Hotbloods (Hotbloods #1)

“What the hell are you doing?” I felt Navan’s voice more than heard it, though the realization that he had found me, that I wasn’t going to die out here alone in the cold, gave me a burst of energy and I struggled to sit up. “Hold still,” he said. “Or you’re going to fall. What are you doing out here? I got back to the ship and you were gone!”

“I’m sorry,” I tried to say, though no sound really came out of my mouth. I started shivering uncontrollably and I tried to nestle myself against him as best I could. His grip tightened around me, and his voice was hoarse as he spoke.

“What if I hadn’t come back when I did? What if I wasn’t able to find you? You’d be dead right now, you do realize that, don’t you?!”

It seemed only seconds until we were back at the ship. Navan set me down gently and spread the sleeping bag out. He pulled my shoes off and then helped me lie down, wrapping the sleeping bag around me. My teeth continued to click, my whole body shaking. I tried to get it to stop by taking deep breaths, but I was just so cold. Being in the sleeping bag didn’t seem to make a bit of difference—it was like my body didn’t have enough heat left in it.

I opened my eyes when I heard Navan light the gas stove. I watched him for a moment, confused as to what he was up to. He had a pot on the stove and was melting down two of the candles. He dipped one hand, then the other, into the hot, melted wax. That must hurt.

I tried to sit up, but it felt like every ounce of strength had left me. “Wh-What are you doing?” I managed to ask, but my voice was barely more than a whisper and he didn’t seem to hear me. The wax hardened around his hands and he broke it off, dropping the pieces back into the pot. He turned the burner off, and then came over to where I lay. He positioned himself behind me, pulling me to him. His hands emanated heat from the hot wax, and my body immediately melded against his, warmth finally radiating into the sleeping bag, enveloping me in what might have been the most wonderful sensation I had ever felt. And though he didn’t have any heat of his own, outside of the candle wax, he seemed to absorb the heat that my own body was finally capable of generating, and the warmth swirled around us, making me feel as though we were both safely cocooned.

There wasn’t a need to say anything, though part of me wanted to thank him, not just for this small gesture to keep me warm or saving my life after I’d all but resigned myself to the fact that it was over, but for being open with me earlier about what had happened with his sister, for being willing to risk his life to save a planet that he didn’t even live on.





Chapter Twenty-Two





I wasn’t sure how long I slept for, but when I woke up, I was alone in the sleeping bag. It was still deliciously warm inside, and though I wondered where Navan was, I was in no rush to get up and face the cold again.

I let my eyes close and I dozed for a few minutes, before I heard a noise and then Navan was re-entering the ship. He had a brown paper bag, which he brought over to me when he saw that I was awake.

“It’s early,” he said. “Luckily, bakers start their morning before the sun even rises. I figured you’d be hungry after your little adventure last night.” He sat down next to me as I shifted in the sleeping bag and sat up, pulling the paper sack toward me. It was full of croissants, still warm.

“Oh my God, thank you,” I said. I might have filled up on dumplings the night before, but right now I felt as though I hadn’t eaten anything in weeks. I took three huge bites, reducing the first croissant to half, before looking at Navan. “I’m sorry,” I said, after I’d chewed and swallowed. “I wanted to apologize last night, but I wasn’t really able to get it out.”

“Right,” he said, scowling. “Because you had basically frozen to death. What the hell were you thinking? Why would you run off like that? I was on my way back and then I get here and you’re nowhere. That really freaked me out! What were you thinking?”

“I . . . I don’t know. I mean, I wasn’t trying to run away. I just realized that you’d been gone longer than I thought you were going to be gone for, and I started to get really worried. I didn’t know if maybe something bad had happened, or . . . I just wasn’t sure. I panicked and went out, but then I lost sight of the ship. I wasn’t planning to get lost, though. I was trying to . . . help.”

“While I appreciate the go-getter attitude, please don’t do something like that again,” Navan said. “Promise me you won’t.”

“I promise.” I took another bite of croissant and chewed slowly.

“In fact,” he continued, “for the rest of this ‘mission,’ you’re going to stay right in here.”

I stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I said. It’s safer if you’re in here—we’re not going to be heading to a warmer climate any time soon. You really shouldn’t have come here in the first place. It’s not the right climate for you, and if anything, it’s just going to be dangerous. Taking all that into consideration, it’s just best for everyone if you stay here.”

“You can’t just order me to stay in here. We’ve been over this, remember? Free will and all that? Besides, how is me staying here going to be helpful?”

“It’ll be helpful because I won’t be out there worrying about you. Trust me—that’ll be more than helpful. How am I supposed to pull this thing off if I’m thinking about you the whole time?”

“I take it that’s a rhetorical question.” Still, I couldn’t help but smile at the idea of him thinking about me all the time, and it sent a warm tingling feeling down the length of my spine.

“What?” he said, eyeing me. “Why are you smiling like that? Are you plotting your next near-death experience?”

“No,” I said, scowling. “You make it sound like I’m some sort of adrenaline junky.”

“Well . . . are you?”

“I don’t think so. I was just . . . I don’t know. I don’t want to say I was enjoying myself, because we’re in Siberia, hunting shapeshifters, but . . . there is a part of me that is kind of enjoying this.”

He grinned. “See? I told you—adrenaline junky.”

“But really, though, you can’t force me to stay in this ship the whole time. I want to help. I want to do something productive. I might not know exactly what that is, but I have a feeling it’s going to require me getting out of the ship at some point.” I grinned. “You never know—I might just end up saving your life.”

“You sure are stubborn.”

“I’m not trying to make things more difficult. But I’m here, so you can’t just force me to stay inside the whole time. I have free will, and I am choosing to be here and participate and help out in whatever way I can. And nothing you say is going to change that.”

Navan sighed. “Fine! Fine. I was studying some of the maps while you were sleeping. And it seems that there’s a bit of a pattern with the villages that the shifters are hitting.”

“There is?”

“Yeah. Enough so that I feel pretty good about going to this one—” Navan unfolded a map and pointed. “I think if we went here today, we’d probably be able to intercept at least one shifter. That’s my feeling anyway. It’s not too far from here, either, so it won’t take long to get there.”