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“Must be my charm.” The side of my mouth hitched up, and I inched even closer to her, forcing her to tilt her head back. My body towered over hers, my mouth so close I could almost taste her lips again. The impulse to lean down and kiss her, like it was something I did all the time, almost overtook me.

Stepping back, I pushed past her. “Fine.”

“I wanna go,” Sprig chirped.

“No,” I barked, my fury turning on him, freezing him before he jumped. “You will only attract attention. Even now, a talking monkey would create hysteria.”

“I promise I won’t talk.” He pretended to zip his lips. “See? Silent as the dead,” he pledged, pointing at his mouth, which was moving freely.

“I said no.”

“Wow, someone really needs to get laid. You’re acting like a Viking again. I can always tell when he needs to club his seal.”

Both my eyes twitched.

“Sprig, just stay here this time. I promise I will bring you back something yummy.” Annabeth rolled up her hair in a topknot.

“Better be fried and covered in honey!” He stomped his foot on Tsai’s shoulder. “Ohhhh, like honey cookies, or honey noodles, pastry. Oh, deep-fried honey knots with honey dip rolled in sugar. Oooo, how about—”

“We get it, chinchilla.” I started down the plank.

“You get me anything with banana, and I will poop in your boots again!”

Kat’s eyebrow lifted at that as we hit the dock.

“Yeah, he did that. And in my jacket pocket too.”

“Speaking of jackets. Can I get mine back?”

“You mean mine?” I glanced over at her, Cooper and Annabeth already taking off ahead of us. “You took it fromme.”

“Possession is nine-tenths of the law.”

“And it is now inmypossession again.”

“I want my jacket and boots back.”

“You mean the boots you could slice a man in half with? Most likely me? No fucking way.”

“Seriously, how has no one killed you yet?”

“Lucky, I guess.”

She ran her hand through her hair, pretending to be more irritated than she was, but I could see the amusement she was trying to hide.

“Come on, there’s a clothing stall.” I didn’t think, my hand threading through hers, pulling her with me as I wormed through the crowd to the cart, where AB and Cooper were already picking through stuff.

When we walked up, Annabeth’s gaze dropped to where my hand was holding Kat’s. I instantly let go as guilt and embarrassment flooded me all at once.

I was not a hand-holding kind of guy. That was an intimacy I had no affiliation with. I courted to seduce, took their hand in a dance, kissed them to command. I didn’t hold hands in the middle of the day just because. It was weird for me. Except with Kat, it had come way too easily.

Turning away from them, my attention returned to the crowds, watching all the different characters and types of people moving along with their lives.

Scanning the area, my gaze stopped on two men buying survival gear—knives, boots, camping items, rope, compass. Something about them caught my attention, a tick in the back of my brain.

One turned to his buddy, nodding his head.

“Holy. Shit,” I breathed.