almost entirely blocked him from view.
And who could blame him?
He’d been taken from his home, thrown off a fifty-story building, absconded in a helicopter to the middle of nowhere, hurled out of the helicopter into a freezing lake, dragged out of said lake and carried on his abductor’s back through dense woods, until finally they called it a night in this hidden cave after taking care of various bodily needs in rote, zombie trances.
Sophia was exhausted just retracing their experiences in her head, never mind that she lived through them right alongside Benji.
Thankfully, the utility packs Dalair instructed them to strap on were waterproof, and they made use of all the goodies inside. Thin, but warm blankets, pouches of freeze-dried food, canteens for water, which they collected directly from the falls.
Their wet clothes were laid out flat on the cave floor around a toasty fire. Sophia kept her underwear on but covered the rest of herself with a blanket. Benji was a naked blond burrito in his, only the top of his head and the bottoms of his feet visible outside of the covering. But Dalair still wore the same loose pants and no shirt.
Well, those pants weren’t “loose” when they were soaked through from the lake, and Sophia took much pleasure hiking through the woods after him so she could enjoy the view. Which was exponentially improved upon with his lack of underwear. Even in the dark, with just a hint of moonlight filtering through the trees, she could see the outline of his muscles as they shifted with his movements.
Sophia distinctly recalled comparing Dalair’s hind quarters to that of an Arabian stallion when she was a teenager completely and bewilderingly in lust with him. Keeping her eyes glued to his scrumptious male ass as he walked in front of her, she had the almost irresistible urge to say “Giddyup, cowboy!”
Determinedly, she squelched this impulse.
Really, she should be ashamed. With a reincarnated soul as old as hers, with so many millennia of life experiences, one would think she’d have better control of her bodily urges. But apparently, her current twenty-one-year-old self, despite being a recently Awakened Pure One, still retained those pesky youthful hormonal side-effects. If at any point during the night she leapt upon Dalair like a mad woman, well, there really was no help for it.
Horniness, spiked with everlasting love, was a serious, terminal condition if not properly assuaged.
Her night vision improved by leaps and bounds with such tantalizing incentive dangled before her in the form of Dalair’s rear end. Truly, she didn’t think she could have put one foot in front of the other with so much conviction and enthusiasm if not for her body’s indefatigable need to follow its Mate wherever he should go.
Second, Sophia was quite certain that if she made a run for it with Benji, they wouldn’t get far. It was stupid even to contemplate. Besides the fact that she was physically and skill-wise no match for Dalair, she didn’t know where they’d be running to. She had zero sense of direction in the woods at night. And, she’d run before after her second abduction. Look where that got her. Exactly where her enemies wanted her to trigger her Awakening.
Third, and most importantly, Sophia didn’t want to run. She wanted to be wherever Dalair was. Even if he took her to the Evil One tomorrow (she refused to think of the she-demon as Wan’er, the kind hand-maiden to Rain Sophia had first met in China), she’d face the monster with him.
She refused to lose him again. And if their enemy intended to turn her too and use her for their nefarious purposes, well, good luck to them. The contrary, selfish part of Sophia just didn’t give a damn at the moment. As long as she had Dalair, she would do and endure anything.
The only thing that pulled her back to sanity was Benji. No matter what, she’d protect the boy from the monsters that were after him. Even from Dalair.
Even from herself.
On the bright side, based on Dalair’s actions over the past couple of hours, Sophia had an inkling that he was helping them. Though he shared none of his thoughts or intentions verbally or telepathically, this was the only logical conclusion.
He could have fatally wounded the members of the Shield who got in his way when he was abducting Benji, but he didn’t. A small twinge of conscience? Possibly. He was supposed to take them to the Evil One’s lair by