Page 23 of Love in the Wild

“Keza had infant. Akika. Thorne’s brother. Thorne learn to climb, swim, live as gorilla.” He studied the trees that formed his world with new eyes. His parents hadn’t come from here. He looked back to the book she held. “Eden read to me journal?”

“Huh? Oh! Sure.” She ducked inside the plane and came back out with a book bound in what looked like smooth brown animal skin. She opened it and began to read.

“My name is Jacob Haywood, the Earl of Somerset. I crashed here with my wife, Amelia, and my three-year-old son when the engine failed. Our pilot, Charlie MacGrath, perished in the crash. We removed his body to the woods nearby. My wife and I face great and insurmountable odds. This part of Uganda, the Impenetrable Forest, is called so for a reason. I fear no one may ever find us. My son, Thorne, gives me hope. He never cries, never complains. He trusts me to keep him safe. The last thing I wish to do is fail him, but I fear that my brother, Cameron, may not find us in time.”

Eden stopped reading. There was much Thorne didn’t understand in what Eden said, but he believed he understood enough.

“Thorne, you have more family,” she breathed. “You have an uncle, Cameron.”

“Uncle?” he asked. The word was familiar.

“Your father had a brother. His name is Cameron.” She then went back to the first line. “Your father was an earl from England.”

Thorne still did not understand. “What isearlfromengland?”

“No, an earl. It’s ... oh, how do I explain that? A man with power, who commands many people. England is where you are from, not here, not Africa.”

This Thorne understood. An earl was like the dominant silverback.

“And when a father dies, his son becomes the new earl. That’s you. You are the Earl of Somerset.”

“Thorne does not want power.” He had exactly what he wished for here. The jungle, Keza, Akika, and now Eden. He had no need for anything else.Powerto a human male meantdeath. He didn’t care about that. He had plenty of power here in the forest where he ruled among the animals and kept the natural order. He’d never fought for control of his gorilla family—Sunya was more suited to the role. What Thorne craved most was peace. Death did exist here, power did exist here, but it was all part of the cycle of life. No animal killed others out of a joy of killing. Even gorillas when they fought for control did not usually kill each other.

“Thorne, you must listen to me. We need to leave the jungle and find your uncle.”

“No. Not safe.” Thorne stood, but his feet wouldn’t move. He was rooted in place for a long moment, before he entered the plane cabin again. The two gods—his parents—lay there as silent ghosts. Thorne curled one hand into a fist and placed that fist over his heart. Eden joined him, and she pointed toward the figures.

Eden moved to the skeleton. “Your father has a ring. It belongs to you now.” Thorne watched her gently remove a thick band of something shiny from the bony hand. She returned to him and gently took his hand in hers. Then she slid the object around his smallest finger.

“A perfect fit,” she murmured. “I think this must be your family crest.”

Thorne examined the image on the thing Eden had called a ring. “Crest?” It seemed as though a sun was rising over the trees, the small lines curved simply, yet he knew it was a sunrise, or sunset. He curled his hand back into a fist, feeling the ring around his finger. An unexpected surge of pride filled him. He closed his eyes. A dim memory of lying in his father’s arms, half-asleep, touching this ring with tiny fingers.

When he opened his eyes, he looked toward his mother and saw a shiny leaf hanging by a shining thread around her neck. He reached for it. It was like the gift he’d given Eden, the one she now wore around her neck.

“Here, let me.” Eden did something to make the shiny thread break apart so it could be removed. She tried to hand it to him, but he reached up and touched her neck.

“You,” he whispered. “You have it.”

Eden’s eyes blurred with tears as she removed the other gift and put this one in its place. She handed him back the heavier gift, which he laid at the feet of his mother’s bones in silent memory.

Eden touched the shiny object around her neck. “This looks like a ginkgo leaf, only gold.”

“What is gold?”

“This.” She touched the leaf and shining thread. “The stuff that’s shiny.”

“Yes. Thorne has seen much gold.” He thought of the cave and the glittering stones. “Bad men take much gold.” He closed his eyes, letting those awful memories take hold. He reached up to his head, touching the crown of leaves. “Bad man gave Thorne this. But Thorne let go to hold on to Keza’s fur when she took Thorne away.”

Eden watched him, a thoughtful expression on her face. “Thorne, would you let me meet Keza and Akika? Would it be safe?” She touched the ginkgo leaf against her collarbone as though it gave her comfort. That thought filled him with a quiet joy, to know that his mother’s treasure was pleasing to his mate.

“Eden can see family. First we eat.” He held out a hand. Eden placed her palm in his, and they returned to the jungle.

* * *

Eden satin the cradling roots of the tree below Thorne’s tree house, nibbling on fresh mangoes and some kind of wild nuts that Thorne had found for her. He had retrieved her camera bag from the tree house after she had asked him to.

As he lounged nearby, licking the juice off his fingers from his own mango, and Eden couldn’t help but stare. The more time she spent with him, the more she seemed to forget the world outside the jungle. She could have gazed at him forever, admiring the lean lines of his muscles, his beautiful yet masculine hands and feet, which held strength and dexterity in them from years of necessity and adapting in this wild, wondrous world. Yet there was something more to it than that. She couldn’t explain why, but it felt as though he was here for a reason, not just because of luck and survival.

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