Page 24 of Lies That Bleed
“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a grin, aflirtygrin.
Interesting. I’d never considered Alek as a romantic partner before. The last year of my life had been consumed by Jace.
But I was too tired to care or even process that. The second I crawled in my sleeping bag, I was out.
Chapter
Eight
Four hours later on the dot, dutiful Alek woke me up and then crawled into his sleeping bag for some rest. I brushed my teeth, ate some jerky, and drank some coffee by the fire with Dev and a few of Kohen’s alliance.
I could see the sleeping form of Kohen in his bag just at the edge of the forest, and I wondered why he hadn’t bonded with anything today. I wondered that for myself as well. The rhesus monkey would have been quite impressive, but impressive enough for my father? I wasn’t sure, so I passed. Coyotes were known for being untrustworthy tricksters, and I wasn’t sure what my people would think of that bonding, so I passed on that as well. I feared I was getting into the dangerous zone of day three with no bonding, when you were either forced out of The Wilds by the imperial soldier mop-up crew, and a total shame to society,or you bonded with a really lower-level creature out of desperation. This was the night that lottery winners started to turn on each other, worrying that there weren’t enough creatures for all of us. Which I was starting to believe was true. We hadn’t seen many out there today, unless we weren’t good at tracking. But it seemed they were sparse. More so than I thought.
I repacked my bag, taking inventory of what I had left, trying to think up a gameplan for the next day, when I noticed Kohen rise slowly out of his sleeping bag, grab his pack, and look back at Dev.
Dev nodded once and then Kohen peered at me.
I frowned and he turned, slipping off into the woods.
What the hell was that? Where was he going?
I shouldered my own pack and started after him, but Dev reached out to stop me.
“Let him go,” he warned.
“Don’t touch me,” I told him.
He removed his hand and I nudged Roc awake with my foot. He’d been sleeping a while by my count, but still looked bleary-eyed. I didn’t trust Dev to protect a sleeping Alek.
“Look out for Alek. I’ll be back in a bit,” was all I said.
Roc nodded, rising out of his sleeping bag and asking zero questions. That’s what I liked about the Imperial Fleet brats, we all knew how to take orders.
I had to run to catch up, but I chased Kohenthrough the tree line and followed him into a deeper part of the woods. He was consulting a map with an ember-lit headlamp that looked Fleet-issued. Another thing he stole.
“Coming along for the ride, princess?” Kohen said without looking back.
I rolled my eyes, sidling up to him. “How did you know it was me?”
He flicked his gaze my way. “Your smell.”
I scrunched my face up and sniffed my armpit. “I could use a shower,” I agreed.
He grinned, and stars have mercy my thighs clenched with need when he did. “Not that. You smell like coconut, vanilla.”
Oh. My shampoo?
I flicked my gaze to the map. “Where are you going?” We had been heading northwest for days and I feared we were dangerously close to the Luska border.
He swallowed hard and stopped walking. “Listen, I don’t want to hurt you, but if you try to stop me I will.”
I took a step backward. “What do you mean? Stop you doing what?”
He handed me the map and I peered down at it. I’d seen hundreds of maps of The Wilds. It was like a rite of passage to have one hanging in your house, but never had I seen one that looked this old, this detailed. The river cut through the center, the higher hilly regions, and the circled upper left corner that read Talanagi—the left corner that was in the Luskaportion of The Wilds, beyond the wall we’d built to keep them out and lessen their attacks.
I gasped. “You’re not…”
He yanked the map from me. “I am. It’s clear to me now that if I don’t do something like this, your father will never stop hunting me.” He lifted his shirt to reveal his eight perfectly defined abs and two more large gashes that had been stapled.
