Page 92 of Haunted Nightmares
“Zephyr,” I say softly as I place my hands on her shoulders. “My love, you must calm down. There’s no reason to panic. They are both very capable adult males who probably overindulged when they checked on the club.”
She blinks wide amber eyes at me. “You think so?”
“I do. Besides, they’ve given us no real reason to think anything out of the norm has happened, correct?”
A bit of color drains from Archer’s face as I turn to him, his eyes bouncing between Zephyr and me.
“Right, lad?”
“Uh… well.”
“Out with it.” I grit my teeth as I rub my hands up and down my mate’s arms, her pulse quickening the longer the berk makes us wait.
“They aren’t at the club, or their house.” He blows out a breath then pushes a hand back through his stupid long but shaved hair. “Declan has been looking for them since the sun went down. He picked up a strange scent at the gate, then he found Aries truck about two miles down the road.”
A burst of light explodes from my mate, followed by another with each stomp of her bare feet as she marches around our bedroom. “No.”
“No?” I ask as I start looking for my tactical gear because I’ll need to brush the dust off if Zephyr truly intends to go to war the way her imagination is conjuring. “No, what, my love?”
She hops up and down as she pulls on a pair of extremely tight, black linen pants. They almost look as if someone sewed one of those long loin cloths together in order to fashion trousers from them.
“Where the bloody hell did you get those?”
“Aaru,” my mate snaps as she pulls on some sort of tank top made of the same material before adorning herself in some sort of gold armor. “Got a problem with my outfit?”
I shake my head as I grin. “On the contrary. Had I known you were hiding this in your trunk I would’ve suggested some sort of ancient Egyptian role play. Pharaoh and his slave, something along those lines.”
Zephyr smacks my arm as she brushes by me, moving to her other trunk, popping it open to reveal a small armory. “Not now.”
I give her a shrug then pull on a black t-shirt. “As you wish, but we will revisit this.” My brows lift as I watch her pull two daggers and a pair of brass knuckles from the case. “Don’t you think this is a little much, my love? We don’t even?—“
“I’m not willing to risk it.” Zephyr points at me with a throwing star. “And my gut is telling me something is wrong.”
“Whoa,” Archer says with a laugh as I blurt, “Who the bloody hell are you right now?”
“Your queen.” She pulls two sickles from their resting place, twirling them a few times between her slender fingers before sheathing them in a crisscross pattern on her back. “Now be a good king and wipe my blood off your face then give me thatsevered finger. I’m done playing games, and I’m ready for a fight.”
Jesus fuck, I like her bossy.
Bossy and fiery, a touch scary and a lot sexy.
And I’ll do as she demanded, just as soon as my boner deflates enough to walk.
We move quietly through the troll’s camp, bypassing various body parts and bones, scraps of clothing and trinkets.
I check my right where Lydia leads a team of Purists about one hundred yards away, systematically moving in grid formation in search of anything useful. She whistles, the sound mimicking the native wildlife and signaling they’ve not found anything.
To my left, Declan is doing the same, a search and conquer group ready to rescue or destroy. We’ve been at it for a while now and the only discovery anyone has made is when my team walked through what appeared to be troll shite.
“Disgusting beasts,” Ana grunts as she pokes the tip of her short sword through the eye socket of a severed head on a pike.
I nod as we keep on, passing multiple heads posted around its camp as a warning, I’m sure, a deterrent to those with weaker stomachs. This is but a walk down memory lane for me, a nod to days long gone by.
There are two very glaring differences, though.
One being the weapons we now carry.
Lydia recreated the bullets we found, manufacturing her own brand of silver and UV rays with a much quicker reaction time than what Wilfred’s mate experienced.
