Page 29 of Prey for Me

Our progress is slow going, but mostly because Leo keeps stopping so I can oh and awe at the vegetation and animals I see. I even make a giddy sound I’m ashamed of when he pointsout a coconut and, with a precise flick of a dagger he seems to materlize from thin air, knocks it out of a tree for me.

“Thank you,” I say as I hold it against his chest, my arms wrapped around his neck. My hand is still swollen but much better than it was last night, and I wonder if that nasty shit he made me swallow was the medicine Raphael and Nakoa went out to find last night.

“Anything for you princess,” Leo chirps like a bird and I laugh.

“Oh get a cave will you,” Raphael groans and my laughter only swells, caught off guard that he’s joking.

He seems just as caught off guard, eying me like I’ve grown another head. I stop laughing when his look of surprise shifts into a glare.

“What,” I snarl. It’s like I can’t have a moment of happiness in this hater’s presence.

“You seem awfully content. Guess we fucked some sense into you,” he says, and it’s like he engineers his sentences to piss me off.

“Fuck you.”

“You did. Thanks,” he says, and without thinking, I chuck the coconut at him.

He catches it and smashes it on the ground, “Toss something else at me omega, and I’ll toss your ass off the next cliff.”

“Try it!” I bark back as Leo barks with laughter.

We all stop laughing though, when Nakoa doubles over. He’s silent for a while, just shaking before he stands straight and throws his head back, the white strand of his bang glittering. Nakoa’s laugh is rich and sonorous. And it sounds rare. And it stirs something inside of me that’s…strange.

When he’s finished, he dabs at the corners of his eyes with his ungloved knuckles, choking out, “You two are so much alike.”

“No we aren’t!”weshout.

Great. We aren’t beating his allegations by a long shot.

Raphael pushes off a tree and stomps ahead, as Leo hoists me back up his back, as I was starting to slip off, chuckling all the while.

“Aww, she’s gotten under your skin that bad, Raphael?” Leo asks, antagonizing him just when I thought we’d squashed it.

“It’s tradition,” Leo says, and I roll my eyes behind his head.

Well, you have some pretty fucked up traditions I think,returning to the more pleasant taks of sightseeing.

Raphael halts and turns on his heels, expression neutral, “No. If anything, I feel sorry for her. You two keep playing house. You’ll confuse the poor girl.”

Huh?

“What do you mean by that?” I ask, as Leo falls silent.

Raphael walks backwards, not missing a step or tripping over a branch as he yanks at his black collar, “One thing about me Grace, is I’m not one for games. If I had it my way, I’d shock you until you learned to shut the fuck up. Remeber, princess.

There he goes again, making a word like princess sound more like a curse word than fuck or bitch.

“Are you saying I’m wearing a shock collar?” I ask in disbelief. “You’re joking?”

“Want to find out?” Raphael asks, snickering like some kid as he slowly turns around. “I can take you to the edge of our territory and you can give it a test.”

“No thank you,” I grit out, emphasizing every word in my sentence.

“Stop scaring her,” Nakoa dead pans, the playful mood dead.

But he doesn’t deny what Rapahel is saying, and that scares me ten times worse. So the rest of the way, we walk in awkward silence. Every time I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, they make me feel like an idiot.

Fuck me indeed.

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