Page 106 of Crucible
Thorin silently hands me a cloth filled with rabbit meat when I join them, and I eat while the three re-roll their sleeping mats before securing them with twine and stuffing them back in their packs.
“How long will it take to get back to the cabin?” I casually ask while chewing on the surprisingly juicy meat. Really, I’m just curious how far I’d made it yesterday—for when I try again later of course.
“We’re only a few miles hike from the base of our mountain.”
I pause mid-chew as the blood drains from my face. “That’s it?”
No…that can’t be right. I’d wandered for hours. I waslost. I was as good asdead. There was no way my circumstances would have been that dire if I hadn’t at least made it a respectable distance. How could I have been that close to the cabin without ever finding it when I’d found it before without even looking for it?
The three of them look at each other before staring down at me.
Khalil is the first to speak. “You didn’t accomplish anything other than nearly getting yourself killed, Aurelia.”
“Maybe think about that the next time you run from us,” Thorin says.
Seth speaks last. “Or better yet, don’t run at all. We won’t be so forgiving a second time.”
THORIN
“Is this really necessary?” Aurelia whines for the umpteenth time. “It itches.”
The four of us are sitting around the fire in our living room, waiting for the storms we’ve been pinned under for days to pass. After rescuing Aurelia, we made it back to the cabin just in time for another squall to hit us hard. Only these cabin walls we’d built with our bare hands separate us from certain death while we have the perfect view of the storm-ridden wilds out of the panoramic window overlooking the Cold Peaks.
Khalil had wasted no time rigging an ankle monitor of sorts, using an avalanche beacon, which now adorns Aurelia’s ankle. It’s a bluff that he gambled she wouldn’t call since the tracker only picks up the signal within two hundred feet. All she needs to know is that we can find her even faster if she runs again—which she will.
It’s given us a little piece of mind that our pet won’t get far, but Aurelia’s been spitting venom ever since—even more than usual. Honestly, she’s lucky it didn’t occur to Khalil to make a shock collar instead. She’s lucky I don’tsuggestit to him.
Khalil looks up from the small wooden block he’s been carving for the last hour and gives her a hard look. “Are you going to run again?”
He’s still salty from the black eye she gave him after he told her the monitor was for her. It had taken all three of us holding her down to get it on and a very descriptive warning of what would happen if she took it off. She can, of course,ifshe can find something strong enough to cut through the thick metal cuff.
“Probably.”
“Then it’s necessary.”
“Ititches.”
“You said that already.”
“That’s because it really itches!”
“The collar stays on, wolf.”
Aurelia shifts her displeasure to me, giving Khalil a much-needed break from her complaining. “Classic misogyny,” she says with a scoff. “You say it’s because I’m a danger to myself, but I don’t see you tagging Seth. He was out there, too.”
She has a point…
Hearing Aurelia throw him under the bus, Seth sits up and gapes at her. “What the fuck, Sunshine?”
“Shut up, Seth. You want to talk about betrayal? You let them do this to me.”
My brows dip. What the hell is she talking about? Since when is Seth onherside?
“Hey, hey.” Reaching down, Seth strokes her full bottom lip, and my cock hardens when Aurelia looks up at him like she’s finally getting what she was after all along—not the collar off as she claimed.
This.
Our attention.
