Page 68 of Balance

Bianca had been pretty annoyed about the mushrooms. It might be better to find him in the daylight so we could rub it in her face a few more times.

Normally, I didn’t like the idea of trying to upset her, but this was well deserved on Miles’s part. We’d been dragged out here because of him. Watching Bianca yell at him would be poetic justice. Knowing him, he probably had no idea he’d even done anything wrong.

Moron.

“We’ll stay here for the night.” We’d entered another clearing, this one better than last night’s resting place, complete with a sizeable water source nearby. I glanced at Bianca; she’d stayed with me most of the day, and I knew that even with her surprising stamina, she must be exhausted. “There’s a hot spring nearby, if you want to relax.”

She had been looking around with a forlorn expression—a look which quickly morphed into cautious excitement at my words. “Really?” she asked, the green specks in her eyes almost glittering with glee. “How do you know?”

I pressed my finger to the side of my nose even as Damen trekked past me, rolling his eyes. I didn’t even need to inhale to smell his jealousy—it was written all over his expression.

He hated it when she paid attention to anyone besides him.

Julian, on the other hand, was the type to internalize his feelings. Unlike Miles, who would go along with Bianca no matter what, he was still prone to moments of possessive behavior.

While Damen liked to take care of others, longing to be seen as a respected authority figure, his was on a surface level only. I could smell—even though he denied it—that he loved it when Bianca challenged him.

Julian, on the other hand, well…

He was weird.

Honestly, I didn’t understand either of them. Miles too. All I knew was what I wanted, and it was her. I couldn’t change the past, but the next best thing was to follow her cues and do whatever she wanted.

That, and I literally had no idea what to do with a woman. The thought of it made my hands sweat and pulse race.

We wanted nothing more than to complete the mating bond right now, just so that the world would unquestionably know to stay away. But the thought of making her uncomfortable in any way…

I’d almost messed up everything in the beginning, just because I didn’t know. I refused to make the same mistake twice.

“Is it safe to go?” she asked, stepping in front of me. I’d been lost in my thoughts, and the sight of her slammed me back into the present. Strands of her hair had fallen over her face, breaking free of the thick braid that fell down over her shoulders, and there was the most distracting smudge of dirt swiped across her cheek.

How had that even happened? I’d been making sure to keep anything remotely threatening away from her.

“Of course it’s safe to go,” I answered, wrapping the edge of her braid around my wrist. She’d been so confident before now—why the sudden surge of apprehension?

“But…” She bit her lip, glancing in the direction I’d indicated earlier.

“But what?” I asked, tugging lightly on her braid. Damen and Julian had also stopped unpacking, their full attention on her. But neither would interrupt. Right now Bianca was mine.

“What about the cottonmouths?” she asked, biting on her pointer finger. “Don’t they hide near water?”

“Cottonmouths?” I dropped her braid, studying her as another piece of the puzzle fell into place. “You mean, the snake?”

“Yeah…” She didn’t seem to notice the slight shift in the air, the way that all three of us waited with bated breath. “Aren’t they poisonous?”

There had been no record of where she lived before Eric Richards, who, according to records, hadn’t been more than a few hours south. The one time we’d asked for details, she’d brushed off the question, claiming that she had no idea where Kieran had taken her; and, of course, she wouldn’t discuss how she’d gone from being with her mother’s bodyguard into the custody of such lowlifes.

But maybe we hadn’t been asking therightquestions. In the short moments where she’d speak of anything, it had been a struggle to determine what was a safe topic and what was not.

“Bianca.” I grasped her slender hands, drawing her attention to me. “There are no cottonmouth snakes around here.”

“What?” she asked, blinking twice as her expression shifted from trepidation to confusion. “But Kieran said—”

“We’re too far north,” I answered. “You’ll only see them in the deep south. Have you ever seen one?”

“Yes.” She cocked her head at me, forehead wrinkling. “I thought they were everywhere.”

My skin burned as the beast’s urgency prickled against my nerves, and the ever-growing need to do something, anything, was becoming too much.