Kinked (Elder Races #6)(49)

He said as much to Aryal telepathically.

Makes sense, she said simply.

He waited but she didn’t say anything more. It was another one of those anomalies that he had begun to accumulate. They weren’t arguing nearly as much as they should have been. Since she could pull an argument out of thin air, that probably meant she was plotting something, but his whack-job radar wasn’t going off, so he doubted his own conclusion.

It was interesting to experience her as an asset, as opposed to a drain or an outright danger. He could acknowledge that her skill set made her useful in her sentinel position in investigations, but that was an intellectual observation. Now he was actually experiencing what it was like to work with her as a partner, and she was every bit as good as he would have expected any of the other sentinels to be—fast, sharp, relevant and logical.

He liked what he saw of Aryal as a working partner. He respected it, respected her. That was another anomaly.

Of course so far they hadn’t really had to interact much with other people. And they did pretty much kick the shit out of each other already. He grinned.

Time became a formless thing that passed uncounted in the shadows. He sank into his animal awareness, feeling the muscles of his body work while he noted the details of his surroundings. It wouldn’t do to relax and slip into carelessness. He watched the more intense shadows, looking for anything that seemed especially dark and that moved differently than any of the leafy fronds or tree limbs that swayed in the breeze.

When he finally came up to another tree line, the change was so abrupt it surprised him. He stopped before breaking out of the underbrush, and Aryal brushed his back before she stopped too.

They had come upon a meadow with long, coarse grasses that looked tall enough to come up to their chests. That meadow could disguise a lot. He glanced at the sky that was beginning to lighten in one direction. Okay, he was calling that direction east. Dawn was not that far away. It was still too dark to see much beyond what was close in front of them, but he guessed that, as long as they had hiked, they had reached the other side of the forest and were now probably a few miles away from the coast.

“I don’t think we’re going to get any better place to stop before we reach the coast,” he said. “And I don’t want to get there without having had some rest first.”

“We should camp here,” she said. “And take watches. That way we’ll both get some sleep.”

“Works for me.”

Aryal lost a coin toss, which meant Quentin could rest first. He ate a protein bar quickly to stave off the worst of any hunger pains. It didn’t have enough calories to satisfy him, especially after the expenditure of energy over the last two days, but it would be enough to let him take a nap.

He stretched out underneath a tree to catch any shade it might give after the sun came up, and he used his pack as a pillow. Aryal stood nearby, leaning back against another tree with her arms crossed and one booted heel hiked up on the trunk. She didn’t face either the meadow or the forest, but positioned herself at an angle so that she could look easily in either direction.

She looked comfortable, capable, and alert enough to stand guard all day.

He watched her surreptitiously from under lowered eyelids as she tore open a protein bar and took a bite. She had tied her hair back with a piece of leather, but a few fine strands fell forward on the clean line of her forehead. The T-shirt she had worn underneath her sweater was a plain white cotton tank top. It hugged the long slim line of her torso, highlighting her high, slight br**sts and the twin peaks of her ni**les.

His body clenched with hunger. He thought of how her br**sts felt in his hands, the softness giving way under his touch, how her nipple tasted in his mouth.

Unbidden, what she had said yesterday played through his mind again.

If you do anything to actively try to hurt any of the people I care about—that’s when I will come after you, and I won’t stop until I hurt you bad, or you end up dead, or maybe even both those things. That’s my bottom line.

It really was quite simple.

From everything he had heard, harpies rarely gave anybody a second chance at anything. If you got on their shit list, you usually stayed there forever. She really might not care about his smuggling past, but he also realized what a huge concession she had made when she let go of her investigation. There wouldn’t be any more chances after that.

If she ever found out what he had done to Dragos and Pia last year, he had no doubt what would happen. It would be open war again, and this time the hostilities between them wouldn’t stop until one of them was dead.

That was the thought that finally leashed the unfettered, wild part of him.

He turned his head away from her. Only then was he able to get some sleep.

She woke him after a couple of hours, and without a word they exchanged positions. Dawn had broken, bringing humid warmth. He felt sweaty and dirty, and he wished they were near running water again.

Aryal curled on her side and threw part of her jacket over her face. After that she didn’t move. Quentin rummaged in his pack for the last of his food. He had one more can of beef stew, which he would be heartily glad to see the last of, and three protein bars left. He ate all of it except a final protein bar. He wanted to eat that too, but instead he tucked it away. The promise of new, different food was close, but it wasn’t with them yet.

The sun rose higher and so did the heat. The area was quiet except for the occasional drone of insects and trill of birdsong. No unexplained shadows, no anomalies, at least not any within sight.