First Kiss: The Ghost Bird Series: #10 (The Academy Ghost Bird Series) (26 page)

“You can’t be my camping buddy if you’re sleeping in another tent. I tried to get you to let me in.”

He was so frustrating! “How am I supposed to be part of the group now? You said I had to sleep by myself!”

Silas marched between the trees toward the other site. Dangling over his shoulder, it was hard to yell at him, so I let my anger smolder inside me.

When we got close to the other tent, I heard North calling after us. “What happened to her?”

“Gabriel broke my tent,” I said through clenched teeth, so angry that it felt good to tattle on Gabriel. Silas set me down until I was standing. I threw my arms over my chest quickly to block out the cold.

North was in the opening of the big tent, looking out at us. He wore all black, and in the darkness, it was like his head hovered in midair. “He did, huh?” North said, his head tilting to gaze over my shoulder at Gabriel. He threw Gabriel a wicked eye, his lips tight. He side-stepped, taking part of the folded door with him, to allow the rest of us in.

“Yeah,” I said, pausing outside, not caring about the grass at my feet or how cold it was. Tattling just felt too good. “He broke it so I had to come back. And then he sat on me. And then Silas had to cut it open to get me out. But it’s Gabriel’s fault.”

“Oh,” he said. “Sorry, baby.” He turned to Gabriel. “You ass. You broke her tent.”

“Sorry,” Gabriel said though I didn’t believe he meant it.

North shot out a hand, giving his head a chop. “Well don’t break her shit.” I started walking past North to duck into the tent when out of the corner of my eye, I caught North leaning into Gabriel. He patted him on the back and stage whispered. “Good job.”

Gabriel smiled quietly to himself.

I huffed. They sent Gabriel out to bring me back. I bit my tongue, too angry and cold to argue. I’d beat them all up in the morning. Maybe I’d sleep in my own tent the rest of the week.

Not that I really wanted to sleep out there anyway. The more I thought about it, the more I was pretty sure if Gabriel had concerns and told North, North would have made the call to bring me back, due to cold and threat of bears.

If it had been Gabriel, I might have broken his tent, too, to make sure he was safe.

I was still mad, though. I couldn’t help it.

The lanterns were on the floor in the tent, casting long shadows against the nylon walls, but it was enough to light up faces. The air was warmed by a similar battery powered heater.

“Sang?” Victor said, sitting up on one of the cots in the middle, sliding his sock-covered feet to the floor.

I shot a glare, ready to throw accusations, assuming they’d all been in on it.

He raised an eyebrow, lifting himself out of the cot quickly. “What happened?”

I realized he might not have known anything about what had happened. Underneath the anger, I was disheartened and sad that they had broken something Victor had paid for and had been set up so nicely for me. “They broke the tent.”

“Aw,” he said as he stood, holding his hands out. He came forward, enveloping me in his arms. It was a cozy hug, full of sympathy and warmth. He kissed my cheek. “I’ll get you a new one.”

“She doesn’t need a new one,” Gabriel said. I threw him an angry glare and he skirted around cots, looking at the floor with a frown, avoiding my eyes.

I didn’t want to say more while I was still angry.

Nathan was sitting on a big, king-sized blow-up bed pressed against one wall. Luke was sitting up on one of the cots. Gabriel headed toward an empty one.

Luke patted his cot. “Come sleep back here, Sang. I can make room.”

Nathan scooted until he could tug my arm while I stood next to Victor. “No way,” Nathan said. “She’s sleeping on the air mattress with us. There’s room even with Silas on it.”

Luke grunted. “Naw, let her come back here with us.”

Silas entered the tent with my pink sleeping bag slung over his shoulder.

“I’ll sleep next to Nathan and Silas,” I said.

Luke pouted. “Aw. Why?”

“They’re the ones that came to save me,” I said. “And I don’t want to go back there with Gabriel.”

Gabriel had already climbed back into his cot, clothes still on. His hat was still on, too. He curled up, facing the wall of the tent. It almost made me feel sorry for him. He was the one willing to face the cold and bears to make sure I was okay and now he seemed so dejected.

Luke stretched out and kicked Gabriel in the head with a toe. “See what you did.”

“Shut up,” Gabriel said, his voice muffled. “You would have done it if I hadn’t.”

Silas chuckled. He dropped my sleeping bag on the air mattress between Nathan’s and his own. “Finder’s keepers,” he said.

“I thought we were going to sleep,” Kota’s voice came from outside the tent. A moment later, he stepped in, dressed in pajama pants, a jacket, and a long sleeve shirt underneath. “It’s cold, and it’s late. Let’s sleep.” He blinked in surprise at me standing at the foot of the air mattress. “You came back?”

“Gabriel broke her tent,” Victor said.

“Oh,” Kota said, and then sat down on the cot farthest from the air mattress and took off his jacket.

He said nothing else about it. Had he been in on it, too? Or was he not surprised by it? I smothered a sigh. Maybe none of them really wanted me to sleep out there alone, either. Gabriel was just sent to be the bad guy.

I missed them, too.

North came in, zipping up the tent behind him. “Are we all here now?”

“Yup,” Gabriel said from underneath his blanket. “No thanks to any of you.”

I took my spot in between Nathan and Silas, sliding into my sleeping bag and settling in.

“Let’s just try to get some sleep,” Kota said, smoothing out his sleeping bag and putting his glasses carefully on a little cooler near his bed. “We’ve got an early day tomorrow. Lights out.”

Kota’s request was followed by a few grumbles, but no one argued. Kota was on the very end closest to the tent door. Next to him was Victor, then North. Silas, me, and Nathan were on the mattress, and sleeping lengthwise at our heads were Luke and Gabriel.

Silas pressed close, providing some heat but not enough for me since he was wrapped up in his own sleeping bag. Nathan leaned against me on the other side. His fingers found their way to my face, and he slipped one between my lips.

I wanted to give him one of my fingers, but I was too cold to take my arm out of my sleeping bag. I chewed on his finger a little but then dozed off.

NIGHT IN A TENT

I
wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but at I woke up freezing. Despite Silas being close to my left, and Nathan on my other side, my back and stomach were cold, even though the sleeping bag. My forehead was sticking out and cold. My feet were ice. The air from the mattress wasn’t warm at all, and the tent itself had cold air throughout.

I exhaled a long puff of air, and could swear I was seeing my own breath hanging above my face.

I tried moving to my side, but my shoulders ended up freezing, and then Nathan and Silas weren’t close enough. I either had to cuddle with one or the other. I tried Silas. As I got closer, he did turn into me, but I wasn’t getting much heat along my stomach, and my butt and back were cold.

I moaned. My mostly-asleep brain was trying to work out a problem, and I couldn’t do it if I was cold, so I was trying to figure out how not to be cold.

If I was cold, they had to be cold, too. We shouldn’t sleep in the cold. I knew that. Extreme cold makes you sleepy, but if you fell asleep in it, you could die. I knew that from living up north and everything I had been taught in elementary school about staying safe during the winter. Have they ever been this cold while camping? Maybe they were so cold they were sleeping through it, and that was dangerous. “We need to get up,” I said, hoping someone was awake.

I caught someone mumbling back but it faded. Either he wasn’t concerned or didn’t hear me. Was everyone able to sleep through this cold? What had happened to the heater?

“Silas,” I said.

“What?” he asked, his deep voice vibrating the bed.

“We need to wake up.”

“It’s not snowing,” he said.

“No. We can’t sleep here.”

Someone else groaned, there was a creak and thumping around, as if someone flipped over on a cot.

“North,” I called. No one was listening! I was sure this was wrong. We couldn’t sleep in these frigid temperatures—maybe they were groggy from the cold shutting down their brains. Freezing to death wasn’t good. “North,” I called again.

“Baby,” North mumbled back. “Go to sleep.”

“We
can’t
sleep in the cold,” I said, turning a little, allowing some cold air into my sleeping bag, enough that my body started to shake and rattle against the cold. “Did the heater break?”

“You can sleep,” North said. “We’re here. You’re fine. Go to sleep.”

“It’s too cold,” I said. “I can see my breath.”

North groaned. “You’ve got a sleeping bag. It’s not that bad.”

“We can’t sleep,” I said. He was missing the point.

“Why can’t we sleep here?”

“Because... if we sleep in the cold we may never wake up!”

There was a rustling, and I glanced over to see North sitting up. “Sang. Get your pretty ass over here before I come over there and thump you.”

“Thump her,” said a slurred voice of Gabriel.

I didn’t want to get thumbed, but it was really cold and I didn’t want to get out of my sleeping bag.

“Come on,” North said.

I only hesitated another moment. I pulled myself out of my sleeping bag. Silas and Nathan turned over as I tiptoed my way toward North’s cot.

The air was so cold, I thought my feet would freeze to the bottom of the tent. Why did the Academy pick winter as the time to camp? Why was this a thing? I’d have to talk to North. He was reasonable. He approved of Gabriel getting me out of my tent because of the cold. He’d hear me out and he’d make everyone get up and go sleep somewhere else. Maybe he’d go get the heater from my tent. Maybe we’d sleep in the cars with the heat on. Anything had to be better than the ice cold tent.

Instead, North surprised me by opening up his sleeping bag. He found my hand in the dark and tugged me down. “Get in,” he said.

I wedged myself into the bag, snuggled close against him while on my back. He reached over me, zipping us up.

North tugged the sleeping bag up around our heads. It was surprisingly warm and got warmer quickly when the material covered my head. He mumbled to me inside the darkness. “Now what the hell are you talking about?”

“It’s too cold to sleep here,” I said. “If you fall asleep in the cold, you don’t wake up.”

“Baby, we’re not dying of hypothermia.” He dropped his head against my hair and wrapped his arms even tighter around my body, drawing me in closer. “Now close those pretty lips and go to sleep.”

North’s sleeping bag warmed even more. Was his thicker than mine? I didn’t understand, but chilled shivers took over my spine again. . North tucked his arms closer around my body. He pulled me around until my back was pressed up against his chest, my butt into his waist. He crossed his arms over my chest, and bent his head, until and pressed his lips to the back of my neck.

Our legs pressed together and I slid my fingers along his arm, silently thanking him. Maybe he hadn’t realized how cold I was in my sleeping bag. Maybe the others had better sleeping bags. I’d have to inspect them in the morning and see what made the difference.

I dozed for a while. I woke when I felt North’s lips against the back of my neck, trailing to my ear. The air was still, and it was dark. I strained to listen, even though I was sure the others were sleeping and no one was paying attention.

Maybe North knew that, too.

I stretched slightly, but the move made my body press closer into his. His arms tightened around me. His lips parted until he was sucking at my skin.

His teeth grazed at the soft spot behind my ear and sent a wave of warm sparks through my body. My hands covered his forearms that were wrapped around me. It was the only spot I could reach. I rubbed my fingers against his arm as if to let him know I loved what he was doing. It was the first tender moment I’d had with any of them since we’d arrived, and I hadn’t even realized how much I missed a touch like that.

Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.

Part of me wanted to stop him. His kisses, his touch reminded me of when we were at the hotel on the beach. Could I remain so quiet if he continued? Each gentle brush of his lips against the soft skin along my neck made my heart throb. 

My body responded in ways to his kisses that felt good, but I was confused as to what I should do.

His mouth trailed down my neck to my shoulder. The coarse hairs on his face electrified me.

His lips parted. When his teeth grazed against my skin, I shivered into him again. I smothered a moan against his arm.

He was going to do it. I felt it inside me. Part of me panicked, sure the others would hear.

The other part of me didn’t care and wanted it badly.

His arm tugged me tighter around the waist and the other was a cushion at my head, supporting me up and giving himself support to nuzzle against my shoulder.

He bit down slowly, his teeth sinking into my skin. It was only a half bite, less pressure than what I knew he could do.

At the same time, his arm holding up my head came down, sliding around my chest and holding strong. The other pulled me in tighter. A leg wrapped around mine, locking me in.

The jolt took over my body, diminished only by his strong hold. Electricity coursed through every nerve. There was nothing else except the bite and the feeling it brought.

My shoulder pressed back against his teeth with an instinctual reaction. I craved more. He was holding out and I couldn’t bare this.

He held onto me with his teeth on my neck for a moment, before slowly easing up. He sucked at the spot, sending another wave of shivers through my body.

A minute passed before I could breathe again, sinking back against him. I swallowed a moan, forcing myself to stay silent.