Page 42 of Risky Passion

"Yeah, great stalling tactic." Her voice dripped venom.

"I'm not stalling. The light's almost gone. We need to find my Jeep while we can still see our hands in front of our faces."

She pressed her lips together, then stormed ahead, leaving me and Onyx to chase after her.

The ocean materialized before us with the glow from a half-moon dancing across the gentle waves. After we had spent hours in the suffocating swamp, the salty breeze felt like freedom.

A barrier of mangroves stood with exposed roots like gnarled fingers clawing through coarse sand. We marched a couple of feet out of the bushes, and I paused, squinting at the coastline that stretched endlessly in both directions. The fading light had turned the landscape into a monochrome puzzle, and both directions of the coastline were identical. Same but different.

"Shit." I yanked my phone from my pocket, but it wasn’t just a lack of signal that was the problem. The battery was dead. "Fuck."

"Lost?" Tory's voice carried that special blend of exhaustion and accusation that only beautiful, pissed-off women could manage.

I oriented myself toward the last of the glow from the setting sun, desperately trying to reconstruct my first moves after I’d left my car. Picturing the curve of the shoreline and the way the dunes had sloped, I pointed left, praying my internal compass wasn't as ragged as the rest of me. "My Jeep's that way, tucked behind the dunes."

Onyx nuzzled impatiently at my hand, then pointed her nose in the same direction. That, more than anything, convinced me I was right. Her sense of direction hadn’t failed me yet.

I stepped over a root as thick as my thigh with a surface that was green and slick with algae. When I turned to offer Tory a hand, she ignored it, planting her palms on the twisted wood and swinging herselfover with perfect grace. My eyes lingered on her legs a moment longer than they should.

As we picked our way through the mangroves, each step a careful negotiation between roots and black sand, my mind wandered to Whitney, who was probably still waiting for me at Angelsong. Had he managed to convince Parker to help him? He'd been adamant about keeping the discovery between us three. If he was still there alone with that body, he would be cursing my name with every breath. Thank God he'd brought those protein bars with him. Whitney on an empty stomach was like dealing with a restless dog . . . snappy, impatient, and ready to bite over nothing.

"Jaxson!" Tory's voice cracked through my thoughts like a whip. She'd planted herself in my path, her silhouette stark against the darkening sky. "Enough with the stalling. Tell me why you were in that swamp or I'm going to?—"

"All right. Okay. Sorry.” I heaved a sigh, hoping my brothers understood my reasoning for telling Tory. “I was at Angelsong Orphanage." The words hung between us, and I cursed myself for not telling her sooner. "You know it?"

Moonlight caught in her eyes as she frowned. "The abandoned one? Where they found all those unmarked graves?"

"That's the one. It’s about ten miles north of here."

Onyx growled low, then barked at a wave washing over the tangled roots.

“Onyx, heel.” I tapped my thigh, not wanting her midnight swim instincts to kick in.

Her barking grew more insistent.

"Onyx. Quiet."

She jumped over a piece of driftwood, the same weathered log I'd passed hours earlier when I was racing toward the gunshots and screams. Good, we are going in the right direction.

The mangroves opened enough for Tory and me to walk side by side, weaving carefully over the maze of exposed roots.

"What were you doing at Angelsong?" She grabbed my arm, digging her fingers in as her bare foot sank into soft sand.

"I’m training Onyx as a tracker. She's four now and has spent mostof her career focusing on attack work. But she's got a natural talent for tracking. I bring her to Angelsong when I can to search for more unmarked graves."

"Oh." As Tory studied my face, her expression softened. "That's . . . did you find any?"

I heaved a sigh. “Unfortunately. Three more skeletons of kids. They were probably barely teenagers.”

None of that information would put her at risk.

“Jesus.” She shook her head, and her blonde hair spilled over her shoulder. "It's terrible what happened at that place. I'm an orphan myself."

My steps faltered. "Oh, I'm so sorry."

"Don't be." A tight smile crossed her face. "I lived in an orphanage for about two years, but then I was adopted by a loving family and had a great childhood, all things considered."

I nodded, watching Onyx navigate the roots ahead of us. "That's good to hear. Unfortunately, I don't come across many stories like yours in my line of work. How old were you when you lost your parents?"

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