Steaming Desire - Melissa Young

Chapter twenty - Knox

Forcing my head to ignore my racing heart that pounded in my chest, I focused on Kiara. I hadn’t expected her to run from us. The second she started to move, I was tugged toward her. She ran and took my heart with her, I wanted to scream at how bad it hurt in my chest.

   It didn’t matter that I fucking hated the man, I was glad that Blake had fast legs, or we would have lost her. I know what Kiara is capable of and if she hadn’t been dehydrated, she wouldn’t have a single problem getting away from the three of us. But now that she was stuck in Blake’s arms, we wouldn’t let her out of sight.

   I jogged up to them with Hunter right behind me. If we hadn’t been in a rush to get out of here, I would have asked her what the hell she was thinking, but we all knew that time was ticking.

   "This isn’t a place we want to stay in." Hunter spoke the words on my tongue. I didn’t know a thing about the supposed pirate culture, but I had been on enough royal missions at sea to know that these people weren’t friends.

   "What is the plan?" Blake surprised me every time he spoke, and didn’t expect a gut punch in return. I let it slide, since he caught my girl.

   Hunter and I locked gazes, we got to an agreement with that one look, and he lifted his arm to point at the ship that had been our dungeon for weeks. I should feel stressed to get on it again, but it never felt like a prison, not when Kiara was there.

   Blake looked like he had seen a ghost. My knuckles tingled with the want to punch that stupid expression from his face.

   Focus Knox.

   I shook the tension from my hands, the color appearing as I opened my tight fists. Drawing in a calming breath that did nothing to still the stirring nerves in my stomach.

   "I am going to assume that most of them are in the town," Hunter spoke with a toned down voice so that no attention would be drawn to us by observers. "They are going to want the visit to be as brief as possible. Which means," we began walking toward the small port, "that we could take out the last of them between the four of us."

   "I don’t think we can count on Kiara to help us," Blake cut in. Kiara strained against his hands and screamed out loud, as if to amplify his words.

   I took two quick steps to her. Standing in front of her face, I wrapped a hand around her throat and squeezed.

   "Shut up and follow Blake like a good girl, or I will show you what happens to bad girls." She didn’t stop fighting to get free. "I will remember this Kiara and believe me when I say," I got closer to her face, "you will get punished. You will get on that boat whether you like it or not, and nobody can stop us." To my surprise, she didn’t stop fighting.

   "Take her to the boat, we will meet you there." Blake and I both turned to Hunter with horrified expressions plastered on our faces. "Think about it," he sighed. "They are here to buy food and if we get there when they are out, as we hope to, their boat will still be empty." I drew my teeth over my bottom lip, wanting to refuse that we part ways, but still seeing the logic in his statement.

   "Fine," I grunted, still not happy to be apart from Kiara. Blake half walked, half carried Kiara to the boat, I just hoped he wouldn’t get stopped on his way there.

   We navigated through the crowded streets, ducking out of sight if we met anybody we remembered. I walked past a small stand and took a wooden box when the person selling them was busy.

   Hunter shoved a hand in my chest, catching me off guard.

   "Did you just steal a box of ice?" I forced him to keep walking, afraid somebody would hear him.