Katie shivered. Sweat soaked her scalp, trickling down the back of her neck, but she remained eerily cold.
She tugged on Jared's hand, pulling him to the ground. She waited half-a-second for him to settle, before climbing into his lap.
He curled his muscled body around hers, holding her tight. She felt his hands trembling as he stroked her hair. She nuzzled against his neck, taking and giving comfort as her lips skimmed his collar bone toward his pulsing vein. She kissed the smooth skin of his neck, tasting his normally heady flavor mixed with the extra salt of his sweat.
Sighing, she grew calm as he held her. They remained entwined for quite some time.
After a while, Jared murmured her name and began plucking small twigs and other debris from her hair. Tilting his head, he looked at her knees and frowned.
Katie started to pull away, so he could get a better view, but his heart raced and his arms tightened around her. His fear spiked through her. He quickly shifted her in his arms so he could better see the damage.
“Sorry, I just don't want to be parted from you,” Jared said, his voice deepened, thick with emotions that slapped against her brain.
She curled her arm around him. “Hush, don't apologize for something like that, especially since I never want to let you go either."
He nodded his agreement, gently brushing dirt off her badly scraped knees. After a few seconds, he cursed the silver bracelets restricting her rapid healing ability.
Her knees must've been worse than she first suspected. She shifted her butt against him and inched forward, looking at the damage. Not much to see, the fall had covered her knees in dirt. At least, her synth laced blood had stopped the bleeding.
Simply put, Jared was overreacting to his mate being hurt. She didn't blame him. Bonded mates took the health and welfare of their beloved way too seriously.
“It’s okay now, doesn't hurt a bit,” Katie said, telling a small lie. She felt his exasperation. A quick peek at his face and the emotion quickly turned into humor.
“Either one of us could be dying and we'd reassure the other we were totally fine,” Jared said amid a rumbling purr mixed with laughter.
She smiled, relaxing against him. “True, but at least we're both in better shape than poor Emily. We dropped her so many times, she’ll be sore from head to toe.”
“At least she's alive. Nick's still down there,” Jared said, worry seeped through their bond.
Mitch groaned and Katie glanced toward him, but the sound was nothing more than a false alarm. Both her brother and Emily were out for the count.
Over the next few hours, both teens continued groaning. Or in Emily's case, she whimpered.
Beth maintained her quiet watch over Mitch.
The huge crabs kept smashing into the trees. Katie figured the beasts must smell the teens. She didn’t know why the big crabs hadn't just given up.
At least they were relatively safe. Well, unless some other smaller nasty creature showed up.
Katie's biggest worry was Sarah and Nick. They still hadn't shown up.
Katie rubbed her cheek against Jared's chest inhaling his hot pepper candy scent. The aroma of her mate wove through her, relaxing away a few more shreds of tension coursing through her body. “I’m worried about Sarah and Nick. She should've had them out of the caves by now.”
“Yeah, I agree. I've got to go back. She might be the strongest Sídhí alive, but accidents happen.”
Katie poked him in the ribs, none too gently. “We will go check on them.”
He chuckled, grabbing her hand as she tried poking him again. “You're a vicious little monster, you know that?”
“Yep,” Katie said with a grin. “Don't you forget it mister.”
Jared agreed and stood up, pulling Katie with him.
Dutchman’s Pipe
Katie glanced toward Mitch, whose sprawled body lay a few feet away from Emily’s fetal position.
Turning toward Beth’s soft purr, she watched the shifter for a few seconds. Her actions bordered on bizarre to say the least. The last time Beth spoke to Mitch, she’d been within a hair’s width of ripping her twin’s head off. Now, she couldn’t keep her hands off him.
Mitch’s head remained in her lap. She slowly caressed his face. Slender fingers lingered, cupping his cheek. Purring intensified. Her other hand, unconsciously gripped his shoulder. She was not as calm as she pretended to be.
Beth looked up. Fear shimmered in her golden eyes. She started to say something, but shook her head, returning her complete attention to Mitch.
Within Katie’s mind, pieces of an unsorted puzzle dropped into place.
Beth had been possessive of Mitch from the moment they pulled him from the tube. The girl acted like Mitch was her mate, not a complete stranger who was constantly mocking her.
Katie’s eyes widened with her startling revelation.
“Yeah, I think they are probably lifeMates as well,” Jared said, agreeing with Katie’s unspoken guess work.
“Mitch hates shifters. I mean, not just hate. Shifters were his under-the-bed boogie man when we were growing up,” Katie said worriedly.
Jared’s sympathy slid through her. “If they’re lifeMates they’ll work it out. Mitch might act like a dumb jock, but I’ve seen a spark or two of intelligence.”
Katie nodded her agreement, but she wasn’t too sure. She agreed that Mitch was smart, but she knew her brother had a huge stubborn streak. The obstinate attitude was three miles wide.
Katie moved opposite of Beth, sitting next to Mitch’s shoulder.
Jared went to check on Emily, who continued whimpering every little bit. The young vampire lay curled on her side in a ball.
Katie glanced at Mitch. His eyeballs moved under his lids. Carefully, she touched his mind with hers. The gentle connection produced a grin on Katie’s face. Leave it to her brother to fight himself.
Glancing up, she looked into Beth’s worried gaze.
Smiling at the shifter, Katie said, “I barely touched his mind, but I think he’ll be awake soon. He can’t figure out how to open his eyes, while his body insists on keeping them shut.” Katie chuckled.
Beth sighed in relief and slightly nodded her head in thanks.
“Do you think he’ll hate me?” Beth asked worriedly. Her words came out a bare whisper. The husky burr thickened her voice, where ‘you’ came out as ‘ya’ and the other words nearly blended together.
Katie blinked, not sure how to answer. She didn’t want to screw things up for her twin, but if Beth was his mate then the shifter needed all the help she could get. “Beth, it’s not you he hates.”
Beth snorted. “Yeah, right,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief.
“I meant to say, he has this really bad dislike for all shifters, but not you specifically. He used to have screaming nightmares that shifters were eating him,” Katie said, quickly snapping her mouth shut when she realized she might have dug Mitch a deeper hole.
Beth groaned, and her shoulders slumped. “What in the world could make him hate a whole race of people? I know that most Sídhí think we follow the Dhark Empire, but they’re wrong. We fought for – and gained – our freedom thousands of years ago.”
Katie sighed, desperately wishing the explanation of Mitch’s deepest fear had not been dumped in her lap. She had never told any of his secrets. She felt like a traitor.
A concern popped into her head.
What if Beth wasn’t his mate? The girl might be a really good actress, pretending she cared for him. No, she might not be his mate at all. If the shifter planned on jerking Mitch’s chain Katie would rip her to pieces, lethal khatt or not.
“Why the sudden interest in Mitch? He’s made it pretty clear how he feels about shifters. So, why bother?” Katie questioned, her chin tilted aggressively.
Beth grimaced. Clenching her hands in Mitch’s muscle shirt, she acted as if she was trying to keep Katie from snatching him away from her.
“He’s my… I mean, I a
m…” Beth snapped her mouth shut, looking frustrated as searched for the right words.
“He’s your mate?” Katie asked quietly, latching onto the girls first few words.
Beth’s eyes grew huge, widening into a look of true fear. “I never said that. Why would you think it?” she demanded.
Beth’s normal accent grew so thick Katie had to concentrate in order to understand the rapidly spoken words. When she figured them out, she grinned at the panicked look in Beth eyes. Yep, the girl was definitely Mitch’s lifeMate. It was a serious unspoken Sídhí law that kept Beth’s mouth shut.
When two perfect mates found each other, the synth crystal in their blood sang for each other. Unfortunately, the synth rarely sang at the same time between destined mates. From the many horror stories handed down through the generations, Sídhí knew better than to tell their mate that their synth sang, not if the other mate’s synth remained silent.
Katie kept her mouth shut and simply stared at Beth. Katie called her a girl, but it was obvious she had to be at least a year older than Katie was. Even hot and sweaty the girl had an aristocratic air to her. After camping out for several days, her nails remained perfectly manicured. No doubt, the girl came from a rich background.
At first, Katie thought her multi-hued hair had to be an exotic dye job. The long mane was literally streaked with a dozen different colors. Up close, Katie changed her mind, especially after she saw her khatt form.
Beth nodded her head in a shaky movement. “Please, I don’t know how you figured it out, but please don’t tell him. I know we got off to a rough start, but you know we’re each other’s only chance of having a mate.” Her whole body shuddered.
Beth’s pleading words hit Katie’s heart rock center. She and Jared had had their share of rocky road during their short relationship. In other words, been there, done that. “Beth, no worries, I’d never risk my twin’s chance at a lifeMate. He might be utterly stubborn and…”
The soft fog horn sound of another red cave mite stopped Katie mid-sentence. She jerked her head toward the pool and got a mouthful of mint for her effort. She quickly pulled the leaf out of her mouth, spitting to get any crawly critters out before she accidently swallowed them.
Beth laughed. “Sorry, I’m not laughing at you, but the look on your face was too much.”
Katie chuckled, nodding her head in agreement. “I don’t doubt it. I love mint, but I like to make sure there aren’t any bugs on it before I stick it in my mouth.”
“Agreed,” Beth said. She motioned toward the leaf Katie spit out. “I wish getting mint into those sand crabs was just as easy.”
Katie grinned, going a step further. “Well, with enough water, we could make mint-laced mud pies and feed them.”
“That’s it!” Jared exclaimed as he walked up behind Katie. “Katie, love, you are brilliant.”
He dropped next to Katie, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. His approval flowed through their bond, filling Katie with such a sudden burst of emotion she gasped.
“Are you going to play in the mud with me?” Katie asked with a twinkle in her eyes.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” he said, giving her one of his heart-stopping smiles.
“Um, hello?” Beth asked cautiously, waving her hand to gain their attention. “Should I ask or just cover my ears?”
Jared chuckled.
The humor brightening his blue eyes made Katie sigh with pleasure. She loved every part of Jared, but she especially loved the color of his eyes. Well, she loved both colors: Dark blue in the shade and the deepest, velvety black under direct sunshine. His eyes reminded her of a poem she once heard about crushed sapphires painting the turbulent sea vivid blue and bleeding black tears that colored the midnight sky.
“We’re going to make mint-packed mud pies,” Jared said, glancing toward the continued sound of the crabs pounding on the trees. “The fun part will be trying to get the mint into the crab’s mouth. We’ll have to be fairly close and nearly under them.”
Beth perked up. “I can help with that. The crabs seem to learn from their mistakes. They had started rearing up on their hind legs to dislodge me from their back. The maneuver pops their mouth open. It’s like an automatic response.” Her feral smile gave Katie the shivers, reminding her of Mitch. He had the same hungry look whenever he went hunting for a fight. Maybe they were better matched than Katie first thought.
Leaving Emily and Mitch unguarded worried her, but the three teens agreed the area seemed safe enough. The only dangerous creatures they had seen were the crabs and mites.
Luckily, they found a stream about twenty feet away.
Working together, they gathered a huge amount of mint, piling the strong smelling bundles next to the little creek. Before long, they had scattered piles of mint laced mud balls.
“You know, this was a great idea, but once we pile them into the t-shirts,” Beth motioned to Mitch and Jared’s t-shirts which lay to the side with their bottom edge knotted closed, “the mud balls are going to turn into one giant mess.”
Katie stopped what she’d been doing. Mud splattered her front, coating her hands in thick muck. She glared at the mud balls. The glare didn’t do any good, but the fierce expression made her feel better. “You’re right, but without hauling water to the tree line and making the pies there, we don’t have much choice.”
“We could use Dutchman’s pipe,” Beth said, pointing up into the tree, high above Katie’s head.
“You mean pocket vines?” Jared questioned.
Katie’s eyes widened as understanding clicked in her brain.
“Yes, the original, Earth-born vine was called Dutchman’s pipe. That was before the fairies tinkered with them, making them into really tough skinned pockets.”
“You sound like you don’t like fairies very much,” Jared commented. “I’d think a shifter wouldn’t have as much racial criticism considering you’re trying to get people not to stereo-type all of you.”
“Totally not true, I have a lot of friends that are fairies,” Beth said, shaking her head she denied the accusation. “And Haven Valley has several large regions that are predominately fairy. I treat my people equally. Anyway, most fairies stick to slight enhancements of nature, but others have tried going way beyond the edge of ethics.”
Katie cocked her head to one side. “That doesn’t sound too good.”
Beth snorted. “No, it wasn’t. Duke Mith’DeBurn ignored the problem. He’s young and way too immature. He’s actually Brianna’s older brother by a few years. Their parents died in the same freak airplane explosion that killed my grandmother. He’s a lot more gullible than Brianna is. He let a few fairies sway his judgment on gene manipulation.”
Jared hissed through clenched teeth, a look of dread appeared on his face. “Gene? As in human DNA?”
Beth grimaced, slightly shaking her head, not in denial, but in apparent embarrassment. “There’s a very small sect of people that think mundane humans should be wiped from the face of the Earth. If I didn’t know better, I’d say they were working with the Dhark Valley. Anyway,” she continued, with a weak wave of her hand, “they experimented on animals first. They altered a specific gene sequence within a group of bees and smuggled the altered bees onto Earth. We still haven’t figure out how they snuck around Haven’s security net and onto Earth without sounding the alarms.”
“That’s what happened to all the honey bees?” Katie asked horrified.
Mundane scientists across North America had been working for years, trying to figure out why hundreds of bee colonies suddenly disappeared or outright died by the thousands.
“Yeah,” Beth said. Her face tinged red and softly growled.
At first, Katie thought the girl was embarrassed. Then she heard the dangerous growl.
Beth’s hands lay tightly fisted at her sides. “We didn’t find the connection until they started playing around with mosquitoes. The West Nile Virus, as the mundane world nicknamed the sickness, was developed to mutate ov
er a ten year period jumping from insects to mundane humans. If we hadn’t caught that virus in time, the outcome would have killed the entire population, not a few thousand.”
Katie’s eyes flashed with anger. Her protective instincts for the weaker human population roared to the forefront of her brain. “I hope you caught the ones who did it.”
“Several escaped our net, but the ringleader, a very persuasive fairy, an enchanter by the name of Belinda Goreshycken, lost her head by my hand,” Beth said in a satisfied tone of voice. Her eyes, hard embers of flickering amber, reflected her blood thirsty satisfaction.
Katie looked up. The surrounding trees had a few scraggly pocket vines curled around lower limbs. Like snake vines, pocket vines loved the sun and grew much higher so they could soak up beams of sunshine. Peeking through the branches, Katie saw lots of healthy pocket vines ranging in all sizes from the size of her thumb to a foot wide.
No way did she want to climb that high up, not with silver restricting her strength and claws.
Jared headed to the nearest tree. She snorted, quickly following him. She didn’t want to climb a hundred foot tree, but she didn’t want her mate to either.
Before either of them started climbing, Beth interrupted.
“If neither of you mind, I can gather the vines a lot faster,” Beth said with a slight smile tugging on her lips. “Tree climbing is second nature for me.”
“Go for it,” Jared said. “Tree climbing is fun with a working set of claws, but I feel maimed with this bracelet on.”
Without any fuss, the petite girl’s body instantly shifted into a khatt.
Katie watched in fascination as Beth stretched her hind leg, curling hand-like toes into a fist and then relaxed. The shifter’s muscles tightened and Beth jumped toward the largest trunk, a massive blue furble tree some three feet wide. Claws dug into the spongy surface and she raced upward. Near the top, she slowed her forward momentum and carefully stepped onto a limb. A front paw-hand whipped outward, slashing a pocket vine.
Vampire's Forbidden Territory (Sídhí Summer Camp Series #2) Page 11