Page 105 of Crucible

Khalil starts rebuilding the fire while Thorin lays out the rabbits on a large, flat rock.

I don’t know why I feel nervous when I walk over to sit next to the fire with them, but I’m shivering again, and it has nothing to do with the cold.

“Good morning.”

Utter silence greets me back.

I wait for one of them to respond, but they never do. They both pretend they didn’t hear me as they continue to work.

“Look, I know you’re mad at me, but Thorin mentioned a camp, and I thought I could follow you. I didn’t mean to put you or myself in danger. I hope you understand why I had to try.”

The sounds of Thorin skinning the smaller rabbit while staring at me like he wishes the rabbit was me. Khalil arranging some dry kindling he managed to find is all that follows.

“Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you for finding me, I guess. I’d probably be dead if you hadn’t.”

They finally respond, and before they’re done, I really wish they hadn’t.

“You’d definitely be dead,” Khalil says coolly.

“And for the record, we didn’t come for you,” Thorin adds. “We came for Seth. He just happened to find you before we could drag his ass back home and leave you to rot.”

“Oh.” My cheeks flame because I thought…Iassumed…God. “Okay, um. Well…thanks anyway.”

I stand, but my knees feel weak. I keep my chin high as I walk away from the campfire, and it takes all that I have to do so.

“Don’t even think about leaving this camp, Aurelia.”

I spin back around, my gaze narrowing on Thorin, who is already watching me. “Why do you care?”

“You don’t want me to show you how much I care, so I advise you not fuck with me.”

My hurt feelings make my eyes prickle while my voice sounds thick from the unshed tears when I speak. “Go to hell, Thorin.”

I storm away just as a whistling Seth returns to camp. We pass each other as I head for the quinzee, but when he flashes me a flirty smile and reaches out for me, I dodge his touch and keep going.

I can feel Seth’s confusion like an arrow in my back, and then I hear him bark at his friends. “What the hell did you guys do?”

I don’t wait around for the answer before crawling back inside the quinzee.

How the hell all four of us fit inside of here last night, I’ll never know. The three of them are huge, so they must have been sleeping practically on top of one of another. Three bedrolls are laid out, and I don’t bother trying to figure out which belongs to who as I crawl inside the middle one and will myself back to sleep.

I knew they’d be mad, but I didn’t expect them to be cruel—not after glimpsing how hard they worked to save me. How desperately.

They care. I know they do.

So why try to hide it?

Why push me away and make me feel like an unwanted nuisance?

Maybe because you’re acting like one?

I fall asleep, and the guys leave me alone until breakfast is done, and Khalil snaps at me from outside the quinzee to wake the fuck up and fuel for the journey. He made it clear that since I want to be a brat they willnotbe carrying me back. What the hell? I didn’t even know that had been an option.

Grumbling, I reluctantly crawl from the shelter, dragging the bedrolls with me. I have a bitch of time getting them rolled up tight to fit inside their already full packs, and none of the guys help me—not even Seth.

Thorin, Khalil, and Seth have a kind of Three Musketeers thing going on. When one of them is pissed, they’re all pissed, and apparently, that rule extends to me.

Seth is probably just upset that I rejected his affection earlier, butI’vedecided that if one of them pisses me off, then they all can kiss my ass.

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