Exile: Sídhí Summer Camp #3 (17 page)

His hand curled around her back, caressing
the smooth skin of arm. She had left her bikini on, but added a
black spaghetti strap top and a matching pair of shorts.

As everyone discussed the possibility of jet
skis, Nick slid his hand across her back and whispered in her ear.
“No weapons?”

Leaning into his embrace, she gave a soft
sigh of pleasure and glanced into his eyes. “Where would I put
them?”

He kissed her temple, and said with a chuckle
coloring the word, “True.”

“Emily, what about that haunted house?” Katie
asked.

Everyone turned to the blue-eyed vampire who
was gazing out the window.

Sarah frowned at the girl’s odd behavior.
Emily usually jumped into the middle of everything, but not
today.

“Emily,” Katie said a little louder.

“Huh?” Emily said, turning toward the curious
stares of a half dozen curious silent teens. “Yeah, sure, whatever
everyone agrees on is fine with me.”

Mitch snorted. “You aren’t going to find bird
boy out the window.”

Emily glared at Mitch. “That is none of your
business,” she said, a soft growl bubbled through her words.

“Mitch, shut up,” Katie snapped at her twin
brother. “Em, we were talking about using the jet skis. I thought
we might take a lunch and visit that haunted house you mentioned
the other day.”

“Oh, okay,” Emily said with a complete lack
of enthusiasm. When no one spoke, she sighed, appearing put out. “A
couple of guys from our sister cabin told me about a haunted house
that was near the maze.”

“Maze?” Brianna asked. “What maze?”

“It’s across the lake. The dragons are doing
some kind of maintenance so the maze won’t be open for a few more
days, but the house is open,” Emily said with a shrug, glancing
back out the window.

Jared opened a map of the campground area.
Laying it on the table, his finger skimmed across the lake, hovered
over the maze, and stopped on the picture of a weird looking house.
Sure enough, just to the southwest of the maze was a small area
marked King Estate.

Two hours later, after a bit more trouble
between Mitch and Beth, they were on jet skis racing through the
cool water.

A mountain peak loomed in the distance. On
the distant shore, a mixture of colorful trees covered the west and
northwestern shoreline. Zooming around the edge of the lake, it
took longer to cross the large body of water than Sarah had first
guessed it would.

As the midday sun beat down, she was glad for
the extra sunscreen Nick had insisted she use, not that she needed
any of the coconut-scented lotion on her front-side right then.

She shifted forward, curling her body around
Nick as he drove the ski.

“
You keep that up and I won’t be able to
walk once we reach shore,”
he said with a groan.

Chuckling softly, she rubbed her hand across
his stomach muscles, and totally understood why people called them
washboard abs.
“Got a problem?”
she asked sweetly, kissing
the golden skin inches from her face.

Glancing backward, he snorted at her.
“Don’t give me that innocent look, not when you’re trying to
drive me insane.”

Chuckling, she tightened her hold on him as
he swerved through the water, throwing sprays of water into the
air.

Approaching the shoreline, they searched for
the small cove listed on the map as Bitter Blood Bay. Circling a
sandy peninsula, the towering pine and furble trees gave way to
weeping bitters, a high elevation Sídhí-Earth hybrid. The
willow-like tree covered the area. Fifty to eighty feet tall, the
beet-red trees fluttered in the wind. A few dark blue dwarf trees
sprouted among the red giants, but not many.

Jared whistled to get everyone’s attention,
before motioning toward a sign nearly hidden by the feathery
foliage of a weeping bitter tree. The large sign, made of polished
red, bitter wood, announced the entrance to Bitter Blood Bay and
the various activities.

The creek looked like the starting scene of a
swamp movie with red weeping willow branches crowding along both
banks instead of green ones. A red drip hit Nick’s shoulder and
rolled down his arm.

She rubbed the slick bitter tree juice off
his skin, knowing they were going to be splattered from
head-to-foot before they moved from under the trees.

It didn’t take long to reach their
destination, but within that time, the water had changed from murky
blue to dark red.

A group of laughing teens, riding jet skis,
zipped past them.

The trees parted, and they entered an
oval-shaped cove where the water truly looked blood red.

A handful of boats and several dozen jet skis
were tied to large, wooden docks that circled the cove. Laughter
and the occasional scream of fear drifted from several
directions.

Directly in front of them loomed a
thirty-foot wall made of huge black blocks of stone. The dragons
had chiseled, THE MAZE, above the double archway. A black, metal
gate barred the canal leading into the entertainment area.

To the left of the hulking wall stood a small
building made of weathered wood and gray wooden shingles. The
swinging sign said, The Snack Shack.

Pulling up to one of the specially made
docks, Nick climbed off first and tied the jet ski to the sturdy
dock.

The hand he offered her was speckled with
slimy, red sap.

Glancing down, she didn’t think her outfit
looked too bad after the trip under the leaking trees, but from
Nick’s hiss of exasperation, her hair had turned colors.

Eyes twinkling over his show of anger on her
behalf, she accepted his hand up.

“Wretched dragons,” he said with snarl,
wiping a drip off her face. “Your hair looks like you dyed pink
strands through it.”

Laying a hand on his chest, she smiled at
him. “Perhaps I always wanted pink hair?” she asked innocently.

He snorted. “Right, sure you did. Same as I
always wanted to have my fangs removed.”

She chuckled softly, and they followed the
teens toward the building. His hand curled around hers, tightening
the warm band around her chest. Looking up at him, she saw the same
emotion reflected in his midnight eyes.

The day looked brighter and the fresh
mountain air took on a new meaning. The constant symphony of
whistles, croaks, buzzing, and chirps from all the birds, frogs,
and morags made her want to forget herself and dance to the wild
tune.

Dancing to the sound of a frog belch? She
snorted to herself, very glad no one could hear her wild thoughts.
Ugh, she had it so bad.

Following the other teens up the groaning
steps of the old porch she paused as the breeze whipped strands of
silken hair around her face. The brisk breeze also carried a
fleeting hint of spoiled food.

“Sarah?” Nick questioned, stopping beside
her.

“Do you smell rotten eggs?” she said quietly,
keeping one eye on the group of teens and one on the surrounding
trees.

“No,” Nick said, growling the word. “But if
you did, there’s no way we’re staying here.”

“It was such a brief scent, I’m not sure what
I smelled,” she said, glancing toward Brianna as the girl snarled
at Emily. She hadn’t forgotten the confrontation she’d had with the
girl. Perhaps it was time to have a private conversation, one that
ended in Phoenix Valley.

“You could have told us we couldn’t just go
in, that there were sign-up boards,” Brianna said huffily, glaring
at Emily.

“What makes you think I knew?” Emily demanded
aggressively. Extending her fangs, she shoved her face into the
blond girl’s personal space. “I’ve never been here.”

Sarah watched Nick’s frown turn dark.
“Vampire or not, she never snaps at people,” he said, half to
himself.

Obviously, he didn’t say it soft enough.

“I’m not snappish!” Emily denied heatedly.
Her lip curled back in a snarl.

“Not much,” Brianna said sarcastically.

Emily glared at her for a full second, before
turning her back on the girl. “Does anyone want our cabin put on
one of the lists or not?” she asked, snapping the cap off a black
marker. “I couldn’t care less.”

Two white-boards hung on the outer wall of
the Snack Shack. Scrawled across the top of each board, in bold
letters, were the two entertainment destinations: The Maze and The
King Estate. Each board had a seven-day time line with three lines
under each day.

“So much for The Maze not being open,” Katie
said, pointing to the nearly full schedule. “The first opening for
The Maze is a week away.”

After a moment of discussion, they agreed to
take the single open slot for the Maze.

“Do we want the day after tomorrow or
something else?” Katie asked, turning their attention to the King
Estate.

“The day after sounds good,” Beth said,
glancing at Mitch who had grown quiet.

Decision made, they made a quick tour of The
Snack Shack. It didn’t take long.

She decided the place needed restocked and
cleaned. Dust layered the entire place. The shelves were empty of
everything except a few oddball candy bars and a bag of pork rinds
that appeared nearly green if you looked at them too long.

“The map shows a couple of picnic areas just
north of here, why don’t we head that way?” Brianna asked, pointing
to a large map on one wall.

“They’re right next to the water. A swim
would be great,” Beth added.

From across the store, Mitch snorted. “You
might want red skin, Mutt, but I don’t.”

The girl’s eyes narrowed and she uttered a
soft, nearly silent growl. “I am a khatt shifter, not a wolf.”

Katie sighed loudly. “Mitch, if you’d look at
the map with us, you’d see the picnic area is a few miles away.
It’s on the lake.”

“We might get wet eating on a lake,” her twin
said with a grin, laughing at his not-so-funny joke.

An hour later, they arrived at the second
picnic area. The first one had been overflowing with shouting teens
as they played a game of tag football, and Sídhí tag football was a
bit more hands-on than the mundane game. The blood and roars of
anger and pain were testament to that.

Pulling up to the shore, Sarah was pleased to
see a thick layer of sand, not rocks, covered the gently sloping
ground. The trees surrounding the area were furble and pine trees,
not a red-leaking bitter tree in sight. The two features made the
area perfect.

Deciding to park the machines on the south
side of the small beach, they dragged the jet skis onto firmer
ground, not hard when a touch of Sídhí strength was put into play.
The silver bracelets might restrict the teens, but they were still
several times stronger than the average mundane teenager was.

“Since we’re here, how about we build a fire
and roast our wieners?” Beth asked. Before Mitch had time to snap
at the shifter, she spoke directly to him, “I saw you add a big bag
of marshmallows and I brought a box of graham crackers and a bag of
snack-sized chocolate bars.”

Snapping his mouth shut, Mitch looked at Beth
as if she was an alien species. He couldn’t seem to figure the
shifter out.

“Great idea,” Katie said, poking her brother
in the arm. “Isn’t it?”

The halfling grumbled a comment so low that
Sarah couldn’t hear him.

“What?” Katie prodded him. “You love
s’mores.”

“Yeah, but how’d she know that?” Mitch said,
glaring distrustfully at the petite shifter.

“Who doesn’t like chocolate?” Beth asked
innocently. Turning her back on him, she dropped her fairy bag next
to the empty fire pit. “I’ll start gathering wood.”

Nick chuckled at Mitch’s look of
disgruntlement.
“He doesn’t stand a chance against her,”
Nick said in Sarah’s mind.

“
I just hope he gets his head straight and
realizes she’s his mate, before she loses her temper and takes a
swipe at him,”
Sarah said thoughtfully.

“
They’re mates?”
he questioned in
surprise.

Glancing into his eyes, she smiled at the
curiosity she saw in them.
“Katie told me,”
she said.

“
He is so going to pay later on,”
he
said knowingly.

“
She told me in confidence. I probably
shouldn’t have said anything,”
she said, suddenly uneasy. She
didn’t have an abundance of friends, but she took care of the ones
she had.

“
Mia Cara, I won’t let on I know,”
he
said gently.
“I’m glad you and Katie have hit it off so
well.”

“
Yes, me too,”
she said. Walking
toward the trees, she added out-loud, “Want to help gather some
wood?”

“Anything for you and s’mores,” he said with
a wink.

They helped gather wood and before long, a
fire was going in the small pit.

From the amount of food everyone pulled out
of fairy bags - bags created by fairies to keep things refrigerator
cold for weeks - they would have enough for two meals.

Sarah was on her second hot dog when Katie
suggested a round of storytelling.

“It’s not dark,” Mitch said dismissively,
skewering another wiener on a sharp stick. Sticking the end of the
stick above the flames, he grinned at his sister. “You can’t use
scary stories as an excuse to snuggle with Jared. Scary stories
just don’t work in the middle of the day.”

“She doesn’t need an excuse to snuggle,”
Jared said, wrapping an arm around his mate.

“You were born and raised on Earth. I bet any
one of us could tell a story that would have you looking over your
shoulders for days,” Brianna said nastily.

“Bree,” Beth said warningly, tapping the girl
on her shoulder, “behave.”

“Oh, no, she started it,” Mitch said with an
eager light in his green, elfin eyes.

“
If you’re finished, would you like to go
for a walk with me?”
Nick asked into Sarah’s mind.