Alterant (Belador #2)(39)

A shaky one she didn’t trust one bit.

He rose to his feet and took a look at the ground where he’d been lying, then cut his eyes to where the invisible barrier would be. He licked his lip where blood trickled and scanned the area between them, asking, “I should be over where you’re standing. How did I end up here?”

Probably the same way you got that busted lip when I tried to throw you back into your cage. “Majik and aerodynamics . . . hard to say. I landed over here.”

He lifted an eyebrow, so not believing her.

She took in his jeans, jungle-camo T-shirt and hiking boots, which he hadn’t been wearing when he’d eluded her in the jungle. She used that to change the subject. “Where’d you get the clothes?”

“When the Kujoo broke me out the first time, they gave me a witch highball spiked with Kujoo blood. I can conjure a few things like clothes when I need them.” He shrugged, indifferent to how that put him in another category from her.

So now he was what?

Part Belador, part Alterant and part Kujoo?

Plus Medb witch?

She didn’t want to think about that possibility.

He lifted an arm and pointed in the direction he’d earlier said was north. “There’s a town about sixty kilometers that way.”

She did the math in her head to convert kilometers to miles. Thirty-six miles through rough terrain with an escaped Alterant she didn’t trust, deadly animals and poisonous reptiles.

Lucky her, huh?

Travel guides called this extreme adventure.

And people paid to put their lives at risk.

If she had to trek through this jungle, she didn’t want to do it without her dagger, especially since that blade had an extra kick of power. “I want my weapon.”

“No.” Tristan slicked blond hair back off his face with both hands and bent down to retie his muddy hiking boots. “Don’t worry. I won’t let anything eat you either.”

“Oh, really?” she said dryly. Why did men assume a woman needed their protection? “I can take care of myself with or without a weapon.” But she’d have to deal with the sun in another hour if that soft glow tinting the edge of the darkness meant morning was coming. Dense clouds still hovered so close to the ground that a white haze smoked around them.

How long had she been here? Five . . . six hours? Her cheap watch hadn’t survived being slammed to the ground with Tristan when he launched them out of the enclosure. “When’s sunrise?”

“Soon.” He finished tying his shoes and stood up. “We’re going to be in this heavy moisture for most of the trip. I’ll give you a heads-up before the sun breaks through.”

But would he give her a heads-up ten minutes before sunlight stabbed through the thick shield of moisture protecting her skin? Or ten seconds?

Oblivious to her dilemma, Tristan started past her, then paused and dropped his head close when he spoke. “Just so you know, when they gave me the witch’s brew I picked up a few special tricks. If I want to kill you I can do it out here just as easily as I could have in that cage, and with little effort.”

Having said his piece, he struck out.

If what he said was true, she was safer sticking with him.

If it was true.

Evalle kept pace, but only because she could match his long strides and because she’d stayed in shape walking plenty of miles in Atlanta. The mideighties temperature here would feel no worse than a warm summer day back home, but even Georgia couldn’t match the humidity in this rain forest.

She kept waiting for the sun, expecting that death ball of fire to burn off the clouds with a minute’s notice, like after a foggy morning in Atlanta. But the air remained bloated with moisture that fell in a constant drizzle. Wet hair plastered her neck and shoulders, the rubber band that had been holding her ponytail long gone from Tristan’s acrobatic escape.

If he really intended to work with her, he should be willing to share some information. “Where’d you grow up?”

“Everywhere.”

“Come on, Tristan.”

He paused at a downed tree, squatted to lift one end, then shoved the twelve-inch-thick trunk off their trail.

She noted that he hadn’t used kinetics. What exactly had that witch juice done to him?

When he started walking again, he said, “I lived in five different foster homes.”

Crap. “So you don’t know who your parents are either?”

“I didn’t say that. The last place I lived was near Chattanooga.”

“Who are your parents? Do either of them have powers?”

“You want information, but what have you got to trade?”

She’d already offered to talk to the Tribunal. With Tristan free she had even less to barter with than she had before. “You know what I have.”

“Then we’re through talking until I know for sure there’s something in it for me.”

Except for occasional stops to drink from a coconut or eat fruit, she trudged silently through vegetation so thick that getting through felt like wrestling a gorilla. Now she was slogging through a muddy path cut along a mountainside.

Something bit her.

Again.

For like the hundredth time.

She’d had survival training, but give her the city anytime. Even with Atlanta traffic, she’d take the smell of a fresh night sizzled over hot pavement after a summer’s day. Civilization.