The Hunter

Splish Splash

An arm slipped around Mira’s waist and pulled her back into a hard chest. Her flight drive kicked in and it took all her willpower not to elbow him in the stomach before shifting and running off. After a couple of seconds and a few deep breaths, she managed to calm down.

“Shh, it’s alright,” Collin whispered. “It’s just me.”

All she managed to do was nod.

“You need to stop shutting me out.” Collin sighed. “I could almost feel you building a wall around yourself again.”

She fidgeted and lowered her head. Before she could over-think it, she said, “You were laughing at me.”

He chuckled in her ear and she straightened her back. “As I said before, I wasn’t laughing at you. I was amused with how adorable you were being.”

Her cheeks grew warm—how had she not heard him say that sooner? Probably too embarrassed to think straight. She swallowed in an attempt to keep her voice steady. “I’m not adorable.”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure you are even if you don’t know it.” He squeezed his arms around her gently. “Now, are we going to bathe or what? Personally, I’m in favor of it since I’m pretty sure we both smell at this point.”

“I’m not adorable,” she muttered before nodding.

As she walked away, his chuckle followed her. Her cheeks burned again, but she couldn’t figure out why. Why would she be blushing? She never blushed except when she was around him. Nothing about what happened with the hunter made sense.

After a couple of minutes of distracted walking, Collin interrupted her thoughts, “Aren’t we going the wrong way?”

She stopped and sniffed the air. Damnit. He was right. Without saying a word, she turned on her heels and brushed past him. He had an amused expression his face as his eyes followed her. Only a few more days and she wouldn’t have to worry about his effect on her. He was dangerous to her health—she was sure of it.

This time she made sure to follow her nose to the water. It’d be too embarrassing to take them in the wrong direction twice. When she finally burst through the bushes, she couldn’t help but grin. She was finally going to get a bath after who knew how long.

With a silly grin plastered on her face, she stripped her shirt off and threw it onto a branch. Several swear words came from behind her and she spun around to face Collin. His eyes were squeezed shut and his jaw clenched.

“You should probably get in the water.” He took a couple of deep breaths. “I’ll put the shampoos and soap over on a rock and go stand watch.”

“Okay, thanks.” She smiled before dashing into the water.

After washing her hair twice, she sat on a rock near the edge of the water and thoroughly scrubbed her skin. The bubbles and foam turned brown before she slipped back into the water. When all the soap rinsed off her body, she climbed out of the water and wiped as much off her body as possible.  She grabbed her shirt and dunked it into the water. As soon as her shirt was clean, she wrung it out and pulled it over her head.

She combed her hand through her hair before twisting it onto the back of her head and pushing a stick through it. Once her hair was up, she went in search of Collin. Her nose twitched and she followed his scent.

Hopefully, he wouldn’t be too long, but she couldn’t begrudge him if he were since she had taken her time. They needed to move. She could find him a safe town in the next couple of days. Would a hunter-controlled one be safer or one with just humans? She couldn’t be sure. Probably was something she’d have to ask him.

After a minute, she found him sitting on a log near the water just out of sight of it. She cleared her throat and murmured, “Hey.”

“Hey. All clean?” He smiled as he turned away from the branches in his hands to look at her. When his eyes landed on her, he froze.

“Yep, I left everything on the same rock.” A small grin crept onto her face as she took a couple of steps closer to him.

“Right.” He stood and stretched with his knife catching the sun. After a few twists, he sheathed his dagger and piled his sticks together. “Since you seemed interested earlier, you’re still welcome to watch.”

If she didn’t know it to be impossible, she would have been positive that her face spontaneously combusted at that moment. As she tried to hide her blush, she walked over to a nearby tree and pretended to look at it, while doing everything in her power to ignore the man behind her.

As the silence grew longer, she manned up and spoke first. “That’s alright. I can wait here. Want me to work on the javelins at all?”

“Suit yourself. I’ll finish the branches after I’m done.” His footsteps headed towards the pond.

“We need to move camp soon.”

He paused at her words. “Why? Aren’t we safe here?”

“No. I’m not safe anywhere.” She sighed and raked her nails down the bark of the tree. Collin swore before rushing to her side. “We have to move. Soon.”

He grabbed her hand in his and inspected her nails—some of which she’d torn off. “Mira, when are you going to let me help you?”

She spun around so quickly that her hand jerked out of his and threw him off balance. As he stumbled back a step, she steadied him, before meeting his eyes. “You can’t help me. No one can.” When he sighed and rubbed his nose, she slumped her shoulders. At this point she could trust him a little bit, right?

“Of everything that could happen if I’m caught, two would be the worst case scenarios. The first is if one pack captures me, two of the largest packs in the country go to war. I refuse to cause such a war. The second is if the other pack catches me, the two packs will be joined and there is nothing I can do to stop it. The leader would be a heartless bastard and I refuse to let him get that much control. He’ll continue conquering packs. And almost every other option leads back to those two, because if one of the many other groups get me, I’ll end up being ransomed to one of those two packs. I can’t let that happen.”

At the end, her body was shaking. Whether it was from fear or anger, she couldn’t be sure. Collin wrapped his arms around her and stroked her back. “Let me guess, you ran away from the first pack, didn’t you?”