Her Wild Hero

Kendra would have marveled at that if hybrids hadn’t been on their tail. She dropped to her hands and knees and crawled into the cave. The opening was jagged and rough, but within a few feet, it leveled out. Loose dirt covered much of the floor, making the place feel almost…cozy.

As soon as Declan climbed in, the vines fell back into position, cloaking the cave in shadows. Kendra was about to head deeper into the cavern, but Declan stopped her with a touch on the shoulder.

“Stay here and cover the entrance while I go check out the rest of the cave,” he said. “I want to make sure we’re the only ones who thought this was a great place to hide.”

She hadn’t even thought of that. The cold water had obviously frozen more than her legs—her head was pretty numb, too.

While Declan looked around, she took up position just inside the mouth of the cave and aimed her M4 toward the rapids. She waited, tense and nervous, expecting to see a pack of hybrids stomping their way up the stream toward them at any second. Would they be able to see the cave? She hadn’t seen it even when Declan had been leading her toward it, so she hoped the hybrids wouldn’t be able to either.

She almost jumped out of her skin when Declan came up beside her. “We have the place to ourselves. You see anything yet?”

“Nothing. Can you hear anything?”

“Not over the sound of the water.”

“Do you think they followed us up the stream?” she asked.

After the sprint over the ridge, then the slog up the rapids, she was beat, and crouching there in her wet clothes was exhausting her even more. If she took off her boots right then, her toes would probably be blue.

“I don’t think so. If they had, they would’ve gotten here already. I think we’re okay for now,” he said. “Come on. The cave opens up a little back here. We can get dry and warm.”

Kendra wasn’t sure she remembered what being dry and warm felt like. Between the almost-constant rain and the frequent treks through one body of water or another, she’d been wet and cold for almost a week.

As Declan promised, the cave opened up into an area that was fairly spacious. There wasn’t much light, but she couldn’t have cared less. It wasn’t dark enough to worry about pulling out the NVGs. Besides, she was so tired, all she felt like doing was throwing herself on the stone floor and sleeping for a week. But there was no way she could sleep in these soaking wet clothes. She’d wake up with hypothermia—if she woke up at all.

She threw Declan a quick glance over her shoulder as she started unbuttoning her uniform top. “You think you have a dry T-shirt in your pack I can wear while my stuff dries out? The extra ones I have are wet.”

He looked confused for a second, and she wondered if maybe she wasn’t the only one affected by the cold.

“Um, yeah. I think I have one left I haven’t worn.” He propped his weapon against the cave wall and dug through it. “Hold on a second.”

The idea of getting out of her wet clothes and into something dry was too enticing to resist, so she yanked off her uniform top and immediately started in on her boots. If it meant getting warm and dry, she was willing to strip naked in front of the big bear shifter. But the stupid laces were all knotted up and her soggy, cold fingers couldn’t seem to get them loose.

“I told you to hold on a second,” Declan scolded. “Here, let me get those. Your hands are shaking too much to do it. Hold this.”

He gave her a T-shirt—oh God, it was completely dry—then sat down in front of her. She felt silly sitting there with her wet boots in his lap, but Declan got the laces undone much faster than she would have been able to. He had her boots and socks off in seconds instead of minutes.

While Declan spread out a poncho for them to sit on, Kendra turned her back and shucked her wet T-shirt. She pulled Declan’s on and almost laughed when it fell all the way to her knees. She imagined she looked a little goofy, but who cared? She was warmer already.

It took a bit of work to get her pants off, but thankfully Declan didn’t ask if she needed help with those. That would have been too embarrassing.

She arranged all her wet clothes on the rocks littering the cave floor, then went back to dig a pair of her panties out of Declan’s pack. It wasn’t too hard to work those on under his big T-shirt, and a few minutes later, she was seated comfortably on Declan’s poncho.

“You think we’re safe here for a while?” she asked.

“Yeah, I don’t think there’s any way for the hybrids to track us through the stream, and I doubt they’re going to stumble on this cave.”