Page 48 of Darkness Bound (Night Prowler 5)
Even after more than thirty-six hours, she was still raw and bleeding in places inside of her that had been scabbed over for years. He must have sensed it, because he allowed her to retreat into the snug, safe corner of her mind she’d created long ago to cope when things went sideways. He only spoke to her in gentle tones to warn her of some obstacle in their path as they walked, or instruct her on the finer points of forest living, like how to use a handful of foaming berries and a macerated twig to brush her teeth, or how to funnel rainwater from the curved leaves of trees when she was thirsty. Last night, when she’d awoken screaming from another nightmare, he’d only squeezed her into the hard warmth of his chest until she stopped trembling, then released her and stared silently out into the vast emerald darkness, never speaking a word at all.
Now, after a week of sailing the ocean and trudging through wilderness and forging a kind of bizarre, backward alliance based on blurted honesties, silences that should have been uncomfortable but were companionable instead, and the knowledge they’d already forced one another to re-examine some of their sacrosanct beliefs, they stood together in the soft sapphire aftermath of twilight, looking down into the wide, misted bowl of an emerald valley wherein Hawk said his colony lay.
“What are the three things?” Jack’s voice was as low and solemn as his.
He was examining the landscape below the hill they were about to descend with eyes so focused and predatory she thought briefly his nickname was exactly apropos. A raptor’s gaze held just that kind of p
iercing, hungry keenness.
“First and most important, the Alpha is always right. No matter what, no questions asked.”
“The Alpha,” she repeated, unsure. “How will I know which one is the Alpha?”
His lips quirked. “Trust me, you’ll know.”
Adrenaline threaded along her nerve endings like a barbed, creeping vine, lifting all the tiny hairs on the back of her neck. “Second?”
“Second, you’re only here to observe. Opinions won’t be welcome, and you might find yourself missing your tongue if you say the wrong thing. Females don’t have quite the . . .” He searched for a word, then tried a different tack. “Let’s just say the feminist movement hasn’t reached the rainforest.” His eyes, electric green even in darkness, met hers. “Yet.”
“Got it. You’re all a bunch of tongue-chopping Archie Bunkers.”
His smile soured. “Not all, no. But enough for it turn deadly if, for instance, Gloria Steinem showed up and started burning bras.”
Deadly? Her mouth went dry. “Duly noted. Mum’s the word. And third?”
The smile vanished. When he again spoke, her heart began to flutter like a hummingbird’s at the ominous tone in which they were spoken.
“Don’t go anywhere without me. Especially at night.”
They stared at each other. Off on the distant horizon, a full moon crested a range of rolling black hills and spread her pallid glow over the treetops.
“Tell me they’re not going to hurt me,” she said, carefully watching his face. “Tell me I’m going to get out of this alive.”
He turned to her and looked down on her from his full, imposing height, his manner as intense as the look in his eyes. “No one is going to hurt you,” he insisted with vehemence. “Anyone who’s stupid enough to even look at you the wrong way will have to deal with me.”
That protectiveness again. That freely offered—and undeserved—shielding from harm.
Why would he defend her against his own kind, after what she’d written, after how she’d argued for war against them, after all she’d done? He’d said he was responsible for her safety . . . but was there more to it than that?
Do I want there to be?
After a moment of fraught indecision in which she debated the merits of opening this particular can of worms, Jack said, “I thought you thought I was a bigot.”
He answered softly, “I thought you thought I was a lying, scheming, underhanded son of a dung beetle.”
The air all around them breathed with the lush music of the rainforest. Frogs croaked. Insects whirred. Mammals chirped or called or howled. Everything smelled of nighttime and wildness, and the space between them was palpably alive. Jack felt on the verge of something vast and bottomless, a weightless, sightless sensation of falling or flying blindfolded, of jumping into impenetrable blackness and having it swallow her whole.
Why do you make me feel like this?
Why is it when I look into your eyes I feel . . . free?
“I do think you’re a lying, scheming, underhanded son of a dung beetle,” Jack agreed, letting him see the truth of it in her unguarded gaze. “I hate that you tricked me. I hate that you used me.” She hesitated, then went on, smaller; emotion constricting her voice. “I hate that I liked it so much.”
He said her name, his eyes as soft as his voice.
“I hate that I could have looked back on that night with only good memories—amazing memories—and now I can only look back and see one more betrayal.”
She’d wounded him. She saw it in the way he stiffened, in the way his glittering eyes reflected back sorrow and shame. For a moment she was brilliantly, blindingly glad she’d hurt him. For a moment it was enough that she wasn’t the only one in pain.
