by Quinn Loftis
Josie glanced at Gabby and winked. When she looked back at her mate, her face went blank. “Actions speak louder than words, mate. Guess we will see when we get to work, won’t we?”
Liam leaned over to Gabby, “She’s messing with him, isn’t she?”
Gabby nodded. “And it’s hilarious.”
He shook his head. “You chicks are killers, babe. Grabbing a man by his balls and dragging them around just for fun.”
“If it’s so bad, why do you keep coming back? Why does Miles stay with Josie?”
“Don’t say it, man,” Miles said quickly, but Liam was already speaking.
“Because of the other things you ladies can do with our—”
Gabby realized what he was going to say and slapped a hand over his mouth.
“By the goddess,” Professor Frost muttered.
“I realize he’s … well … him, and that gets hard to deal with,” Zuri said with a smirk. “But according to Elias, he’s quite powerful, so try not to push him into the volcano. We might need him later.”
“I’ll give it my best,” Gabby said. Before she could pull her hand away, Liam ran his tongue across it. Gabby’s eyes narrowed. “Nope. Changed my mind.” She huffed as she yanked her hand back. “Don’t assign us to work together. If you do, make sure we are nowhere near the top, or his ass is going in.”
“Why did Terrick put them in a group together?” Professor King asked Professor Frost. Despite the cargo pants and shirt he wore, he didn’t look like a warrior. Gabby figured he probably wore suits because he held himself like a regal, uppity businessman. Not like a man ready to jump into action at a moment's notice.
“It’s necessary,” Frost answered, though she didn’t elaborate.
Gabby wanted to shake her professor and scream like a four-year-old, but she didn’t want to look like a child. Especially not in front of Liam. Nope, not Liam. I totally meant not in front of Zuri, she said as she mentally kicked herself.
“Let’s get this show on the road,” Josie piped in. “It feels like Mauna Loa is getting irritated just listening to us.”
“Agreed,” Frost said. “Some of us will work in pairs and some alone. Though this may change. It depends on what it takes to keep the volcano from causing damage.”
“What about the other volcanoes?” Gabby asked.
“Pray to the goddess that they don’t decide to join the party,” Zuri said. “But if they do, we have to do our best to minimize the damage they might do.”
Gabby nodded and took a deep breath. She focused on Professor Frost, who spoke again.
“Zuri will work at the base of the mountain. She’s going to shape a deep crater to catch the flowing lava. Miles and Josie will pull water up from the earth while Professor King uses the cold air to cool the water further so when Gabby, Liam, and I direct the lava that escapes down the mountain, it will be trapped in the crater and cool quickly.”
“What happens when the crater is full?” Liam asked.
“We shift to another side of the mountain and repeat the process,” Frost answered. “The goal is to get the lava low enough inside the mountain so that we can freeze it.”
“Wouldn’t that happen eventually anyway?” Gabby asked. “Since the temperature is dropping?”
“Yes,” her professor answered. “But probably not before Mauna Loa erupted and caused major damage and killed many.”
Gabby nodded. “Gotcha.”
“So, while you three”—Professor King pointed at Frost, Liam, and Gabby—“head up the mountain, Zuri will begin the crater.”
“Exactly,” Frost said.
“Can’t we just open a portal?” Gabby asked. She felt like she was asking a bunch of stupid questions, but she hated not knowing what was going on. She figured it was better to ask and look dumb than not ask and actually be dumb.
“Not to the top,” Zuri told her. “Too much of a risk that you might end up stepping off into the volcano.”
Gabby felt like slapping her forehead. “Because if you’ve never actually been there, you can’t portal into an exact location,” she said as she remembered what she’d been taught about portals her first year at Crimson Academy.
“Don’t feel bad,” Liam said softly. “It’s easy to forget things in high-stress situations.”
Gabby glanced at him and realized he was being sincere. “Thanks,” she said, feeling herself soften a bit toward him.
“Alright,” Frost said as she opened a portal. “We’re going up about three-fourths of the way. I checked the measurements of the mountain and have estimated approximately where that is.” She looked over the group, meeting each of their eyes. “The goddess be with you. Be smart and stay alive.”
“Yes,” Zuri said. “Do that. The paperwork that we’d have to do if one of you dies would make me want to reincarnate you so I could punch you in the throat.”
“Good to know you care,” Liam said as he put his hand over his heart.
“I do care,” Zuri scoffed. “I care about not having to do paperwork.”
“Let’s go, Gabby and Liam, before Zuri decides offing Liam is worth the hassle.”
Gabby laughed as she looked at Liam.
He gave her a crooked grin. “They can joke about killing me if it will get a laugh out of you, beautiful. You have a very lovely laugh.”
Gabby’s eyes widened and her own smile fell. She didn’t know what to do with those kinds of compliments. She wasn’t used to them and didn’t know if she could actually trust what Liam told her. She hurried after Frost and through the portal, all the while trying to ignore the feelings Liam was stirring within her. He was awakening a longing she thought she’d successfully snuffed out. Apparently, Liam carried the match that could relight the flames. And now she was using stupid analogies to mentally describe her feelings. “Damn male.” She growled.
“He might surprise you,” Professor Frost said as Gabby stepped up next to her. She’d obviously heard what Gabby had said.
“Do you have extraordinary hearing or something?” Gabby asked her.
Frost smiled. “No. You just talk loud when you’re irritated.”
“She’s right,” Liam said from behind her, having stepped through the portal without Gabby hearing him. “You talk out loud when you’re pissed, and you don’t try to hide what you’re saying.”
Gabby felt her cheeks heat. She knew why she did it. She’d spent a lot of time alone in all those foster homes. There was no one there to hear her so it didn’t matter how loud she spoke. Apparently, it was a habit she hadn’t rid herself of. Good grief, no wonder she didn’t have any friends. Everyone in her school probably thought she was nuts walking around talking to herself.
“It’s rather endearing,” Liam quickly added.
She snorted. “Whatever you say, Aquaman.”
“Is that supposed to be an insult?” Liam asked. “Because all you did was stroke my ego.”
“No talking about stroking things,” Frost yelled.
Gabby turned and realized her professor was a good fifty feet ahead of them.
“Bloody hell,” Liam cursed as he grabbed Gabby’s hand and pulled her along. “How the hell does she walk so fast?”
“You should see her run,” Gabby said as she remembered their training sessions and how Frost had completely embarrassed all of them. Liam started to jog, trying to catch up to the woman striding away from them. “Okay, now she’s just showing off.”
Gabby laughed. Frost totally was showing off.
The vegetation was thick, slowing their progress. But after about ten minutes, they’d finally closed the distance between them and Frost.
“I can’t believe how cold it is, even this close to the top,” Liam said.
Gabby hadn’t even thought about the cold. All she’d been able to think about was how her hand felt in his. Liam was the only guy who’d ever held her hand. She wondered if she would feel the same tingles if any other guy had touched her, or was it only him? Could he really be he
r soul bonded as Professor Frost thought? And was that why every time he touched her, she wanted to climb him like a damn coconut tree? Why a coconut tree?
“What’s that about coconut trees?” Liam asked.
Gabby groaned. “I’ve got to learn to keep my freaking mouth shut.”
“Please don’t,” he said. “I feel like it’s the only way you’re going to let me in.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Gabby muttered.
“Why?” Liam asked, not sounding the least bit out of breath, which only irritated her more.
“Why what?” she asked, attempting to keep her breath as steady as possible.
“Why won’t you get to know me? What’s so bad about that?” He sounded genuinely curious.
Gabby didn’t understand it. Why on earth would he want to know anything about her? Hell, once he did find out her past, he’d be hoofing it away from her as fast as possible. That’s just what she needed for her already unraveling self-esteem. “It’s just not a good idea,” she finally answered.
“You already got a male?”
Suck a troll egg, shouldn't they be at the top already? “If I said yes, would you back off?”
“Nah,” Liam said as he tightened his grip on her hand. She’d forgotten he was even holding her hand because it felt so natural, at least after she’d gotten over the shock of it. “I’ll just find out who he is and challenge him.”
“This isn’t the middle ages, water boy,” Gabby scoffed. “You can’t just beat the crap out of a guy to get the girl you want.”
“Who says?” he asked her.
“Women everywhere.”
“Ahh, that’s right” he said, nodding his head with a small smile on his lips. “The women’s rights movement, hear me roar, and all that.”
She frowned. “Are you against women having rights?”
His head snapped around to her. “Do I look like a dumbass who wants to be caught in an angry mob of women wielding posters that declare me a hater of all things vaginal?”
Gabby burst out laughing at his words. “All things vaginal? Really?”
“Hey, I’m totally for all things vaginal. You’re not going to find any hate speech here.”
“Holy hell.” Gabby sighed “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. Though I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised, considering the things I’ve experienced around you.”
His face sobered, and he pulled her to a halt. Liam glanced up to see where Frost was, and Gabby did the same. The professor had stopped and was looking at her cell phone.
“Do you want to know the truth? What I really think?” he asked. There was no humor in his voice or playfulness in his demeanor.
Gabby stood as still as stone as she stared up into his eyes. She didn’t know how to handle this Liam. Silly, joking, inappropriate Liam. Him she could totally deal with because mostly she just rolled her eyes or verbally sparred with him. But this Liam—who looked deeply into her eyes and pleaded with her to hear him, to accept him—this Liam was beyond her emotional understanding. “I, I mean, okay, yeah, sure,” she stumbled along, feeling so out of her depth.
“I think women are amazing,” he told her as he took her other hand, so he was holding both of them in his. “This world would be so empty of joy, love, and beauty without women. Not to mention, it would probably smell really bad.”
Gabby snorted. He wasn’t wrong.
“Am I for women’s rights? Absolutely. But I also think women have a specific purpose in this world, just like men. And I think the woman’s purpose is vital to a man’s life.
“A woman brings balance to her male. She compliments his weaknesses just as he compliments hers. They fit together in so many ways, not just physically.”
Gabby was shocked when he didn’t turn that into some sort of sexual joke but instead kept speaking with intense conviction.
“I wouldn’t want to live in a world without women. I would hate to lose the chance to spend my life with a woman who could love me. Despite my shortcomings, despite my ability to be completely inappropriate, and despite the fact that I’m going to screw up so many times that it will drive her insane, she will still choose to love me and I her.
“I want the opportunity to give the woman I love everything. Everything that I am. Everything that I have. I want to provide for her, protect her, comfort her, revel in her. So, yes, I am for women. But I also want the ability to open the door for her. I want to be physically stronger than her and have her be okay with that because it means I can protect her from danger, not just bad weather with a roof over her head.”
He paused, and Gabby let out the breath she’d been holding. “You’ve really thought about this,” she said, not hiding her surprise as her eyes widened. She shifted her feet, and Liam pulled her closer as if he knew she wanted to bolt and he wasn’t going to let her. She totally would have if he wasn’t holding her hand.
“Only recently,” he admitted. “Before the soul bonded were remembered, I didn’t think I’d ever find a girl who could possibly want me or that I’d want to spend forever with. But then I met you.”
Gabby’s mind started racing. She realized he was about to lay his cards on the table, and she wasn’t ready. Her own hand was terrible, and she wanted to fold as soon as possible. But he wasn’t giving her the opportunity. He pulled her even closer and lowered his head to hers. His scent wrapped around her, and his warm breath on her face made her want to close her eyes and sink into his body.
“The second I saw you, Gabby, I knew you were her.”
“Her?” Maybe if she acted obtuse, he’d get frustrated and give up. Yeah, right. This was the guy who ignored every blunt rejection she’d given him. He wasn’t giving up any time soon, if ever.
“My soul bonded,” Liam continued, completely oblivious of the inner turmoil building in her. “You need me.”
She snorted. “Vain much?”
“And I need you,” he said, ignoring her words. “You don’t have to acknowledge it for it to be true.”
“Just because you feel a certain way, doesn’t make it true, either,” Gabby challenged.
“I agree, but this isn’t just a feeling, Gabby. It’s the truth. You were made for me, given to me by the goddess. You need my light, and I need your everything.”
Gabby shook her head and tried to tug her hand from his, but he refused to release her.
“You can feel it,” Liam said. “I know you can. I can see it in the way your body tenses every time I’m near. You are drawn to me. Your soul cries out for mine because you were made for me.”
He repeated the phrase he’d said a moment earlier, the one thing that had run across her skin like a dull razor blade because she knew there was no way it was true.
“I wasn’t made for anyone, Liam,” she said through gritted teeth. “Not even the people who brought me into this world. They made it perfectly clear I was a mistake. Now I’m just trying to do something positive in this damn world because otherwise I’m just taking up oxygen for those who are actually worthy of it.” She was practically yelling by the time she stopped speaking. Her breath was even more ragged than it had been when they’d been climbing up the mountain. Gabby suddenly felt drained. She wanted to crawl in a hole or jump into the volcano—that would work, too.
“Why the hell would you think those things?” Liam said. “You aren’t a mistake, dammit! You’re mine!”
“I’m no one’s!” she wailed back. “We are nothing,” she bellowed. “I’m sure as hell not yours!”
“Well I am yours, female! I. AM. YOURS!” His voice was so loud Gabby wondered if those at the bottom of the mountain had heard him. His chest rose and fell rapidly as he seemed to try to regain his composure. “I don’t give a damn what you say, beautiful. I am yours, and if that’s all we have for now then I can wait until you realize it and I prove it to you.
“Your parents sound like dicks. What they have said or done doesn’t matter. I will do everything I can to show you that
whatever they told you wasn’t true. They were dirt beneath your feet and didn’t have the right to breathe the same air as you. If it were in my ability, I would bring them back from the grave and beat the shit out of them before I re-buried them, alive.”
Gabby was shaking by the time Liam stopped speaking. If he wasn’t holding her hands, she’d have been running full speed in the opposite direction. She could see the cracks forming in the wall she’d erected around herself, and it terrified her. There was a time in her life when she’d believed that she could somehow earn her parents love. If only she could be good enough. If she could be normal enough. If she could make them happy. But she was never enough in any way. Gabby had forever been a disappointment to them up until the day they died.
She’d gone to their funeral and been the only one there. It was that day she knew she would never be good enough for anyone’s love. The day she decided she would never allow anyone close enough to figure out she wasn’t enough.
She purposefully set out to keep everyone at arm's length because she refused to be hurt any more. If she wasn't good enough, fine. But she wasn’t going to be continually reminded of it the way she had been by her parents.
“Gabby.” Liam breathed out her name like a prayer.
She realized they were so close she could feel his heartbeat, and it was pounding fast and hard. What was she supposed to say? What did he expect her to say?
“You don’t have to say anything,” he said.
Crap. She’d said that out loud. She was going to have to learn to keep her damn thoughts to herself.
“You just need to know that I’m not going anywhere. You aren’t going to chase me off by being mean. You aren’t going to get rid of me by ignoring me,” he said.
Did he just challenge her? Because that was not a smart thing to do.
“I’m not challenging you.”
“Shut the front door,” she growled. “Can I keep anything to myself?”
“I hope not,” Liam said. “You blurting out your thoughts is the only bone you’re throwing me, and I need all the bones I can get.”