22. Chapter Twenty-Two

Sylas

Anticipation floods through me as we leave the hut for the swimming hole. I’ve come here several times since the soldiers gave us permission to wander the property without surveillance. It’s been fun but has never held such promise before.

The air feels cool and crisp against my skin as we navigate the overgrown underbrush. I inhale the scent of loam and vegetation, the aroma invigorating my senses.

Perhaps it’s my enhanced senses, or maybe it’s just my infatuation, but at any given moment I’m ninety percent aware of Cally, and ten percent aware of every other thing in the woods: the sounds, the birdsong, the scents.

But Cally? I’m aware of the rhythm of her heart and whether there’s a small smile playing at the corners of her lips. Even though we’re walking side by side, I’m so attuned to her it’s as though I know in what direction she’s looking at any given moment.

Shaking my head, I try to stay more vigilant to my surroundings.

“So, your friend is Grizz. Am I to assume he has bear DNA?”

“Yep. He’s way bigger than me, with wider shoulders, and lots more hair.”

“Can’t wait to meet him.” Her voice is laced with sarcasm as she gives a terrified shiver. “So, did the evil scientists name you?”

My stomach knots for a moment as her casual words cause an immediate flashback. That happens sometimes when I least expect it. I’ll be going along, not thinking of anything related to my past and the smallest reminder cuts to the heart of me.

For a moment, I’m back in a lab enduring something horrific. I squeeze my hands into fists and breathe deeply as they taught me shortly after my rescue. Performing my grounding exercise, I think of five things I see, five things I hear, and five things I smell. Normally, I’d repeat it with four of each, three of each, and so on. But I’m okay, and Cally’s waiting for an answer.

“We had numbers.”

I may not have known Cally for long, but I’m certain her face will be filled with all sorts of emotions including pity for me and anger at them. Avoiding looking at her, I add, “We named ourselves. Sylas means of the forest.” I shrug and add, “I decided ‘of the test tube’ didn’t have as good a ring to it. Anyway, look where we are now.” I point toward the treetops.

She halts and doesn’t move until I turn to look at her.

“Sylas.” She nods. “It’s strong. It fits. It’s perfect.”

There were so many things she could have said, but this is just what I needed to hear.

“Thanks.” I break our locked gazes and stride forward.

“Chicken of the woods,” I call as I tramp to a fallen log to my right.

“Wild chickens?” Cally hurries after me. “I would have thought Tater would be barking up a storm.”

“Not birds, mushrooms.”

I kneel near the decaying log, which is covered with some of the biggest chicken of the woods I’ve ever seen. Funny, I didn’t notice them when I visited the swimming hole before.

“Are they safe? I’ve never felt good about eating wild mushrooms. Don’t want to die.”

“These are pretty distinctive. You can’t really mistake them for anything else. When I was in captivity, they’d leave us in the wilderness for weeks on end with no rations. Trust me, I paid very close attention to the lessons about what was edible in the wild.”

I break off the outer edge of one of the pale orange ruffles and eat it. “Delish. Want some for dinner?”

“Sure.” She shrugs. “If you haven’t died by then. You can be the official taster for the queen.” She curtsies.

As I gather just the tender bits at the edges of each plant, I motion her over. She holds her t-shirt away from her body and I place the bounty in the pouch the fabric makes. Bonus! I catch a glimpse of a strip of her tan skin from her waist almost to her bra.

As we approach the swimming hole, I catch glimpses of the shimmering sunlight filtering through the canopy of trees, casting dappled shadows on the water’s surface. Cally is by my side. Just her quiet presence next to me holds so much promise.

Beside us, Tater Tot bounds ahead happily, his bandana fluttering around his neck like a flag of mischief. He knows only joy in this moment. Even though I’m overflowing with animal DNA, I’ve never been like him: carefree with no worries about lurking danger or secrets waiting to be discovered.

I observe Cally as she watches him, her eyes gleaming with affection while she calls his name playfully to keep him from wandering off.

“It’s not what I expected,” she says when the little pond comes into view.

It’s small, maybe twice as big as the Quonset, surrounded by tall reeds and cattails.

“I hope it’s not freezing.” She gives an anticipatory shiver.

“Crap. Sorry, Cally. I didn’t think. Do you want to go back to the hut?”

How stupid of me. My bottom half is shaggy, and the doctors told me I run several degrees warmer than regular humans. I didn’t consider that this autumn weather might be too cold for our expedition.

“I’m good.” She shrugs. “I’ll dip in a toe. If it’s too cold, I’ll cheer on my two goodest boys from the sidelines.”

I think anyone else might find what she just said demeaning. She just lumped me in with her dog, and I didn’t even get top billing. Instead, my cock is about to punch its way out of my pants at the joy of hearing her praise. Maybe I’m not as well-adjusted as I thought.

“Come on Tater! Show me your best doggy-paddle!”

Encouraged by her voice, Tater jumps into action and splashes excitedly into the water. Without a backward glance, he paddles to the other side of the pond in pursuit of the humongous pair of dragonflies dive-bombing him.

Cally laughs again. It’s a sound so pure it sends shivers down my spine. As she slips off her shoes, I watch her delicate toes sink into the soft mud at the edge of the water. The sensation must be delightful, a tactile experience I can only imagine.

The mud squelches around my hooves as I wade into the water with a sigh of happiness, feeling the temperature drop as the liquid laps against my shaggy legs.

Although I’ve been here in the past, I’ve never thought it a romantic setting before. But with Cally here, everything takes on a new beauty.

The sunlight dances on the surface of the water, creating the effect of sparkling diamonds on the ripples Tater leaves behind. The scent of the swimming hole fills the air—a combination of wet earth, aquatic plants, and a sweet flower I can’t see but can surely smell.

Cally’s squatting at the water’s edge with a carefree smile across her face, the mushrooms in a pile at her side. This is certainly a different, more relaxed, side of her than I’ve witnessed before. I could get used to lazing the day away with her like this.

Her laughter breaks through the serenity as she skips a rock across the surface of the water.

“What sorcery is this?” I wade back toward her. “How did you do that?”

“Rock skipping? It takes a deft hand. Frankly, I’m not sure you can do it.”

For a moment, I want to rise to her joking challenge. Just as quickly, though, the fun mood disappears as the heat between us flares red-hot. Our blazing eye contact makes me forget the rock skipping for long moments as my gaze arrows to her luscious lips.

I could splash toward her, pull her into my embrace, and kiss her senseless, reenacting what we shared last night. Instead, I make the reasonable choice and demand, “Teach me!”

It’s all I can do to pay attention to her as she patiently shows me the proper technique to rock-skipping: from how to hold it, to how to snap your wrist on the release.

Although she’s a terrific teacher, I can’t concentrate for more than a few words at a time because my cock is pulsing, insisting I focus on it and not her. I try to pay attention to her tutorial, but all I can think of is that I could rip off her clothes and sheath myself inside her in five seconds flat if she’d allow me.

“And that, my friend, is how you can make a hippopotamus fly.” She flashes me a wide smile.

“Wh-what?”

“You didn’t like my tutorial about flying hippos? You were paying such close attention, I thought you were enraptured.”

“Ah. You’re teasing. You noticed that my mind wandered.” If the expression on her face was different, I’d assume she was mad at me—she has every right—but she’s smiling at me indulgently.

She holds a hand out, palm toward me, and says, “I don’t even want to know what you were thinking about. You don’t need to tell me…” her voice lowers as she adds, “because I already know.”

Although the water is murky and she can’t see below the surface, which comes up to my waist, she points in the direction of my cock and gives an exaggerated smirk.

“Mind reader,” I grumble, then flash her a smile.

Tater Tot, submerged to his neck, is paddling in unadulterated bliss. The droplets cascading down his black-and-white speckled fur are glinting in the sunlight. With every stroke, he exudes pure ecstasy.

I’m glad I didn’t turn this fun moment into something sexual, although my rut is insistently arguing to the contrary. Even though Cally could be ripped away from me at a moment’s notice and thrown into the brig, there’s this crazy, optimistic part of me that wants something more than sex with her.

Try as I might to be realistic, my mind keeps throwing me pictures of a future together. It’s insanity. Between the threat of exposure, the likelihood of her incarceration, and the utter improbability that someone as amazing as Calliope Quinn would want to hitch her quirky, nomadic wagon to a male who will probably never be allowed to leave this ten-square-mile plot of land, it’s more of a longshot than putting a man on the moon.

But we managed that, didn’t we? We put a man on the moon. Maybe there is a future for Cally and me.