Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 132491 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132491 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
The sight of his bronzed, muscled back and shoulders, plus aromium, is a combination that makes me start panting like an overworked dog. My lips part and the dry underwear I just put on becomes a little less dry. He kicks off his boots and pulls his wet socks off one at a time, and even that’s sexy.
Then he unfastens his pants and I hear him unzipping them. I shouldn’t be able to hear that from this far away, which means it’s the aromium.
My heart pounds, my breasts heavy and my throat dry. It takes every ounce of my self-control to turn around right before he pushes his pants down.
The water ripples when he steps into the pool. That’s the luckiest water in existence. It gets to touch him all over.
Remembering that we could be ambushed at any second, I scan the clearing and jungle. I refuse to die because I’m daydreaming about a man instead of paying attention to my surroundings.
Marcus is done within five minutes. I bite my fist as he gets dressed, fighting my urge to turn around.
“I’ll hang up our wet clothes,” I say, gathering his from the ground.
He only eats a couple bites of dried beef. I’m ravenous, so I eat more beef, a mango and some cashews. We haven’t spoken much, because I don’t trust what I might say.
“Sleep for a couple of hours,” he says. “We’ll get moving again after that.”
I’m exhausted when I curl up on my side, my bare feet dry and my stomach no longer growling with hunger. Even though I still want to get closer to Marcus, my feelings are dulled by my fatigue.
If our urges for each other are only going to get stronger from here, I don’t know how we’re going to get through what could be weeks—or more—of searching.
I’m close to giving in to the pull of sleep when two yellow lights in the darkened jungle catch my attention. I lift my head up.
“What are those lights?” I ask.
“Flavius’s eyes.”
The wolf. I squint and see that he’s sitting at the edge of the jungle, watching us. It doesn’t make me nervous. Somehow, I know he’s not here to hurt us, but to protect us if we need it.
34
Five Days Later
I’ve received a report of a new practice at the Rising Tide camp called “The Circle”, in which any camp member can challenge another to a one-on-one fight to the death. It’s a primal, but effective means of incentivizing hard work and cohesion.
- Excerpt from the journal of Dr. Randall McClain
It’s been raining for hours. We got caught out in it while searching on the beach, so we were soaking wet by the time we found shelter beneath the overhang of a rock formation.
It’s not a perfect setup; the wind is blasting sheets of wind at us. But I’m too cold to look for someplace better. I’m huddled against Marcus’s side, his arm around me.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
It’s been a fairly miserable five days of nearly nonstop searching. Two days ago, Marcus found a button on the ground, so we’ve been combing the radius around where he found it as methodically as we can. We haven’t seen any sign of Rising Tide, and there’s been minimal radio traffic from the other teams.
“That photo on the dresser in your room ... is that your mom?”
A few seconds pass and I’m not sure he’s going to respond. “Yeah. Her name was Natalie. She was an emergency department nurse.”
“Is that why you wanted to study medicine?”
“She was definitely an influence. She was a single mom from the time I was five, and there were times I had to hang out in the staff lounge for a few hours because she couldn’t get a sitter.”
It’s hard for me to imagine Marcus as a little boy. He doesn’t seem like he was ever silly or carefree.
“Can I ask what happened to your dad?”
I feel his scoff beneath my cheek. “He was a deadbeat who did us both a favor when he took off permanently.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. My mom taught me everything I needed to know about being a man. She worked sixty hours a week and never missed one of my football games.”
I sit up straight so I can see his face. “Sounds like she was a great mom.”
A hint of a smile quirks at the corners of his lips. “The best. She made me volunteer a few hours a week in the hospital day care from the time I was ten. I changed diapers, helped kids learn to read, and rocked sick kids to sleep. And as soon as I hit high school, every time I left to do something with friends, she’d ask me if I was ready to be a father. Of course I said no. Then she’d give me this look and tell me to remember that when I thought about having sex.”