Seth, of all people, is never confused. Even when he doesn’t know the answer, he still has a complete air of confidence.
He grabs a short axe from next to the cottage before clambering over the black granite boulders and up toward the trees. My chest struggles to get enough air in as I work twice as hard as he does to get over the rocks.
“Seth,” I gasp.
He leans down, gripping my hand a little too tightly and yanking me sharply up the larger boulder. He drops my hand, avoids looking down at his brothers and the other Sabers, and turns to keep moving at breakneck speed into the trees.
I follow – of course. Pursing, then relaxing, my lips several times before the sensation of kissing Rose has erased itself.
It was a tactical move, I tell myself. The first thing that came to mind.
And it worked.
What I’m trying not to admit is that it was fun.
As soon as we’re in the trees, Seth puts his foot on a fallen tree and starts swinging the axe. His hands are white-knuckled on the axe handle. He’s fidgeting as he swings, like keeping focused on this task is hard. Splinters of wood shoot off in all directions. Hiding behind a tree would be a good idea, but I’d like to keep my eye on the cottage. On Pax with his eyes glowing below.
I move around the edge of my bubble and use a half-buried boulder to step up then shimmy onto the bottom branch of a tree with a good view.
Seth’s face is hard. The laughter he was full of moments ago, when I managed to escape a trained Elite Saber by kissing her and managed the most amazing backflip in mortal history, is gone.
“Talk to me?” I ask him.
I’m pissed off too right now – but I’m pissed with Pax, not Seth. I’m pissed about being made into his tool. Accepting me as part of his pentad was strategic so he could get his warriors into the arena with Logan. Nothing more.
Seth stops for a moment, looking down at his brothers still over by the cottage. With one hand he scratches through his hair while the other keeps its death grip on the axe handle.
“You’re right, Pax is going to kill me,” he says.
All seven women drop suddenly to their knees, heads lowered. One of the redheads has even collapsed to her hands.
Complete submission.
“But maybe that’s why,” he mutters.
With a firm swing he plants the axe into the wood. Five bounding strides later, he’s standing on the boulder below me and looking me in the eyes.
“Why what?” I ask.
And he ignores me, instead asking softly, “Show me your arm?”
“My arm?” Oh, I have a vague memory of Rose grabbing my arm… before all that other stuff. “My arm’s fine. She didn’t hurt me.”
“Show me before he gets here,” Seth says, throwing a glance over his shoulder.
The women have walked off, and so has Roarke, but Pax and Killian are moving in this direction. Just walking, not rushing. Not storming. Not threatening.
“They don’t look like they’re in a rush,” I say.
“I am,” Seth says, gripping my arm at the elbow and yanking it forwards.
“Crap,” I gasp, feeling myself topple – then stop, Seth’s other arm around my waist.
“How badly did I hurt you?” he whispers in my ear, still holding me.
I get my balance on the branch, but he holds me a minute longer before letting me straighten, so I can pull my sleeve up.
“Not even a bruise. I don’t feel hurt at all. I actually feel pretty awesome.”
I lie – there are bruises, neat fingertip circles on my bicep.
He growls at himself. “She could have killed you. Sometimes I have no idea why I find things funny.”
“They could all kill me, Seth, and it was funny.”
“No, it wasn’t,” he grumbles, lightly touching each one of the bruises.
I wrap my fingers around his and stop him. “It was funny,” I assure him.
I can practically feel his heart racing under my palm. He lifts his gaze from our hands to my eyes.
“You were amazing, but what I did was stupid. You don’t understand, Vexy. Rose could have killed you.”
“Rose was being careful,” Killian says, leaping over the last boulder and storming into the little space Seth and I have claimed. A space just inside the forest's edge.
Pax is two steps behind him and struggling to move like he isn’t thinking about murder.
He might be thinking about it – but Killian is doing it. The DarknessSeed covers the distance to Seth in a rage that he isn’t even trying to contain.
“Oh, shit. Brother!” Seth exclaims, moving like lightning just shot through him.
He drops my arm and jumps straight up into my tree, then from limb to limb until he’s too high to see. I try to watch his ascent, but he climbs toward the bright morning light sun and the glare makes me give up.
Killian doesn’t chase after him – he just smashes his fist into the damn trunk of the tree. Which is the same tree I’m sitting in. Was sitting in, as I’m knocked backwards. I land with my legs in the air against the boulder and groan. Lots of groaning.
Killian punches the tree again, and pine cones rain down.
I scramble to my feet before getting knocked out by falling bits of tree, and barely make it back up onto the rock before Pax grips my hips, taking me completely off guard and almost knocking me over again.
He steadies me, those eyes of his glowing and his hair in hues of coffee and ash. With firm fingers he turns my face left, then right, then left again.
“Is she okay?” he asks, directing the question at Killian.
“Rose was careful,” Killian repeats. “But Seth couldn’t have known that she would be.” He points up a tree to my left, where I’m presuming Seth must now be. “Seth set her up.”
“Bralls no,” I say, swatting Pax’s hand away. “You set me up first.”
I try to shove
