“And you looked incredibly handsome when you were in your lion form,” I said.
“Do you think I’m sexy as a lion?” Ayden boastfully squared his shoulders.
I nodded. “Uh-huh. Absolutely.” I squeezed his hand and winked at him.
He pretended to growl in my ear. “You are a naughty little thing.”
I batted my lashes coyly and laughed. “Am I?”
“Yes.” His gorgeous ocean eyes shimmered mischievously.
“Let’s get to the shifter camp before you undress me with your eyes,” I whispered back in his ear.
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to,” he said and playfully bumped shoulders with me as we strolled along at a careful pace.
“Well, I must say, I am really thankful for your company tonight,” I confessed.
“Why is that?” He pitched a curious eyebrow into a triangle over his gorgeous blue eyes.
“You are distracting me from my fears,” I said.
His demeanor altered bluntly, and he frowned. “What kind of fears?”
“You want the truth?” I asked and gave him a guarded smile.
“Always.” He resolutely nodded his head.
I inhaled a deep batch of chilly mountain air. “Don’t hate me, but—”
“First of all, I could never hate you,” Ayden interrupted.
“I’m a little apprehensive about going to this rebellion camp,” I blurted out. I just wanted to get the conversation over with and out into the open.
“You don’t have to be nervous about it,” Ayden said. His features were poised. He didn’t appear to be angered by my statement. Then he chuckled and rolled his eyes. “Of course, everyone seems to be a little hesitant. So, I guess I understand.”
I gave him a smile of admiration. It was big of Ayden to try to branch out and detect other people’s emotions on a subject.
“Thank you.”
“Do you want to tell me why you feel scared of going to the rebellion camp?”
“Besides the fact that it has the word rebellion in it?” I chuckled and glanced at him.
He smiled. “I promise that they won’t be violent toward their own.”
“I just have trust issues with strangers…”
“You trusted Blaze enough to go into the bunker with him,” Ayden reminded me.
“Yes, well, in some respects, I didn’t really have a choice.”
“Because your leg was broken?”
I grinned and pointed at him. “Ah-ha! You are very observant, aren’t you?”
“What’s my prize? A kiss?” He cast me an eager grin that made him look irresistible.
“Maybe.” I laughed. “You sure have a tempting and zesty appeal.”
“Why, thank you.” Ayden pretended to cast me a little bow of gratitude.
He was witty and charming and charismatic. He hit all the checkmarks in my book, and I hoped that his friends weren’t leading us into a trap. It wasn’t Ayden I distrusted. It was everyone else. And by everyone else, I meant Otto and Leo. Sure, I wanted to be able to believe that their intentions were pure, but they were still humans at the end of the day.
As if reading my mind, Ayden turned to face me. “I know what you are thinking,” he said with a somber tone.
“You do?”
“Yes.” His eyes were warm and gentle. “I trust Leo and Otto with my life. If I can do that, I can trust them with anyone else’s too.”
“Well—”
“They would never lead us into danger.” His tone was adamant.
“Thank you for trying to make me feel better,” I said and tried to reach his spirit with a smile.
He stroked my cheek and his demeanor softened. He whispered in my ear, giving me goose bumps of pleasure.
“Everything is going to be all right. That, I can promise you. I can’t pinpoint a specific time and place where we will be able to put our worries and fears in the rearview mirror, but that day will come.”
He sounded so confident that I had to believe him.
He was also intelligent. All four of them were. They were calculated. They were never rash. They thought out decisions before they acted on them. I had no reason to think that this would become a disaster.
“Maybe I’m just a little unsettled about the fact that there are so many Master guards out on the prowl now,” I suggested.
“If any of them dare to come near you, I will maul them to death.” Ayden’s tone was defiant, and his eyes flickered with severity.
“I have no doubt that you would,” I said with a reassuring nod. I met his gaze and locked in on those handsome eyes of his. “I feel safe with you.” It was the most undeniable fact I could tell him that involved our relationship.
“Good.” He seemed pleased with my admission.
His cheery demeanor emerged once again. He looked prideful, but not in a flashy, arrogant way. He looked like he wanted to impress me and was genuinely delighted when he met his own challenge.
“Can I kiss you?” He asked again, but it wasn’t domineering. He wasn’t pushing me to make a decision, which I liked. He was actually being quite adorable about it.
“I’ve been craving the taste of your lips all night…” he continued.
“Well, when you try to sell it that way…” I said and grinned at him teasingly.
“Can I take that as a yes?” His features turned boyish for a brief moment as he stared at me with an expectant smile.
“Yes.” I chuckled. “How could I resist you either? You are far too cute. And your charm…”
I felt the urgency to run my hair through his blond locks and run my hands up and down his chiseled, bronzed body. The respect and awe I had for him was enormous. We had amazing chemistry together, and he was extremely gorgeous.
His lips touched mine and my heart fluttered. My pulse pounded through my ears.
An intense sizzle of desire prickled through me as if my blood were carbonated. The bubbles of euphoria surged through me and sent me on an exhilaratingly wild ride. I gently grazed my hands through his hair.
He lifted my chin and looked sensually into my eyes, making my heart drum with delight. His touch was thrilling. I couldn’t resist the way his lust-glazed eyes sparkled, looking directly into the core of my soul.
His tongue playfully explored my mouth. I parted my lips to invite him in and he groaned with pleasure. I tingled from head to toe. He rocked my world, and judging by the gleeful smirk on his lips, he knew of his massive effect over me. He had the ability to make me swoon and I’d be first to admit that fact.
After he pulled away, the touch of his mouth against mine still lingered for a few blissful seconds.
“When I was in the Master castle, I never would have imagined a guy like you being interested in me,” I confessed.
Ayden looked profoundly empathetic. “You must never degrade yourself like that.”
I chuckled ironically. “I don’t know why I would ever feel inadequate. I mean it’s not like I grew up in a Master castle or anything.”
Ayden stared at me as I waited for him to accept my sarcasm. When he finally smiled, we kept moving along with the troop.
“You have an amusing quality about you that I love, did you know that?”
“I try to lighten the mood when I can,” I said.
“You are a pearl in a sea full of empty clams.”
I chuckled. “I think I’ll take that as a weird compliment.”
“You should.” He nodded animatedly.
“Let’s move faster,” Otto called out from a few steps in front of us, bringing us crashing back down to reality. “We are almost there. I can smell the smoke from their bonfires.”
I sniffed the air and the scent wafted through my nostrils. My heartbeat rapidly intensified.
Ayden clutched my hand harder than before, a protective gesture that flooded me with security. The hard layers were back, but I appreciated the moments of softness between us and the magic of the kiss we’d just shared.
&n
bsp; “I’m ready,” I said with a determined nod. “After all, we are in this together, am I right?”
Ayden didn’t skip a beat. He looked at me with admiration. “You are one hundred percent accurate. We are in this together, forever and always.”
Now all I had to do was pray that the hundreds of other shifters in the rebellion camp would share that same mentality.
9
Blaze
I was the first of our group of traveling shifters, aching yet soldiering on, to see the orange glow of several campfires coming from the rebellion base.
The tents were peppered across the horizon around the base, which was centered on a plateau that wasn’t as mountainous as the caves.
My friends and I were tired. We were dirty, our skin caked in grime. We were broken emotionally, but we were charging full steam ahead, forcing ourselves to reach a new destination that gave way to promise of a brighter future.
“We are almost there,” I said and smiled at Sophia.
Her eyes sparkled with a mixture of intrigue and reluctance.
Cameron flanked my left, looking a little disenchanted.
I nudged him gently in the side. “We will get there before you have to shift. I can see the campfires, can you?”
Cameron lifted his chin and set his eyes on the starlit sky. He pointed upward. “I can see the embers.”
I glanced up and noticed that there were a few ashes fluttering down like petals from the dome of darkness above our heads, seemingly coming from nowhere in the night sky. It was as if they just appeared out of thin air and tickled against our cheeks and shoulders.
“Yeah…” I said with a hushed tone, trailing off. As much as I wanted this idea of meeting up with a shifter rebellion camp, I still wasn’t one hundred percent sure that we were exploring the safest option available.
Of course, at the moment we didn’t have any alternatives, so we were just going to put ourselves out there and hope for the best. It was daunting to not know what lay ahead, but at least we had each other.
If we were thrown into the snake pits, we had a better chance at survival if we stuck together.
Inside, I was growing more anxious by the minute. I had a father and three brothers still out there in the world somewhere. I clung to the hope that they were still alive, fending for themselves in the wilderness or in hiding somewhere just like I was.
What if they were here at this rebellion base? My heart pounded at the prospect. What would I even say if I saw them again? Would they take me in as their own? More importantly, would they accept Sophia? I couldn’t imagine a life without her in it.
As we approached the camp, we noticed that it was overcrowded, more so than we were expecting. There seemed to be hundreds of tents scattered across the flattened land. The vast space seemed to stretch on forever with rebellion shifters moving about from tent to tent as if nothing was out of the ordinary and it was perfectly normal to be camping in the middle of the woods together, hours away from any trace of civilization.
Sophia craned her neck and gave me a curious glance. “Are you all right?”
I looked at her and smiled. “I’m fine. Why do you ask?”
My heart was still drumming anxiously because I didn’t know what to expect from of this adventure.
Sophia shrugged. Her eyes were glowing under the moonlight with curiosity. “I don’t know…you just seem a little…distracted, that’s all.”
I kicked at a pebble and chuckled. If I couldn’t be honest with Sophia, then who could I be honest with?
“Well, to tell you the truth...I’m a little nervous that I might see my father and brothers here at this camp.”
Sophia’s eyes lit up. “Are you serious? Do you really think that you could reunite with them here?”
“Maybe,” I said with a casual shrug so that she wouldn’t think that I was overly stressing about the situation, even though inside, my head was roaring with uncertainty.
“I hope that happens for you.” Sophia gave my hand a delicate squeeze. The unique beauty in her sage eyes breathed new life into me. Her smile was pure and earnest.
“I don’t even know what I would say to them if I saw them again,” I admitted with a sheepish chuckle.
“Sometimes actions speak louder than words,” she said. “You could start with a hug or a handshake.”
“A bear hug maybe?” I gave her a sideways grin.
She erupted into a sensational chime of laughter. “Good one,” she said after a few seconds.
“Thanks.” I beamed. I had fun with her. She brought out the playful side of me.
“If it makes you feel any better, I’m a little wary of approaching this base too,” she confessed.
I looked at her. She was profoundly beautiful. “I know.”
“There are so many of them.” She skeptically eyed the tents that were lined up in rows that seemed to go on forever, practically stacked on top of each other.
“There appears to be a substantial number,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t be there to protect you every step of the way.”
Sophia’s smile was heartfelt. “Thank you. That really means a lot.”
“This place is like an army in itself,” Ayden said.
His eyes were wild and wide with what I recognized to be budding mischief. Ayden loved a challenge. He also loved attention. I knew exactly how he worked. The more people took notice him, the better his mood.
“We need to check in with Ralph first,” Otto mentioned as we wandered closer.
“Who is Ralph?” Sophia glanced at him.
“He’s the shifter leader of this rebellion group,” Otto said. “His tent is just right there at the edge. He and his generals stay close to the front just in case something crazy happens.”
“Good thinking.” Ayden nodded as if he had the strategies and tactics of a rebellion camp all planted out in his head too.
We followed Leo and Otto to the giant tent where the supposed Ralph was staying. I rubbed my nervous palms on my pants and attempted to keep myself composed so that the others wouldn’t see how unraveled I felt about the situation.
I just wanted to get it over with. I needed to know right then if we were going to be safe here or not. If we weren’t, I had no idea what other type of plan we could fall back on. We were at least a couple of hours away from the caves by this point.
I had to gear myself up for a confrontation. I was practiced enough on the subject, so I had confidence that I could hold my own against a potential enemy.
I tried to reason with myself. It was impractical to think that a fleet of shifters like this would be anything but welcoming and supportive, having gone through similar situations to those we had endured.
I kept glancing over my shoulder as if my family was suddenly going to pop out of one of the neighboring tents. It was a ridiculous pipe dream, but I couldn’t shut off the sensation that I might find them against the odds.
We stepped right up next to the large tent as a group. There was a glowing light on the inside, cutting through some of the grayness of the tent’s color. It looked like it had faded over time in the sun.
Otto cleared his throat. “Ralph? We’re here.”
He exchanged a guarded glance with Leo that made my heart feel like it was slowly sinking down my throat and dropping into my stomach with a splash.
“Otto?” I heard a man’s voice from inside the tent and then a little rustling as a few shadowy figures moved about within.
The sound of a zipper cut through the silence and a man with a thick handlebar mustache and slicked back, jet black hair emerged, slouching at first and then straightening up once he was out in the open.
“You made it!” the man proclaimed and reached his hands to the sky as if to declare glory to the gods above for the fortune.
Ralph extended his arms and roped Otto in for a massive hug and a brotherly slap on the back. Then he realized that Otto came with friends.
“This is the group?” He nudged
his chin in our directions. His eyes slowly scanned us, one by one, as if sizing us up and trying to sniff out any threats to his camp.
“Yes, sir,” Otto nodded. “I hope that’s okay?” A touch of trepidation laced his voice.
Ralph rubbed the edge of his mustache where it curled at the tip and parked his other hand on his hip. He narrowed his eyes as he continued to assess us with a scrutinizing stare.
Every muscle in my body involuntarily tensed. This guy didn’t look like he trusted us as far as he could throw us, but the feeling was mutual in my opinion.
“Yes,” Ralph nodded after several agonizing seconds, during which I thought he was going to boot us all out on our asses into the cold and empty void of darkness from where we’d just emerged. “Any friend of Otto’s is a friend of mine.”
He gave our brood a tiny, yet respectful bow.
Otto and Leo both exhaled with visible relief seeping into their slack shoulders.
“Thank you so much,” Leo said and vigorously pumped Ralph’s hand. “You have no idea how much we appreciate this.”
“All of you shifters?” Ralph asked as he eyed us one by one, still absentmindedly stroking the mustache. He had a toothpick in his mouth too, that he moved from side to side.
“Yes,” Ayden said with puffed out shoulders, speaking on behalf of the group. “Every one of us.”
“Good.” Ralph nodded and seemed to approve of Ayden’s confirmation.
“We can get you set up here with a couple of tents. We have some extras just in case.”
I felt the aura of Sophia’s demeanor lighten beside me. It seemed as if we were going to be in good hands after all.
I noticed in my peripheral vision that Cameron was beginning to shift his weight uncomfortably. His hands fidgeted awkwardly at his sides.
“Pull yourself together, man,” I whispered out of the corner of my mouth, so as not to raise the suspicion of those around us with whom we weren’t familiar.
“I have to get going soon,” Cameron said. His eyes were glazed over with anxiety.
“I’ll walk you to the woods,” I whispered back.
Cameron looked relieved at my offering. “Okay.”
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