Kinked (Elder Races #6)(48)

Quentin spoke out loud. “It was almost like what?”

“It was almost like a shadow, except there wasn’t anything physical attached to it,” she said. “Or it wasn’t attached to anything else.”

She grabbed her pack by a strap and strode for the bridge. Leaving behind any belongings was a rookie’s mistake. Quentin followed and they leaped onto the bridge. Throwing their things together, they moved to opposite ends of the bridge.

Aryal stopped just before stepping off of the bridge and going under the tree line. She still held her sword. She bent and sniffed at the stone, running her fingers lightly over it. It was dry and still held a lingering warmth from the heat of the day. There was no scent of any creature that passed by recently, just the faint odor of dirt, recent rain and mildew.

She straightened and retreated to the packs without putting her back to the dark, shadowed forest, and she didn’t stop until she came to Quentin.

Full moonlight fell on them. It was almost as clear and bright as daylight. It emphasized the strong slash of cheekbones on his face, and that lean, stubborn jaw. He sheathed his sword and stood with his hands on his hips. “No magical residue,” he said, still speaking quietly.

She sheathed her sword too and told him, “If you say anything about disbelieving me, I’m probably going to punch you again.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said. “Remember, I saw how you reacted. You’re one of the oldest creatures I’ve ever met. You’re also one of the most combative, and yet you’re still alive. I give your instincts and reactions full credit for that, because my gods, the total number of people and creatures who must have tried to kill you over the years must be mind boggling.”

She narrowed her eyes and tilted her head. “I think I’m going to take that as a compliment too.”

A quick grin flared and died on his face. “You would. So, what we have is something very dark and quick that moves independently, and leaves no footprints, no scent, and no magical trace behind.”

“That sounds right.”

He walked over to their packs and handed hers to her. “That sound like anything you’ve ever run into before?”

She shrugged her pack on. “Nope.”

“So what we really have is an anomaly.”

“That’s about the size of it, although it’s only an anomaly to us,” she pointed out. “It might be a perfectly natural part of the environment here.”

After donning his own pack, he belted it at the waist. His head bent, he said, “I don’t like anomalies.”

“I don’t either.” She looked at the shadowed forest ahead of them. “In my experience, there’s almost always an explanation. And it’s hardly ever a good one.”

TWELVE

Quentin rubbed his face. It felt like his life was full of too many goddamn anomalies. So many of them centered on the sexy, frenzy-inducing female who stood beside him.

His modern mind kept snagging on the concept of her identity. Part of him kept insisting she was masculine, but then he would look at her, really look at her, and realize that she was feminine in a way he had never known before—strong, confident, and completely devoid of the mannerisms and characteristics that popular culture defined as femininity.

She wasn’t ruled by fear of defying conventions. As far as he could determine, she wasn’t ruled by fear in any form, and all her emotions were painted in primary colors. At times it seemed primitive, even exasperating, but it was always colorful and exhilarating.

When she loved someone, she would do so completely and passionately, no reservations or qualifications, or the kind of emotional blackmail that said “I will love you if you will only do this, or be that.”

What would it be like to be loved with that kind of … purity?

He looked at her and experienced a sense of freedom, a previously unnamed, unidentified emotion. Something inside of him had cut loose, the wild, dangerous part of him he usually kept under such strict control. It felt like it ran unfettered.

Usually the only time he felt this way was when he had turned into the panther and took to an uninhabited area so that he could roam without concern of running into humans or other creatures. Where that wild part of him was going and what it would do when it got there, he didn’t know.

He forced himself away from useless reverie and concentrated on the tasks at hand.

“All right,” he said. “I think we should keep moving. We don’t have any shelter here, and we do have a lot of shadowy places where any number of anomalies can hide.”

“Agreed,” she said. “We should keep going until we find shelter, break out of the forest, or until morning comes.”

Without any further discussion, he headed off the bridge and away from the path, into the forest. Rather to his surprise, she allowed him to take the lead without argument. They moved quietly through the underbrush. Even though they hadn’t been attacked, all of his senses remained on high alert. He didn’t like the number of unanswered questions they had accumulated.

He guessed that the coastal scene they had seen earlier was as much as twenty to twenty-five miles away from the cliff house. Moving carefully through the dark as they were, they wouldn’t reach that before morning. He was starting to get tired, which meant Aryal had to be getting tired too. Instinct drove him now, and he didn’t think it would be a good thing to go into the city without getting some rest first.