gliding through the water. When I surfaced, rivulets of liquid spilled from my hair and beard down my tired body.

I swam up to the platform of rocks below the stream and climbed on top of it. The shower pelted my aching muscles. I deserved the abuse for the things I had wanted to do to another human. I bowed forward into the torrent, allowing it to flow down my head.

Fuck, it felt good.

And since I was flingingfucksaround like a naughty schoolboy, what the fuck had Screech Owl been doing so far from the hut, anyway? I had nearly mistaken her for a target from all the noise she’d been making hobbling around the jungle. She had sounded like a three-legged deer—clumsy and begging for someone to put it out of its misery. If I had aimed my blade a hair to the right, her slender neck would’ve been sliced cleanly in half. She was lucky I had missed this time. I rarely ever did.

I rubbed my hands over my face and then down my torso, scrubbing away the layer of dirt-crusted perspiration.

Deep down, I must have known it had been her. That was why my aim had been off. I hadn’t realized it at the time, but her scent must have given her away. Spicy-sweet fear. That was the best way to describe her essence.

My touch glided down my abdomen to the painful erection that hadn’t settled since I had pinned her against the tree. I was always hard after a hunt until the rush had run its course, yet my cock wouldn’t give up.

Memories of my hand around her neck only made my blood rush stronger. Screech Owl…the one whose voice irritated the hell out of me, and the same one whose whimper made me invincible.

---