Page 100 of Taking Jenny
I swallowed hard. “Yeah. I…of course. I mean, I don’t want to do it, but I’m not going to let them hurt you, either.”
“That’s it exactly. We’re not doing this because we want to. We’re doing this to survive.” She paused then said, “Okay, I do revel in it a bit, and so does Malice…Longshot, too. Surge, not so much.” She shook her head at herself to get back on track. “But my point is, this is a matter of survival, and you are a survivor, right?”
I nodded.
“Good. Let’s go get the next hunter.”
I couldn’t seem to make myself move.
She sighed, then gave me a push. “You can do this, Tiger.”
“Right. Yeah. Okay.” I took a step forward. Then another.
“For Jenny,” Discord said.
I took a breath. It helped. A little.
“For Jenny,” I echoed, and the steps gradually became easier.
CHAPTER 30
Mal
Jenny had dressed, but we hadn’t gotten her back on the path just yet. In fact, she had been rather stoic after we had our time in the river. We sat next to the water, hidden from the path by a veil of trees. The canopy above filtered the moonslight into patches across her skin…silver on her cheekbones, shadows under her eyes.
I read the expression on her face, and the story it told did not make me feel better about what had transpired between us. The sex, while intense, was hardly my best performance.
Jenny finally broke the silence.
“So,” she said softly, without looking at me.
I cleared my throat. “So.”
She exhaled a deep breath and finally met my gaze. “That was…”
My stomach twisted. I did not need to hear the end of that sentence. “Something done out of the urgency of the moment. I understand. We never need to speak of it again—”
“Incredible,” she said.
I stared at her for a heartbeat. “Really?”
Her smile curved up slowly, a sly, wicked thing that chased off every fear in my bones. “Yeah. I know we shouldn’t have done it considering where we are, and why I’m here. I keep waiting for the hunters to leap out of the trees and gut us mid-afterglow, and we should be moving, but…I really did need that, Mal. Not just the distraction, but the connection to you, too.”
I took her small hand in mine, entwining our fingers. “Same,” I said, and brushed my lips across the backs of her knuckles.
Relief wasn’t what I should’ve felt. Not with death shadowing us. But a small, treacherous part of mewasrelieved. Not because we’d survived this long, but because she didn’t regretus.
I smiled at her. “Now that that’s settled…other topics?”
She laughed lightly. “Sure. Let’s ruin the mood.”
I didn’t sugar coat my words. “Boxer is dead. Pleon is dead. That leaves us with five hunters out there. Now that blood has been shed, the hunters will become more aggressive—”
“What’s more aggressive than trying to kill me?” she asked incredulously.
“They will make the hunt slower and more personal.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh.”
