“So, where are we?” Trace asked, drawing me from my thoughts as he glanced around.
I blinked, gazing down at the valley below us. It was still dark out, but the sky was a whorl of blue and purple light, and the moon and stars shone bright enough that I could make out a bit of the terrain. “I have no clue where we are. I don’t remember seeing these mountains when we were down below. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t there, I guess. This place is so weird, who knows.”
Merrick furrowed his brow. “No, I think we transported somewhere else entirely in the godly realm. Somewhere we’ve never been before.”
We all stood in a row, looking quietly over the lush landscape in front of us.
Trace shook his head. “It’s funny, from up here it’s kind of beautiful. It’s not like anything I’ve seen on earth, and with the sky swirling in those colors like that. It’s wild.”
I wanted to see the beauty in it, but I couldn’t.
Not in that moment.
I turned around as anger swelled in my chest. “It’s bullshit, that’s what it is. This entire competition is bullshit.” I gritted my teeth. “Why would they put people through this?”
Lachlan walked over to me, his expression soft. With one hand, he lifted his shirt over his head, and I realized with a start that I was topless except for my bra. I’d left my damn shirt back in the cave.
My cheeks flushed as I held my arms up, letting Lach pull the oversized shirt over my head until the fabric settled around my body.
“Thanks,” I mutter
ed.
His lips tilted up in a smile, and his hands stayed on my hips, his emerald eyes shining in the light. “It is bullshit, but you have to remember each of us came in here on our own accord. No one made us accept the challenge.”
“They also didn’t prepare us for it,” I replied, my voice sharp even as my body softened under his touch. “Not enough, anyway.”
With my gaze focused on Lachlan, I hadn’t even realized that the other two men had come up on either side of me. When I did, my face flashed hot, and visions of what had just happened in the cave went running through my mind like a movie.
Merrick’s hand drifted down my arm as Trace’s did the same on the other side. I wasn’t sure if they were trying to comfort me or what, but the heat was definitely back on.
Now that the wind was hitting me in the face, and I could take a full breath that didn’t feel tinged with burning air from the lake of fire, what had gone down in that cave seemed almost unreal. As if none of it had happened.
Not Trace’s brush with death.
Not my confession of my feelings for Merrick.
Not the men’s possessive stares and hungry glances. Not their lips and hands converging on my body.
I couldn’t believe what we’d done, and maybe it was the literal change in temperature out here, but I felt the hard shell building back up around my heart. It had been stupid. Merrick had lured me into a closet the first day of school, fucked me senseless and left me there naked.
What had happened in the cave had seemed entirely different than that, but I had to be smart. I had to remind myself there was always the possibility they were just trying to get me to lower my defenses to make it easier to beat me when the time came to end our partnership.
No matter what feelings had sprung up between all of us, we were in the middle of a competition that was a matter of life and death. I wanted to think these three men genuinely cared about me, but in reality, I didn’t know if they would take me down just to win the prize.
Besides, we needed to focus. If Chetna and Knox were any indication, the other contestants weren’t far behind us. We needed to focus on finding the gem and getting out of here alive.
I maneuvered my way from between the three warm bodies, turning back to look at the guys. “We… shouldn’t let that kind of thing happen again. We need to focus. We almost died down there. We have to keep our eyes on the prize and not get distracted.”
I held my breath, waiting for their reactions. I wasn’t sure whether they’d be upset with me, agree with me, or make fun of me for it.
My stomach soured at the thought, and I steeled my heart.
It’s fine. We’re each here to win the competition. If they can’t focus, I’ll leave them behind and find the next clue by myself.
The thought didn’t help as much as I’d thought it would. I was starting to dread the moment we all split up, when this weird little team we’d formed was disbanded. But I couldn’t quite bring myself to say that out loud.
But none of the men mocked me, and none of them seemed angry either.