Page 54 of Darkness Bound (Night Prowler 5)
He should’ve timed this better. He should’ve timed their arrival to be any other time but tonight, but they’d made such unexpected good progress through the jungle, and honestly Hawk hadn’t been thinking about this particular moment.
He’d been too preoccupied thinking about everything else.
About her.
About those lips. Those eyes. Those pert, perfect—
Ersetu tola’ath! screeched his father.
Earthworm. An oldie but a goodie.
“We’re almost there,” he growled over his shoulder to Jacqueline, who, when he looked back to ensure she was following, was craning her neck to gape at an empty iron structure the shape of an oversize bird cage, which hung conspicuously from the branches of one of the smaller trees.
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing.
Hawk ground his teeth. Might as well get her used to the darker side of tribe life, right off the bat. Maybe it would scare her straight and she’d be quiet, which was everything he could possibly hope for, considering he’d determined he was never going to talk to her again.
“Gibbet.”
“A cage you hang people in until they rot? You’re fucking kidding me!”
“Not people. Criminals.”
“Oh, thanks for the clarification! I’ll be sure not commit any crimes! Goddamn brilliant!”
He stopped and turned to glare at her. “We’re back to the indiscriminate cursing again?”
She sent him an arch look. “The bitch is back, remember?”
Hawk wondered if this was what it felt like to be poisoned, this slow, acidic blackness creeping through his body that threatened to choke off his oxygen and boil the blood in his veins.
He turned and marched onward.
After a moment, she followed behind.
The scene that greeted Jack when they passed under the natural bridge of rock that spanned a swiftly running stream was something right out of a Hieronymus Bosch painting.
Half-nude bodies, glistening with sweat, bathed in firelight, writhing to the heavy beat of drums. People—beautiful people, unnaturally so—spinning and twirling and dancing, laughing and kissing and drinking, as uninhibited and wild as the untamed forest that ringed the clearing. An enormous bonfire, spitting orange ash and whorls of smoke into the dark sky where it lingered, casting a dreamy haze over everything. Tables to one side of the revelry laden with platters of food, all of it demolished as if pounced on by ravenous predators. A raised dais opposite the tables with a throne of carved wood and purple fabric, upon which sat a heavy-lidded, grinning man—dark-haired and golden-skinned like the rest—holding an elaborate gold chalice and tapping his bare feet to the beat of the drums.
Had she not been quite so flabbergasted, Jack might have laughed.
Two words came immediately to mind:
Erotic derangement.
The dancing bodies were adorned in the most intricate, delicate trinkets, in an array of color that flashed crimson and sapphire and emerald in the firelight. They wore chokers of gold worked with precious stones, bracelets of garnet and onyx and tigereye, hair combs dotted with peridot and freshwater pearls. Some had elaborate feather headdresses; others wore armbands of bronze or headbands of silver or rings on each finger, a pharaoh’s fortune in jewels on vivid display against the black velvet backdrop of the night jungle.
Pagan yet refined, carnal yet not at all coarse, they were abandoned and alluring and what “civilized” people might deem wild or debauched, but there was something that elevated their movement and revelry beyond mere wanton, physical expression.
They were wild, yes. They were sensual, yes.
But they were also quite perfectly . . . perfect.
She gaped at them in wide-eyed admiration until Hawk noticed she was no longer following. He stalked up to her, gave her a indecipherable look that might have been either a warning or fury, grabbed her wrist, and dragged her behind him as he headed toward the group.
They were noticed.
All at once, the drums fell silent. The dancing stopped. Everyone turned to watch their approach, and every single hair on Jack’s body stood on end.
