Kinked (Elder Races, #6)

Quentin watched her gain altitude. She was in her element in the air, everything about her flight graceful and full of power. He couldn’t believe she had actually chosen to leave rather than argue with him. It seemed unlike her.

He rubbed his face, struggling with contradictory emotions. As abraded as he felt this morning, her presence could only be like salt in a wound. But he was still annoyed with her for being able to leave so effortlessly. He wanted to pick a fight with her. She had said some pretty goddamn presumptuous things last night, and he took exception.

The silence was pretty peaceful though.

If he had been human, the hike to the passageway would take a couple of days, and much longer if a snowstorm blew in. He couldn’t get there as fast as Aryal could by flying, but he could still make the journey quicker than humans could.

He took off jogging at an easy, ground-eating pace. Within a half an hour, he was so hot, he had to stop and strip off his jacket and sweater. He folded them up and used them as padding for the backpack, which he slipped back on. Once he was certain the shoulder straps wouldn’t chafe his skin, he resumed jogging.

The clouds that day were little more than filmy swathes of white, like transparent silk across the ice blue sky. The late winter sun was bright, pale gold on the muted greens and browns of the forest. The deciduous trees were leafless, allowing for him to see further in dense areas, but the evergreens were thick and vibrant.

He could pick up speed with more surety of his footing in the rolling meadows, but the uneven paths through the forest were slick with melted snow and damp moss. There he could only manage the steady, careful jog. Then he reached a point where the paths didn’t go, and he had to strike out on his own.

Throughout the morning, he brooded. Contrary to what Aryal had said the night before, he wasn’t anything like her. She had assumed that he wasn’t facing some kind of internal truth about himself, and that wasn’t the case.

He didn’t think that the darkness that lived at his core was wrong, or evil. He didn’t try to deny or hide from what was inside of him.

He tried to protect everybody else from it.

He knew what kind of strength he had, and he knew that he had dangerous attributes. So had his father, who had seen him trained from an early age, both in magical and martial arts. His father’s goal had been to avoid him becoming a loose cannon, with too much ability and not enough skill. Quentin had kept up with the training when he reached adulthood because the push and strain appealed to his aggressive nature.

The result was that he could kill with a single blow. Breaking a couple of bones was even easier, especially if his sex partner were a human.

But if Aryal wasn’t on target with what she had said, why did he still feel so restless and dissatisfied?

At midday he reached the ridge. He followed along the edge until he came to a lake, where he decided to stop. He had burned off his breakfast and then some a long while ago. He drank his fill from the bone-numbing cold water. The lake was such a deep blue, it looked like a huge sapphire rested in the depths underneath the surface.

Then, instead of taking the time to set up a fire ring and cook, he opted to do what he had done that morning, which was open up a couple of cans of food and eat the contents cold. It wasn’t appetizing, but it was fuel. He was looking forward to a hot meal that night, though.

He sat on the large trunk of a fallen tree as he ate. His body gradually cooled, but the light breeze still felt good on his sweaty skin. The temp was probably in the midforties, but he didn’t plan on stopping long enough to cool down to the point where he would want to shrug on his sweater again.

A shadow fell over him. He looked up. Aryal coasted on a thermal overhead. She wheeled and came in for a landing, then shapeshifted and walked over to him. Her color was high, and she looked more vital than anything else on the landscape, an intense concentration of energy and physicality.

She had found somewhere to stash her pack, because she was no longer carrying it. Her gaze fell to his bare chest and lingered. He turned away and snapped at the last of his food, swallowing it down without really chewing.

Aryal sat beside him, drew up her legs and wrapped her arms around her knees. “You’re making good time,” she said. “There’s a hunter’s cabin that I think you can reach by nightfall, if you push.”

A hunter’s cabin would be shelter in the form of at least four walls and a ceiling, and probably a fireplace too. Hunters’ cabins were rarely large, luxurious places. They would be lucky if there was more than one room. It meant sharing a confined space with her again. He heaved a sigh that was halfway to a growl. “We’ll see.”

She tilted the toes of her boots up and looked at them. “I found a passageway.”