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“Shea should shoot with the carbine.” I offered mine from my back. “It’ll give her confidence.”

Elaine had refused to touch a gun or a knife, but as Jesse held the carbine out to Shea, she snatched it from his hand and turned it over, studying it. There wasn’t a hint of alarm in her thoughtful expression. No fear. No reluctance. I fucking loved that.

“Ever shot a gun?” I brushed a hand over the knives on my arm, already missing the weight of the carbine.

She shook her head and swatted at a fly on her skinny thigh. “Jackson always shot the tranquilizer guns.”

Jesse spent a few seconds instructing her how to use it. Basic weapons safety to ensure she didn’t shoot herself or us, but nothing so detailed as to prepare her for a gunfight. That would come later, if the next few moments didn’t scare the bajeezus out of her.

The lone aphid in the forest emitted a burst of ghastly signals, vibrating a hunger cry through my gut, seemingly as aware of me as I was of it.

I nodded to Roark, assuming he would be my energy source. “Two minutes tops before it breaches the clearing.”

Roark stepped into position, then stopped at the bark of Jesse’s voice. “I have Evie.”

A blond brow inched up Roark’s forehead. “Do ye now?”

Surprisingly, Roark backed away and even waved a hand at me in invitation.

Jesse yanked off his shirt and slid in behind me, his bow hovering across my chest as if he was unsure what to do with it. His body tensed around my back, and he dropped the weapon, his hands falling to my hips. “Your shirt.”

Taking it off would leave me nude from the waist up, but Jesse and Roark had seen it all before. Tallis and Georges were out of eyeshot, keeping watch somewhere on the reserve and holding the perimeter in place, which was impressive by any standards. They’d set up crude booby traps and audible alarms—like rattling aluminum cans—and monitored the vast property through scopes. In the week we’d been there, only a handful of mutants had slipped through, and they’d been taken down before they sneaked up on us.

I pulled my shirt over my head and leaned back against Jesse’s chest. The humid air thickened the sheen of sweat on my skin and trickled between my breasts. “Shea, I’ll have complete control over the bug.”

That morning in her bedroom, I had explained how this worked, including the skin-to-skin contact.

A swallow bobbed in her throat.

“The gun is to help you feel safe, but you don’t have to use it, okay?” My stomach clenched against the telepathic drone of the aphid. “It’s coming. Just on the other side of that forked tree.”

Her eyes darted to Roark’s sword as he slowly unsheathed it and stepped behind her.

Jesse’s hands slid across my belly, hot and slick, inching upward until his thumb rested against my breastbone. His fingers curved beneath the underside of my scarred breast.

“Do you have control of it, darlin’?” he asked in that southern twang of his.

I licked my lips. “You’re distracting me.”

His chest pressed closer against my back, his breaths becoming louder, shorter. “You better get un-distracted real quick.”

Grrr. I wanted to hip-check him, but the bushes at the edge of the woods rustled with movement, startling a flock of birds in the canopy.

Twenty feet before us, a low growl rumbled over the ground, followed by the blur of a mutated body erupting from the overgrowth. All-white eyes scanned our group and locked on me.

Focusing on my contact points—my back against Jesse’s chest, his hands and arms on my ribs, and his mouth resting against my neck—I tapped his masculinity. A trickle of heat seeped from his skin to mine and crashed into hot waves through my body. A bright light flashed behind my eyes, dizzying, intoxicating, tingling across my jaw and gathering in my chest.

I coiled my mind around the energy, wove it through the aphid connection, and silently pushed the command. Closer. Slowly.

A soundless hum rippled between me and the growling creature. The tiny bristles on its translucent skin stiffened, sensing my transmission. Snot dribbled over its oblong jaw, and segmented feet dragged forward, scraping yellow talons through the dirt.

I peeked at Shea, and her muscles were frozen in shock. The only thing that moved was the carbine, trembling in her hand.

Roark leaned over her shoulder, whispering something that made her chin bob tightly. Then he stepped to her side with the sword in a two-fisted grip. If I lost my focus, he would take the creature’s head without a moment’s hesitation.

I continued to guide the bug forward, siphoning Jesse’s vitality and mentally reciting directions. Ten feet away, Stop bloomed in my chest and tumbled along the invisible leash.

The aphid paused, lowering on double-jointed legs, and a tremor shook its hands, which weren’t hands at all. Its fingers were fused together, curled into hooks, like misshapen pincers.