It was. More than that, there were steps, and more statues that had been knocked over or absorbed into the thick bodies of trees. Most of these stone figures bore a similar face to the one Etta had found, but some had been left with no features at all. Time, and the forces of the jungle, had worn them away.
The thunder that shattered the jungle brought her up short, made her press her hands to her ears. The insects and birds became almost frantic, the latter launching themselves from the trees at the first small drops of rain.
“Oh my God,” Etta gasped, turning to look back at him. Her arm was outstretched, pointing at something orange and white a short distance away, half-hidden by foliage.
Nicholas’s eyes were fixed only on what was at her feet, and watched as its head rose up out of the mud behind her, scales glinting and slick as its hood flattened out. She must have stepped right on it and been none the wiser.
“Don’t. Move.” Terror thrummed inside of him, fast and desperate, as another burst of thunder exploded over their heads. Etta started to step back, turning to look at him, and the snake bobbed in the air, poised to strike. “Don’t move!”
He didn’t trust his aim with the knife just then; any slip, any gust of wind, and the blade would be in her leg and not in the damned snake. Before he could question himself, the revolver was in his hand, the snake lashed forward, and he fired.
THERE WAS A SMALL EXPLOSION BEHIND Etta, an instant before heat seared the back of her left calf and she was thrown forward onto her hands and knees. She looked up in time to see the tiger’s tail flash as it turned and ran deeper into the trees. Her ears were ringing, aching, as she turned around and saw the head of a cobra staring up at her, a short distance away from the long, coiled muscle of its body. Both the head and the body were still moving.
Etta stared at it, unable to so much as feel the rain that suddenly burst down, shaking the leaves, pounding the mud.
Nicholas stood a few feet back, the revolver still in his hand, looking as if he’d been the one shot, not the snake.
Etta reached down, touching her left calf muscle and coming away with blood. She stared at it long enough that the rain began to wash it away, long enough for Nicholas to snap out of his own shock. He rushed forward, kicking the snake aside.
“Did it bite you?” He took her leg in his hand, trying to see for himself, and she was right—he was shaking. “Etta! Did it bite you?”
No; but on its path to the snake, the bullet had grazed her skin, cutting close enough to leave a red, angry mark. She had been that close to getting bitten, and she hadn’t had any idea.
“Christ,” he said, pressing his hand against it. He tore the sleeve off the jacket she’d been carrying and dug through the bag for the scissors. As gently as he could, he dabbed the blood away and wrapped her leg with another, cleaner strip of fabric.
But where is the tiger? Etta wondered. When she’d spotted it, at first she had felt surprised and delighted. Its luminous eyes had tracked their progress forward with keen interest. Only then had she realized that there was no barrier between them.
Nicholas’s hands were smoothing down her wet hair, and kept moving over her shoulders, down her arms, and back up again to cup her face. He slowly came into focus, and she realized he’d been speaking to her this whole time.
“Can you stand?” he asked her. The ground had turned into a river of mud beneath them, and she was eager to get out of it. She nodded, accepting his help up, and gingerly tested whether or not she could bear to put weight on her leg. Her hands stayed on his bare shoulders as she looked up into his face.
“All right?” he asked, his voice still sounding odd to her ears. Etta nodded again. Standing was easy; speaking was not. “Do you want to walk?”
She nodded, hugging her arms to her chest.
Nicholas nudged them forward, but a thought spun in Etta’s mind, and she tugged him back. “Wait—we should take it—”
“It?” he repeated. “The snake?”
“Yeah.” Etta shook off the last bit of shock blanketing her mind. “What if…what if we need to eat it? Shouldn’t we take it with us?” Thinking about this further, she added, “Maybe not the head, though.”
Flanked by a curtain of green that glowed vibrantly, even in the silver overcast light, with rain pouring down over his face, his shoulders, the scars that crisscrossed over his chest, Nicholas blinked and started to laugh. He tilted his head back, catching the rain across his face; and when he finally leaned down to kiss her, the sweetness of it lingered on his lips.
It seemed to end before it even began. He pulled back, looking equally abashed and afraid, studying her face. Her hands itched to smooth the lines of worry away from his forehead, from around his beautiful, dark eyes. But he wasn’t the type to like being soothed—she knew that—and she also knew that this concern was more than just stupid eighteenth-century propriety. They were beyond that now.
She set her shoulders back, meeting his gaze with a challenge. “You call that a kiss?”
One corner of his mouth quirked up. “We haven’t the time for a proper one, pirate. Now tell me, where precisely are we?”