Page 12 of Camriel
“That’s what Amaros said,” Camriel said glumly.“We heard a couple of humans talking about a female who’d dispatched four men with disturbing ease,” he added.“From the sounds of it, she might be one of you.They thought she was crazy.”
“Maybe she is,” Grace pointed out.“Just because Zoe and I are sane doesn’t mean all of the cambions will be.”
The warrior frowned in reaction.“My cambion will be normal,” he said defensively.
“Uh, none of us are ordinary,” Zoe refuted.“We all have weird talents and we don’t fit in anywhere.I doubt any of the cambions can be classed as normal.”
“Whoever she is, she’s strong enough to pick a human male up, spin him over her head and break his back over her knee,” Amaros reported.
“She sounds like one of those professional fake wrestlers,” Grace mused.
“Fake wrestlers?”Cam said skeptically.
“They choreograph their battles,” Zoe explained.
“They fake their fights?”Amaros asked in bafflement.“Why?”
“People love it,” Grace said.“I snuck in and watched a fight a couple of years ago when I was in New York.A girl called Victory won.She was a total badass,” she said in admiration.“I heard she’s one of the top female fighters in the country now and she’s never lost a fight.She’s based in New York, so she could be wandering around Manhattan as we speak.”
“We’ll keep our senses alert the next time we head to the city,” Amaros vowed to appease his second in command.
Cam nodded, feeling too restless to sleep.They all headed to bed and he decided to finish reading the romance book.Heaving a wistful sigh at the happy ending, the knight got up long enough to return the book to their small library in the great room.He chose another novel and took it back to his room.
His mind continued to race about the prospect that his cambion was out there somewhere, but he finally drifted off to sleep.Camriel woke up in the morning with the book lying on his chest.He quickly hid it, glad a temporary sheet of wood was blocking his doorway.Amaros would never let him hear the end of it if he caught him with the novel.
Speaking of his commander, Amaros was already up despite it being just before dawn.Camriel sensed him outside and figured he was using the latrine.“I’m glad I don’t have to take a dump outside yet,” he said in amusement.
“Your time will come, brother,” Amaros said in resigned annoyance as he stepped into the base.Cam’s voice had carried along the stone hallways to him.“We need to install an indoor toilet,” he added when he joined his second in the kitchen.Camriel had gotten the fire started to warm the room up.
“I think we should return to the resort and study the plumbing,” Cam suggested casually.“While we’re there, we should see if we can dismantle some of the closets and bring them back here.”
“I’m sure Zoe and Grace would appreciate that,” Amaros agreed, giving the knight a strange look for thinking about it.He ate a hasty breakfast, then left a note for his mate, so the girls would know where they’d gone.
Zoe woke up a couple of hours later, sensing Amaros was gone.He’d lit a fire in the fireplace, so their room was warm.“I wish we had closets and a couple of dressers,” she complained, choosing clean clothes from the pile on a tarp on the floor.
“You’ll never guess what the guys are up to,” Grace said from right outside her door, scaring five years off Zoe’s life as she pulled her clothes on.
Zoe moved the sheet of wood aside, realizing the ward Amaros had put up to muffle their bedroom was gone.She took the note her tiny companion was holding out.“They’ve gone to scavenge some closets,” she said with a grin.
“And to figure out how to set up an indoor toilet,” Grace added gleefully.
“We should head to the resort and help them,” Zoe figured.She didn’t want to be separated from Amaros after being parted from him for an entire day and half the night.
They stoked the fire in the kitchen and had breakfast.Grace had become good at brewing coffee on the hotplate.“Thank God we’ve got a lot of propane gas stored up,” she said, then took a sip of the hot brew.
“I’ve been thinking,” Zoe said, flicking a look at one of the how-to books piled up on the small folding table.
“Should I brace myself?”Grace joked.
Zoe gave her a mock-stern look.“We need electricity,” she pointed out.
“Yeah, but the power stations have all shut down,” the teen reminded her.“None of us know how to get them up and running again.”
“There are other methods of producing power,” Zoe said and pointed at the book on the top of the pile.
“Solar?”Grace said, reading the title.“Doesn’t it need electricity to get it running, though?”
“We have generators,” Zoe said.“I’m sure we’ll be able to find a way to get some solar panels working.”
