Windburn (The Elemental Series #4)(34)

Peta snorted and turned her back. “Not while I’m in the boat, Prick.”

I gave him a wink. “Maybe later.” What was I saying? I turned away as heat curled up my neck to my face. I was not giving Cactus another reason to hang onto me. Pressing my hand to the smoky diamond around my neck, I breathed out. The wind picked up again, pushing us toward our destination.

Behind me, Peta and Cactus spoke as though I weren’t there.

“Stop pressing her to give up her heart. You heard what Giselle said, she is not meant for the yoke of marriage.”

Cactus laughed. “You don’t know much about Terraling partnerships, do you? Often we don’t marry. And as in the case of Lark’s father, if there is a marriage, it is more often than not rather . . . open. We follow our hearts wherever they lead and believe that is the nature of our people.”

“You would share her with Ash?”

I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing. We all knew I heard what they were saying, but I chose to pretend I couldn’t hear a word.

“No, I wouldn’t. I’m just saying things are not cut and dried when it comes to love and sex with Terralings. Salamanders, on the other hand, are jealous types. I suppose I have a bit of them too.”

A roll of satisfaction from Peta tipped me off. I cranked my head around. “Don’t you dare.”

Her mouth tightened in a thin line and her ears drooped. “I would never.”

Instantly I regretted not trusting her. “I’m sorry.”

“What,” Cactus said, his tone deceptively innocent, “you don’t want her to tell me you’ve slept with Ash?”

My mouth dropped open. I would have spluttered except the boat grounded itself, throwing me backward. I hit the edge of the boat and flipped out. Thoughts of jagged teeth and long tentacles in the water kept me clinging to the edge. Until my feet touched the sandy shore and I realized we were in the shallows. I stood and looked around where we’d beached. The sand, the trees, and bushes. The statue of Zeus staring down at us. This was the place the humans had named Greece.

But we knew it as the birthplace of monsters, a place of mystery and danger even elementals of great power avoided. There was too much wildness in the earth and elements here; too much of the supernatural to be anything but chaotic.

“You sure about this, Peta?” I asked as I pulled the boat forward.

She stood on the prow of the boat, her eyes staring straight ahead. “I may not be a Reader, but I know when a certain path is right. This is the path we have to take if you want to succeed, Lark.”

Cactus leapt out of the boat and helped me pull it the rest of the way up the beach so it was fully out of the water. “You aren’t going to say anything?”

I had a choice. I could give him hell for trying to control me, or I could be honest with both him and myself. I went for the second choice.

I grabbed his face in both hands and pulled him to me. The kiss ignited an instant fire in my body, a flame of love and bonds rooted in my earliest memories. He crushed me against his body until we had to break apart to breathe.

I stumbled back, panting for air. He stood a few feet from me, his hair wild from my hands skimming through it, his eyes dark with a heady desire that still rushed along my skin. “The truth is I love you both. That is all I know.”

Peta groaned. “Why, why did you have to tell him?”

“Because I can’t lie, not to either of them,” I said. “I may be a lot of things, but a liar is not on the list.”

“Fine, but you deal with this little love triangle when we have your father home, and things are settled enough for you to see clearly.” She turned, and stalked up the beach, her long tail twitching like mad.

“I can wait, Lark. For as long as it takes for you to realize I am the one you need.” Cactus grinned at me, and I couldn’t help but smile back.

“So sure of yourself?”

“Lust is not the same thing as love. I don’t care that you bedded him. It doesn’t mean you love him.” He walked ahead of me and I couldn’t help but stare. He and Ash were not so different in height. But the muscle on Ash was thicker from years of fighting and training with weapons. Cactus was leaner, like some of our Runners who took messages.

Neither was weak, but they offset one another. As though one called to my dark side and the other to the side of me that believed fairy tales always ended with a happily ever after.

I frowned as I followed Cactus and Peta, and my thoughts bounced between my situation with the two men, and the situation with my father. I’d almost rather deal with Cassava and my father than decide between Ash and Cactus. My heart had been broken too many times with loss and betrayal to lose another person I loved.

And that was the crux of it: I loved them both in ways I never thought possible. In ways I’d never experienced, not with Coal. My heart stuttered ever so slightly and I gave a silent prayer for his soul. That he would find peace on the other side of the Veil in the arms of the mother goddess. That he would forgive me for not loving him the way he wanted me to. The way I loved Ash and Cactus.

“Keep your eyes open, and tread softly. He didn’t get the name The Bastard for nothing,” Peta said. “We’re close to the glade he uses as his launch pad.”

Around us the trees and brush had grown thick, and the sounds of the ocean had faded to nothing. In all my musings, I hadn’t realized how far we’d come. I looked behind us, and could see nothing but green. No ocean. In fact, we were surrounded by foliage so thick I couldn’t even see the sky. “You get us lost, cat?”