He bucked when I moved to loosen his saddle girth.
“Don’t be a shit!” I snapped, my patience not at its best. Not his fault, I reminded myself. He was as scared as the rest of us and with practical strangers. I forced myself to soften, placing a hand on his neck and standing as still as I could while touching him. We didn’t have time for this, but it was what I had to do if he was going to stick it out with us. Maks appeared from the cave and scooped up the two saddles and disappeared once more.
“Easy.” I slid one hand to the girth strap and loosened it, then pulled the saddle and pad slowly from his back. He let out a long low snort and I tugged him forward. I didn’t want to lead him through the crevice, that was how you got trampled. But I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t have time to get him to fully trust me. Maks stepped out as I came to the crevice. Light flickered inside.
“Fire is going. Get in there and strip,” he said.
Another time I would have smiled. Another time.
I tugged the horse after me and he leapt forward, ramming his chest into my back, which sent me flying into the cave. I fell to my knees and he trampled over me to get to his buddies, Balder and Batman, on the far side of the cave. I stayed there, breathing hard as I checked for broken bones. He’d clipped my right shoulder with his hoof, but otherwise I was okay.
Maks came through behind me and dropped the third saddle.
Without a word, he picked me up and carried me to the fire. Shem was already stripped and stuffed under some blankets near the fire.
“Lila,” Maks said, “keep the fire going.”
“You got it.” She grabbed a stick and tossed it onto the flames, then fanned them with her wings. I wanted to ask how they had gotten so much stuff together, but my teeth were chattering again as the heat slowly made its way into my body. Maks yanked off his shirt and I just stared.
Lila snickered. “She doesn’t need the fire, Maks. You just need to take your shirt off to warm her up.”
He grinned. “Could be a worse reaction.”
Even as cold as I was, I was blushing. “You’d think I was a teenager again,” I muttered. I got my cloak off and my sodden shirt halfway over my head before he helped me with it the rest of the way.
He tipped his head to the side. “You’re right, Lila, that is a cute bra.”
I reached out to slap him but he caught my fingers and kissed the tips while Lila laughed, and then he was helping me out of my pants.
“We really have to stop meeting like this,” I said.
“Nah, I like it. You need me, at least to keep you from freezing.” He slipped his arms under my legs and carried me to the fire and sat, his back against the stack of saddles. He pulled a single blanket over us and I made a noise of displeasure at such light covering.
“Yeah, well, you either get all the blankets and I cuddle up with Shem, or you get me.” Maks held me a little tighter. “Please don’t pick the blankets.”
“Ohh, pick the blankets,” Lila whispered.
Laughter shook out of me along with the shivering. “You two are horrible. We could have died.”
“Yes.” Maks nodded. “I think that’s why it makes this whole situation even funnier. Death and laughter go together better than people realize.”
I leaned my head against his shoulder and Lila crawled up behind me. Her claws slid into my hair as she deftly braided it back from my face. I wondered where she’d learned to do it, but then again, she’d seen me braid my hair back a few times. “You’re a quick learner.” I spoke through chattering teeth.
“It’s hardly a complex spell,” Lila said. “Three strands, over and over? Basic weaving.”
I smiled, a laugh not quite making it past my lips. The movement of her untangling my hair, of her care for me warmed me as much as Maks’s broad chest. He had one hand behind my back and the other over my legs with his palm resting against the skin of my outer thigh.
My shivering slowed, but I didn’t fall asleep. I listened to the sound of the fire crackling, to Maks’s heartbeat, to Lila’s wings as they fluttered, the stamp of the horses’ hooves and Shem’s muttering in his sleep.
“That was Ish, trying to stop us,” I said softly.
Lila squeaked. “The storm? You and Shem blacking out?”
Maks turned his face to me. “Wait, you blacked out? I thought you were going in after Shem. And why would she attack him?”
I rolled my head side to side. “She wants the jewels back. She’s sending hyenas after us for them.”
Maks grimaced. “Fuck.”
“My thoughts exactly. Which means we are running out of time. We have to hurry. As soon as that storm is done, they will be on us,” I said.
“We can’t fully outrun them,” Maks said, carefully saying and not saying what was going through my head.
“I know. We’ll have to kill them.” I looked up at him. “They’re the assholes of the desert. I don’t feel that bad.”
Lila tugged on my ear and I turned to her. “How bad can they be?”
“They are werehyenas,” I said. “They’re big, Lila. Not quite as big as the White Wolf, but big enough that a lot of them in a pack will pose a serious fucking problem.”
Because we didn’t have enough shit happening right then. “Ish has totally lost it,” I went on. “Completely gone. There will be no convincing her to pull back, or that she’s going mad. The jewels are under her skin. To take them . . . you’d have to cut her open.” The image of her naked and feral gave me a shiver of fear that caught me off guard. I’d never been afraid of Ish before. No, not Ish.
Ishtar.
I would no longer call her by the name of the woman I thought of as my mother. She was Ishtar once again, a violent desert goddess whose mercy was fickle at best.
There was only one thing I could do now.
“I need to find the rest of our pride,” I said. “I’m going to try to find them, like I did Bryce. The faster I do that, the faster we can get them and face the hyenas together.”
Maks shifted me on his lap. “What can I do?”
“Just hang onto me.” I curled in tighter to him.
“Easy.” His face turned against mine and his lips brushed against my cheek.
For once, Lila said nothing. Then again, she’d been pushing hard for lion cubs to play with. Making those cubs would be something else. Assuming we ever found the time to do a test run.
A slow smile slid over my lips. Yeah, a test run would be rather nice.
“Dirty thoughts?” Lila leaned over and grinned at me. “I know that smile.”
I shook my head. “Lila, you are far too smart for your own good.”
“Ha, I knew it!” she crowed and Maks’s eyebrows shot up. If I could have stopped the blush, I would have. I settled for closing my eyes and reaching out for the other members of my pride.
Chapter Six
The cave warmed significantly with the horses, the fire, and the rather lush man I curled against. I sighed and kept my eyes closed and my thoughts on the other members of my pride. I was supposed to be finding them.
But with Maks this close, all these unresolved feelings, pent-up sexual attraction, and frustrated wants were doing bad things to my head. And more importantly, other parts of my body that were not about to be denied. My hands crept up his bare chest, following the curves of his muscles all too easily.
Not what I was supposed to be doing. I clenched my fingers against my palms. This close to Maks, I couldn’t focus. Which meant I had to leave him behind.
“Shit.” I stood and held the blanket close as I walked to the back of the cave behind the horses. Maks didn’t try to stop me, though I felt the loss of his heat keenly. He was the desert that called me home in more ways than one.
Lila giggled and said something to him, and his low answering chuckle was all self-satisfied male. Again, he pulled on my body as if he’d thrown a rope around my middle he could tug at will.
I made myself ignore them as I sat well behind the horses. I folded my legs under me and tucked the blanket tightly around my body. My father had been able to reach all the members of his pride as the alpha. Or at least, that’s what he’d told Bryce and me when we were younger. That he could find us anywhere, and that he would know if we were alive or dead. It was his connection as the alpha that allowed him this gift. He’d trained us as best he could, and I’d been able to use that training to find Bryce within Dragon’s Ground. But would I be able to find the rest of them?