Lucas almost groaned. Two days of trudging through this swampy mess? And even if they got there, there were other issues. “Don’t suppose either of you has any currency to buy our passage through?”
Nikolai stared at him. “We have to buy our passage through?”
Lucas rubbed a hand over his face and sighed.
Aria gestured impatiently. “We can figure out the payment when we get there. Maybe there are some crates to schlep.
“Maybe,” agreed Nikolai, before he climbed over a horizontal branch and disappeared.
When Aria followed, Lucas slapped at another insect, muttered a curse under his breath, and climbed after them.
* * *
As Nikolai pushed past a tree limb laden with leafy vines, he contemplated his situation.
It was much easier to navigate without the Morph slung over his shoulder, but Nikolai found it only a minor relief. Lucas’s hostility bored holes in his back. Not that the man didn’t have his reasons. Nikolai had almost killed him, after all.
Yet he didn’t think that was Lucas’s primary issue. The Morph’s focus revolved mostly around Aria. And Nikolai wasn’t sure how he felt about that. No, rather, he did know. It stirred something deep and troubling within him.
Neither is important.
The voice had returned after about an hour’s march into the forest. It hadn’t exactly been helpful in its insistence to leave Aria behind.
Nikolai didn’t understand his connection to the woman. He had no claim to her. If he had one ounce of common sense about all this, he should make them both go. His inner voice clamored approval, insisting that none of this involved them. That dragging them through this insect infested swamp to flee his pursuers was both unfair and unnecessary.
You do not have to flee the Watchers anymore.
All this running is pointless. You should return to the building and wait for them.
Leave the other two.
He’d already told Aria she should go, but he hadn’t meant it. When she’d said she’d come, his heart had soared.
She is not your destiny. People like you are dangerous to be around.
Better for everyone if you roam alone.
Nikolai gritted his teeth. This time the voice made sense. But he couldn’t do it. So here he was, and here she was. And Lucas? Nikolai understood Aria’s appeal all too well. It seemed the Morph was as smitten with her as Nikolai was. Which wasn’t good, on many levels.
Even now, as Aria reached a helping hand to Lucas and they clambered over a branch, an ugliness rose inside Nikolai. Wisps of black fog emerged from his skin to drift among the foliage. He squelched it, but not easily.
For him, jealousy came laced with more than just a fist to the face. If Nikolai lost control, he could kill them in an instant. And considering the reaction a simple helping hand evoked, every moment the three were together risked that it could break loose.
He should tell them to leave him.
Instead, Nikolai kept pushing his way through the bog.
Something whizzed by his face, and he snatched it out of the air. He offered the buzzing tidbit to what resided against his neck.
Mai squeaked and darted out from her hiding spot to grab the offering, then retreated again. Crunching noises sounded very close to his ear.
“Is she from your desert home?”
Nikolai glanced to where Aria had just climbed onto the branch beside him. “Yes. She’s an elephant shrew from the Kalahari Desert.”
The fine brows drew down. “The Kalahari? That’s in the human realm?”
“Yeah, it’s in southern Africa.” Lucas popped up beside Aria, slapped at a bug, and regarded him with a raised brow. “How long did you live in the human realm?”
