Captured By The Mercenaries

I glared over at Rafe. That nickname was so grating. I liked Arsen’s, or even Sig’s simple ‘gorgeous’ much better. “If I’m going to be living here with you for who knows how long, I just thought maybe I should know the language.”

They had a brief discussion—argument—in another language before Arsen nodded. “I’ll teach you.”

“Thank you,” I replied with a smile for him and a surly look for Rafe. I wasn’t doing a very good job of not antagonizing him.

“We can start now,” he said, sitting down next to me on the log and taking my stick from my hand.

I watched as he started drawing the alphabet in the dirt. The thought of warning him that I didn’t pick up on languages very easily crossed my mind, but I didn’t want him to give up before I had a chance so I didn’t.

Two hours later I leaned forward and pointed to a letter. “That was an ‘a’, right?”

“Mmmm,” Arsen hummed in agreement.

I frowned at the word he’d made in the dirt trying to piece it together, kind of like hangman, or Wheel of Fortune. “Park?”

Sig sniggered and I tossed him a glare. Arsen went a step further and threw a chunk of firewood at him.

“Hey!” He easily avoided the small log, but glared at Arsen. “It’s not my fault.”

“She’s learning. Go away if you’re going to be an asshole.”

My chest warmed as Arsen stood up for me. “I’m not very good at this,” I admitted. I was awesome at math and science. Great at reading and writing, but only in English. Something about different alphabets and the way other languages constructed their sentences tripped me up. And you didn’t want to get me started on conjugating.

“You’ll learn,” he said simply, pointing back to the word. “Try again.”

We went on like that for hours and time flew past. At least it gave me something to focus on besides the never ending boredom. Plus, it further humanized me. More than once, I looked up to find Rafe’s eyes on me. Not just his, all of them. They watched me like I was the most fascinating thing they’d seen. I doubted that was true, but the attention made my body tingle with awareness.

After dinner Sig took my hand and pulled me along with him until we were past the fire’s glow. His smile was warm and friendly and I relaxed against him as he tucked me under his arm while we walked.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” he said, giving me a boyish grin.

He brought me to the top of a sand dune and tugged on my arm to get me to sit next to him. The sun had already sunk down below the horizon. He laid back, staring up at the sky. His arms were tucked behind his head and I had to fight the urge to reach out and touch him.

Instead, I laid beside him, looking up at the stars. I had a feeling he had brought me out here for a reason, though I didn’t know what it was. Deciding to wait him out, I remained quiet as we basked in the night sounds of the desert.

“Where did you grow up?”

Shooting him a quick look, I studied his face, then turned back to the sky. He was trying to get to know me. There was no other reason to ask me. “I grew up in San Diego,” I told him.

“Ah, California. I hear it’s beautiful.”

“You’ve never been?” I asked. The small talk wasn’t awkward with him. Very little seemed to be. He was really laid back compared to the other two. He cracked jokes throughout the day and typically had a smile on his handsome face.

“No, but I plan to see it one day. I want to learn to surf.” He gave me a playful smile. “To snowboard. Rock climb.”

“Ah, so you’re an adrenaline junkie,” I replied with a laugh. I knew all about that. You didn’t choose a career like mine without needing a bit of excitement in your life.

“Yeah, though I haven’t had much time for extreme sports.”

“You get your fix through this,” I said, motioning around us. “Whatever it is you guys are doing here.”

“Exactly. We all get something we need from our work.”

“I get that,” I said with a nod. “I miss work.”

“What do you do?”