Cruel Seduction (Underground Kings 2)

Matty turns sad all of a sudden. “Her calf died around here a few years back. She always comes to look for her. I think she likes us kayakers because we remind her of her baby.”

“Oh, that’s awful.” Gabriella holds her hand to her heart as Lucy comes close to the kayak.

Real fucking close.

The kayak rocks from the waves Lucy creates, and she stops right next to us, her big black eye blinking up at Gabriella as she rolls to her side.

“She wants a belly rub,” Matty says.

“A belly…” Gabriella looks left and right at the size of the whale next to us. She’s huge. Lucy floats on her back, waiting for Gabby to rub her white belly. I take Gabriella’s hand in mine, and we rea out together, feeling the smooth surface of Lucy’s belly. Lucy blows out another air pocket through her blowhole and water drenches us.

Gabriella laughs at getting rained on, and even though she has been with me for weeks now, this is the happiest I’ve ever seen her. I have to give her this every day, the chance to live her life, something that has been taken away from her too many times. Gabriella is beautiful when she is free.

In a way, she reminds me of Lucy— rare, gorgeous, and longing to feel love again. Lucy in search of the calf she will never get again. Gabriella is searching for herself. The end result is the same.

They both want to feel unconditional love and happiness.

While all I can do for Lucy is rub her stomach, I can give Gabriella more than searching the sea she will never be able to obtain.

Lucy dives under the water and disappears until suddenly she jumps in the distance, giving us one last show before disappears into the expanse of the ocean.

“She’s beautiful,” Gabriella says with fondness. “Thank you for bringing me. It’s been the best experience of my life.”

There will be more to come. That I’ll make sure of.

Chapter Twenty-Four

GABRIELLA

“You have no idea where we are,” I accuse Sebastian as we stop in the middle of the Avenue of the Giants, glancing around to try to find our truck. He has been on this kick of ‘showing me the world’ and I swear we have passed the same tree three times now.

The Avenue of the Giants is gorgeous. The redwood trees are the biggest I’ve ever seen. Even when I craned my head all the way back, I still couldn’t see the tops of the tree. If we are lost, I am glad it is in the middle of this forest. Never in my life have I seen anything like this. The roots of the tree are as big as Sebastian, but shallow to the ground. They don’t grow deep in the ground like most trees. It is amazing how big they are able to grow without falling over.

And when they did fall? Holy crap. You can climb inside of the tree and its huge tunnel. It is another once in a lifetime experience that maybe I’ll be able to enjoy more if I am lucky.

“We aren’t lost,” he huffs and takes out the map and a compass. “We need to go this way.” He steps to the left, then spins around to go right. “No, this way. Definitely this way.”

“Just say we are lost,” I argue.

“We aren’t lost. I know how to read a map, Gabriella.”

“Mhmm,” I hum, grasping the straps of my backpack. I step onto a log and balance myself as I walk across the damp bark and green moss.

“Be careful. I don’t want you to get hurt,” Sebastian says, turning left again.

“You realize every left turn you make is a step closer to us going in a complete circle. Again.”

“We haven’t been going in circles.”

I chuckle and jump off the log. I’m not worried about us finding the way back to the truck. We will eventually. I am glad to be out of the house. It isn’t a prison. At all. Not compared to what my life was with Kendrick, but I felt like the walls were closing in. I didn’t feel safe there. I don’t feel safe anywhere.

I always feel like someone is watching me. I might as well live life to the fullest, and if Kendrick does grab me, then I have good memories to last me for a lifetime.

We walk through the woods, following the steady stream to our right. Sebastian is doing his best to read the map, but I know he’ll never admit he got us lost. He takes out his phone and tries to turn it on, shakes it, then chucks it clear across the forest.

I roll my lips together to keep from laughing, and then he stomps in that direction, mumbling incoherent things under his breath as he tramples through the forest.

“I’ll just wait here. On this log.”