26: If it were up to me

There was a moment as I caught my breath where my brain seemed to shut down and the only thing I seemed able to do was observe and feel. The blaze heated half my face, tinted warm shadows against Chiro's chest. Fine granules of sand and minerals glittered against his tanned skin. The raw taste of dirt and blood filled my mouth; I wasn't sure whose it was: his or mine. He'd already healed from a cut lip; I was, well, maybe not bleeding much, but bruised and sore along my arms and shoulders. His knees pressed against either side of my hips, and those intense, storm-stricken eyes were fixed unwavering on mine. In those fleeting seconds I was caught between the juncture of fantasy and reality. There he was, the courageous hero with the proper wealth of looks and muscle. There I was, pinned beneath him on a feral, rainy night.

And here we were, two players not entirely unopposed to helping one another in a winner-take-all style game. Dakota wanted me to kill him, but I still believed he was of better use alive. As my gaze lingered lower than it belonged...maybe there was another, slightly more somatic, reason behind my halfhearted attempt to take him out.

"I'm listening," I finally managed to squeak, getting my elbows beneath me to prop myself up. I tried to slide out from under him. As he leaned over me his hand dropped to my wrist, a relaxed warning to stay still.

"Come dawn you need to head back to the palace," he stated, letting just enough of his weight press against me to tamp down any ideas about scrambling away. "You've—"

"No," I said. Thunder rumbled as if to emphasis the strength of my resolve.

His eyebrows rose. The grip on my wrist tightened. "No?"

Chiro was close enough where, if I had a more wicked sort of mind, I could've grabbed the back of his head and pulled his lips to mine. Instead I found myself trying to glance away, but there wasn't a single thing in this cave more dangerous than the demon on top of me. I had no choice but to pay attention to him, because, just like how I didn't understand my abrupt explosion of feeling, I didn't know what he was planning to do with me. Or to me.

"I'm still hunting," I explained.

With a tired sigh he straightened. His hand moved off my wrist to run through his damp hair. "What remains is out of your league, Tay Wilson."

"Says one of our biggest competitors." All the while I thought to myself, if I wasn't so attracted to him before, what was it about tonight that got me going? Was it the dreary atmosphere, the crackling fire, or as Dakota might phrase it, some kind of 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' bull crap?

A hint of irritation crept into his low voice. "I am giving you this opportunity to go back on your own; if you and your harem are not gone by the time the sun warms the road then you will be mine." He paused, fingers tapping against his thigh contemplatively. "As you already are."

Again I tried to move, but he held me in place beside the firelight. All I could do was adjust my elbows and scowl up at those impressive features. "Look, I appreciate your protection or warning or whatever this is, but we're not backing down. We're getting it, Chiro. We're putting up a fight. We don't want to be wedded and bedded and tortured. And there's more of us out there that need saving."

His shoulders lifted in a careless shrug. "You can be mine, you can be theirs, or you will be dead. I do not much care about your fate one way or the other. If you're too bullheaded to listen, perhaps you belong with a certain stag, who might get a rise from your insolence."

Lightning flashed, seeming to catch the rain in brief, grey-green photographic stills. The rain fell like a dark curtain over the entrance, shimmering in great gusts of wind. A faint mist had began to form along the ground, billowing inside the cave mouth.  With space between us now, I peered around Chiro as if expecting to see the stag himself. "I was hoping Akta might be dead," I said softly. "I know a monster like him always survives until the end, but I'd hoped."

"There's only rotten apples left in the barrel," Chiro continued over the drenching tempest. "I'm glad you haven't embarrassed me, but it's time to make the smart decision."

"That's why you came to me?"

He nodded. There were a hundred better ways to tell me to leave that didn't involve making me crazy for days on end while I waited for an attack, and while I was inclined to pursue the matter, I already knew asking why he had to be so delayed about it was pointless.

So I used the back of my hand to wipe off whatever blood was dried on my lip and said, "Say I go back to the ladies and we decide to leave. What do you do?"

"Maybe I haven't found my special someone," he replied with a catty smile. "Or maybe I just want to kill some more. You've been a lot more boring than I thought."

"Excuse me?"

"The last lady in the Hunt nearly burned the forest down. You've mobilized a cat and a few terrified women. You were considered a prize for your potential powers, but you haven't shown any so far."

"Maybe I'm just holding back," I lied, sparing a glance at my dirty fingernails. "Saving my powers for when it really matters." If Chiro could apparently go from man to inhuman saber-beast in a matter of seconds, why couldn't I just turn into a frost queen? Where was my on/off switch? Every day I tried to kick the powers in gear, and every day I couldn't so much as freeze a dewdrop. Some half-demon I turned out to be.

Chiro considered my statement with the attention it deserved and immediately shook his head. "Given your success so far I suspect not, or you'd have us all to heel by now."

On that, I had to agree. If there were a way for me to dominate the lords, I would've absolutely used it by now instead of risking Dakota and the others. And that returned the same question to the forefront of my mind: if I could dominate them, what would I do with Chiro? I wouldn't need him if that were the case, so why keep him alive? The feeling eating away at my gut though, it knew I wouldn't have killed him even then.

...There was just something about him tonight. Trying not to be totally creepy, I attempted to keep my wandering eyes from venturing further down than his neckline. I'd been this close to him before, with arguably fewer clothes between ourselves, and yet I hadn't felt the same level of ...whatever this discomfort was that kept my heart rate elevated. Maybe it was psychological. Back in high school I'd opted for a psych class where we discussed adrenaline and love and whether or not being, or feeling like, you're in danger could trick your mind into thinking you're falling in love with someone.

But love? No. This was just my brain yelling at my body that when you have a chance to actually catch a tiger, you make damn sure you take him in between the sheets.

Chiro leaned over a little more, his head tilted just a little toward the dancing flames. "What is wrong with you?" he asked. "Did you hit your head?"

"Bumped it," I murmured, rubbing my damp scalp as if it were true. Had I been bit by something sinister on the way over here, or rubbed against some exotic night bloom whose pollen was messing with my mind? Was that possible? I kind of wanted it to be possible. "I'm fine, really," I continued, banishing the thoughts. "What'd you do with Leda?"

The rush of rain and wind covered his silence. Through it, the grey mist ushered in the damp, but even the thickest tendrils of mist faded near the hot flame..

"Is she alive? Just tell me that."

Chiro's attention shifted briefly onto the faint outline of the fallen sword several misty feet to the right. His expression, meanwhile, was entirely unreadable. "She's with the others," he said simply.

"And where are they?"

As the water evaporated across his skin he was able to dust the dirt and minerals off. Meanwhile, I was soggy as ever in my leather armor and muddy attire. "If I gave you them, would you go?" he asked.

"How many have you caught?"

He frowned. "Would you leave for the palace?"

Odds were he'd collected a number of women much higher than my own. If I had to spend the rest of my evening plotting on how to 101 Dalmatian our way out of the Malumbrian Oaks, it'd be a good night. So I stuck out my hand for him to shake, offering with it a tentative smile. "If you let me take them, we'll pack up and leave right now."

"Then it is agreed," Chiro said, taking my hand in his own and releasing it again all too quickly. "I will give you the others, and you will take them to safety before someone takes you."

"Glad we had this little chat," I said, sitting up just inches from his chest. My hand rose to push him out of my space, but then I set it back against the ground, afraid that if I touched him, my fingers might linger. "And thanks for your help with that demon, although it would've been nice if you'd help us earlier."

"How do you know I haven't?" Despite our done-deal, he didn't budge an inch.

"Did you?" No response. I frowned. "You could've helped more."

"It wasn't up to me," he said.

I shook my head. "Yeah it is. You're the Prince of this hell. Who's gonna stop you? I don't appreciate getting smacked around more than I have to, let alone risking other people's lives."

"Tough," he said stiffly. With the lightning flashing and the mist sneaking through the dank shadows, I thought for just a second, one tiny moment, he'd been about to apologize, but then his hand found my shoulder. With a nudge of firm pressure I was right back where I started with my shoulders digging into the hard hot ground and his face a short distance from mine. "You just tried to kill me," he said, grey eyes searching mine. "Where do you think you're going?"

This time I braced my hands against his chest to push him back, though of course to no avail. "Have you forgotten what you did to me back in Alaska?"

"You were dead either way," he snapped. "You still might be."

What did Chiro want from me, from the Hunt? He was, I reminded myself, still a monster. He had motive, reason, purpose. Everything he'd done to this point suggested it. And if what he'd said earlier was true, that it wasn't up to him, then who was he working for?

"So what will you do?" I asked him, wondering if he could hear my pounding heart through my shaky voice.

He chewed the corner of his lip. I started to squirm. "What if I let you decide on a suitable punishment?" he said slowly. A different kind of fire burned through the cool grey in his steady gaze.

Thunder and popping embers echoed in my ears. My throat felt dry. "I would cheat if you let me," I said. "Choose something I might actually like."

"Let's hear it," he decided. In a smooth motion he got his hand beneath my back and pulled me up to stand beside him.

"Alright, but you can't—"

The man's head turned. He shoved me back just as a black, hulking form of Gabriel barreled through the shrouded entrance. The wolf thrust his snarling snout between us.

"We're fine, Gabe." Chiro pushed the dark muzzle away. "Sit."

The wolf started to sit, then froze. Ears perked, he glanced from Chiro to me, then back to Chiro. His shoulders tensed. And then, just as we both flinched, the wolf shook hard. Once we were thoroughly covered in every bit of gunk, drool, and rainwater his pelt had accrued, the stinky canine dropped onto his belly and sucked up the heat of the fire.

"Rude," I told the wolf as I stood. Gabe merely crossed his front paws and panted at me.

Chiro was wiping water off his face when I took the chance to dart for the exit. He caught my wrist within my first few steps into the rain. I stumbled at the sudden jerk, held my balance, and tried to free my hand until he'd snatched that one, too. "Where are you going?" he asked, dragging me back beneath the rocky overhang.

"Home!" I shouted over the storm's roar, stepping back into the storm. "Put a pin in that punishment stuff. We'll circle back to it if we survive the Hunt."

Unwilling to release me, he followed me into the deluge with a look somewhere between disgust and annoyance. "You can't go back, Tay."

I just shook my head. "Look, I swear I'll let you do whatever you want later, but I really have to make sure Dakota got back and let everyone know they have to pack."

"No," he said, frustration turning his voice into a sharp hiss. "Listen to me."

But I rattled off something about not being able to hear him in this weather continued to pull backward, and slipped against the moss. Unsurprisingly, I fell alone. He'd clearly had enough of my antics, however, as he lifted me off the ground. "Someone's poisoned you," he said, hefting me into his arms.

"Huh," I said idly, letting my hand slid over his rain-soaked chest. Nice pecs. Felt as good as I'd imagined. "So is that why I keep thinking we should be engaging in gland-to-gland combat?" The fuzzy glow that clouded my thoughts disappeared long enough for me to realize what I'd done. "Oh god," I said, covering my mouth. "My brain is broken. I'm so sorry. I think I've been poisoned."

Chiro deposited me rather ungently beside Gabriel. "How about you sit here by the fire and not talk at all?"

Yeah, that's a good plan, I thought, wringing out my hair. "So, poison? What kind?"

I got the distinct impression he was ignoring me as he pulled a dry shirt over his head and took up a spot near the entrance, like he thought I was going to try escaping again.

Which I did, at least twice. Or so I thought. I wasn't really sure. The rest of the night was a series of naps and blurry memories, as clear as the fog outside.