Hidden Gem (The Travelers Book 1)

by Gaia Octavia

  He had laughed as I’d vomited and screamed, not wanting to hear the details of exactly what it was that I had seen. The image had flashed again, but it was Emit’s face gushing blood, his reddened eyes pleading. I’d shouted the image from my mind and continued to pump my legs toward the ever-moving target.

  Just as I’d caught sight of the massive beast, I saw Emit as well. Racing toward him, I’d watched as he heard the croc’s movements, which were much louder than mine, and began stepping out directly into the croc’s path.

  I’d known that I was far too close to shout a warning without alerting the croc and hadn’t thought there was any way I was going to reach him in time, but it was as if time suddenly slowed and stretched. My feet swam through its wavy spaces and then suddenly, I was there, stretching out and reaching Emit’s arm just in time to pull him back behind the thick tree trunk.

  I shook my head, trying to bring myself back to my present task of setting the damn trap. I had gotten my other hand over his mouth before he could make a sound loud enough to pierce through the sounds of the cracking brush and rustling trees in the croc’s wake.

  I had been so thankful to have reached him in time, I didn’t think about anything else except keeping him calm, and therefore safely off the radar of the beast. It wasn’t until I’d caught my breath while waiting for the croc to get farther away that my cock suddenly noticed it was buried between Emit’s smooth, tight cheeks and I’d lost control of my body.

  And then my mind.

  My stomach lurched as I fought to forget the feel of Emit’s body under my control. What I had done to him while he’d had no choice but to remain still and quiet was unforgivable. And the memory of his reaction, of his words, sent a chill coursing through my body that made me retch– threatening to expel whatever was left of the water I’d just finished drinking.

  I needed to stop thinking about it. With an empty waterskin and the sun beginning to wane, I knew I should already be heading back to camp. But I couldn’t bring my feet to move in that direction. How could I look Emit in the eye ever again? How could I explain to him how sorry I was? How much I wished I could take my actions back? Not of saving him, never that, but of what had come after.

  Which had almost been me.

  If he hadn’t moved to speak, I would have shamelessly come against him right there in my pants. I shuddered, humiliation and shame enveloping me as I continued to sit on the ground by my last trap, hugging my arms around my body as if to comfort myself. Even though I knew that Emit was the one I should be comforting.

  I’d just left him there.

  Part of me wondered if he would even be there when I returned to the spot where we’d left our things just hours before. Fire or not, I couldn’t leave Emit alone after sundown right after such a narrow escape. Those thoughts finally got me moving. I stood, hesitantly making my way toward camp and hoping more than anything that Emit had already gone to sleep.

  He hadn’t.

  When I came toward the edge of the woods, I saw him sitting on his mat as if he were waiting for me. But there was no way I could face him yet. Maybe not ever. Not after what I’d done. So–though it was an idiotic idea–I sat against a tree near the edge of camp, still far enough inside the woods to remain unseen, and waited for him to fall asleep.

  I was too far away to read Emit’s expression. But after a couple of hours, he laid down and I silently thanked the gods and waited. As exhausted as I was, I still wanted to be sure that he was sound asleep before I sought the safety of the fire and tried to get some sleep of my own.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  ⸙

  EMIT

  The piercing screams woke me from a beautiful dream. I knew at once it was Jade and my heart immediately leapt to my throat. I was running before I was even fully awake, knowing he wasn’t anywhere in the camp. His screams were coming from somewhere past the edge of the forest.

  I was nothing like Jade when it came to navigating the dangers of the woods and I panicked, thinking I’d never find him in time to save him from whatever–by the sound of the strangled, torturous shrieks he was making–was surely killing him. But just as his cries ended and before mine began, I spotted him not far off into the woods. He was slumped over and unmoving in front of a thick, ancient tree, no longer making any sounds.

  I’m too late.

  My mind filled with screams as pain tore from deep within my soul, threatening to rise until it burst– taking my mind with it. I’d lost Jade without ever telling him how beautiful, how wonderful he was. How much I wanted to hold him until the end of my days. A sob clawed its way up my throat, but I only managed a soundless cry of agony as I sank to my knees and reached for his limp, lifeless body. The moment I touched him, he began to scream again and again–his eyes still closed. The terror and pain within his cries afforded me no time to exult in the fact that he was still alive.

  “Jade!” I said firmly, but not loudly, “wake up, baby. Jade, you’re okay. It’s me, Emit,”

  Tightening my grip on his upper arms, I fought the desperate urge to shake him.

  “Come back to me, Jade.”

  I almost couldn’t tell the exact moment Jade woke from his dream. The change in his body had been almost nonexistent, but his strangled cries continued at a lower volume.

  “Em,” he gasped, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!”

  “Shh, baby. There’s nothing to be sorry about. I got you.”

  I murmured reassurances to him, not wanting him to apologize for having had a nightmare. Pulling him into my arms, I laid us both on the ground–wrapping my arm around him to comfort him like I always used to after his episodes. Holding Jade against my body with one arm circling his chest and the other behind his neck as he lay beside me, I felt his body shudder and his breaths become ragged and dull. More than anything, I wanted to surround Jade. To swallow him whole and protect him deep within myself so that the pain that stalked him would never find him again.

  I had seen Jade track prey with eerie stealth and set master traps to keep any predator away from us that came close to our camp. But this depraved creature that hunted him–fashioned from fear and shame–could not be stopped. I couldn’t teach Jade the right kind of trap to set or show him the right kind of knot to tie to keep him safe. To keep his monster at bay. Not like all the ways he’d taught me and shown me how to keep safe.

  “I’m here. I’m right here, Jade.”

  I closed my eyes against my tears, softly repeating myself until his breathing finally began to even out a bit.

  ⸙

  He’d been silent for so long that when he spoke, his voice cut through the silence like a lightning bolt.

  “I don’t want to be like him, Em.”

  I began to pet his hair, confused as to what he meant but unwilling to get in the way of what he needed to desperately get out. I pressed a soft, silent kiss to the side of his head.

  “Today,” his voice cracked, “I treated you like I was one of them.”

  I suddenly realized he was referring to the men who had abused him.

  “Jade, you’re not–”

  But Jade reached over and placed his hand on my mouth. My first instinct had been to assure him that it wasn’t true, and I’d jumped to say so before remembering that he needed me to listen right now.

  Just listen.

  I nodded silently, and he brought his hand back to my arm, which was still holding him tightly as I laid on my side. His fingers softly traced the length of my forearm and settled on top of my own hand.

  “Did you know that most of the raiders were taken as young boys?” Jade asked.

  It had been a question, but it hadn’t needed an answer.

  Jade sniffed.

  “Those vile men were once kids just like me. Their families murdered, their bodies and minds tortured until all that was left was a dried-out husk of what they could have been. Until–”

  Jade took several shaky breaths before he continued. “Until they were filled with t
he same hatred, the same disdain for human life that had hurt them for all those years.”

  I gently opened my hand, lacing our fingers together where they rested against his stomach, letting him know I was still with him and that he was still here with me–safe at the edge of our camp. Jade’s knuckles blanched as he clasped my hand so tightly, it hurt. But it only lasted a moment before he relaxed them and began his story.

  “For the first year in the camp, the men, they–” he swallowed, “they passed me around.”

  Jade inhaled. “Each night, a different tent.”

  I closed my eyes as if it would block the scenes from playing out in my mind, but all I could see was a terrified boy who’d just watched his family get slaughtered.

  All I could see was my Jade.

  “One night,” he continued quietly, “the man found me hiding between empty casks of ale while the other raiders drank and fucked and sang. At first, I thought he’d be angry, but he brought me to his tent and gave me ale.”

  The look in Jade’s eyes seemed so far away, his voice barely above a whisper.

  “It was the first time I ever drank ale. Other than tasting it on the men…”

  His voice trailed off.

  “After a while, the man laid a pallet for me on the floor inside his tent. No one in that camp had ever done that for me before. I’d only ever slept outside on the ground.”

  I closed my eyes again, trying to lock down a sob that threatened to wrack my body at the thought of Jade being treated worse than an animal. The heat was almost always stifling, except for the nights that were cold a few months out of the year. Not to mention the almost constant rain. I could only imagine what he must have gone through.

  Only I couldn’t. I didn’t want to.

  Jade inhaled a deep breath. “He fucked me that night. It was what I’d expected to happen, but–”

  Jade turned his face away from me as he finished his thought.

  “It hadn’t been like all the others who’d hurt me. It was as if he’d been making love to me.”

  He turned his face toward the sky, searching between the tree limbs, bent high above us. I could see tears stubbornly balancing within the pools of his eyes. I had to stop myself from trying to erase them with my thumbs. These were tears that Jade needed to shed, I reminded myself. He needed to be emptied of them. And no matter how much it hurt me to see it, I needed to let them come. So, instead, I raised his hand to my mouth and kissed the backs of his knuckles–one by one–just under our entwined fingers.

  “My head had been fuzzy with drink and I was so thankful for a break from all the pain. Then he laid me down on the pallet and let me sleep until he brought me food in the morning.”

  A long time passed, and I started to think that Jade had reached the limit of what he could talk about for the night. Though I kept quiet, not wanting to stop whatever it was that had Jade opening up to me after two years of silence about his past.

  Finally, Jade shifted and pressed himself closer before continuing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  ⸙

  JADE

  The images were threatening to swallow me. I leaned further into Emit, taking the strength of his warmth and using the feel of his body to remind me that I was safe with him. That I wasn’t back in that camp even as I talked about the things that had happened to me there. I forced my eyes to remain open, searching for stars between the thick blanket of leaves that danced above our heads as I took a breath and continued my story.

  “That morning, while I ate the first warm food I’d tasted in over a year, the man asked me if I wanted to stay with him. I was confused at first, but he said that if I agreed to a ceremony, the other men would know that I was his and that they would never touch me again. But,” I continued, “it would mean that I belonged to him…forever.”

  My voice sounded far away and I suddenly felt dizzy. Emit squeezed me and murmured that I was safe. I had never spoken these words to anyone. I’d vowed that I would never tell Emit what happened to me in that camp. Because though I loved him, and I knew he cared about me, I also knew that I would lose him. I would lose the boy who looked at me with wonder when I taught him a skill he hadn’t known. I would lose the lighthearted conversations and the games we played to pass the time as we traveled. It would all be replaced by concern. And worst of all, pity.

  It would be replaced by the knowing.

  Besides, the memories of my torment were my burden, my pain to carry. I didn’t want him to have to shoulder the scenes that played out so often in my nightmares or to know just how tainted my body and soul truly were. But I also knew that my silence hurt Emit. That it made him fear my episodes because he didn’t know how to help me. I also knew that the only person in the world I would ever tell–could ever tell–was Emit. And if it meant losing him, then at least I would know that I had loved him enough to tell him exactly who I was.

  Well, almost exactly who I was.

  I drew another breath.

  “I was so full of joy, so thankful that this man offered to save me. The sex was a non-issue at that point; by then, it had just become my life.”

  I felt the tickle of an insect crawling over my leg but made no move to brush it off. Instead, I focused on the sensation to remind myself that my body was not inside that camp, not inside that tent. That the man was not inside me, would never be inside me again.

  “So, I said yes,” I said simply. “I was so happy–standing in front of the entire camp as the man claimed me and vowed to kill anyone who laid a finger on me from that point on.”

  I felt Emit’s arm tense under my head but thankfully, beyond that, he hadn’t reacted much to my story.

  “That night,” I said, willing myself to continue, “after hours of celebrating with drink and food, the man returned to his tent and I met the person he really was.”

  That wasn’t the entire truth. Because I had known well before that night what a monster that man was, only that was something I could never tell Emit. And so, even as I confessed my dark secrets to him, I continued to hide my truth.

  “I thanked him for wanting me, for keeping me safe. I reached to kiss him, but he answered me with a fist. He punched me so hard that I fell, and it knocked the breath out of me. While I was still fighting to regain it, he started kicking me over and over until I felt like a bruised sack of broken bones.”

  I heard the air leave Emit’s lungs and waited until he finally inhaled once more.

  “Then he took me. He pulled me off the ground and took me so hard, and for so long, that I was thankful it would surely–finally–kill me.”

  I turned toward Emit as I whispered, “But it didn’t. It went on and on and on for the next seven years.”

  I closed my eyes.

  “Until you.”

  My eyelids suddenly felt like they were being drawn closed by a hundred insistent fingers. I yawned, fighting sleep because I knew the darkness would surely swallow me whole if I fell asleep now. Though I needed to finish telling Emit my story, my body just couldn’t fight it any longer. As Emit held me, I slipped into sleep with my story unfinished.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  ⸙

  EMIT

  Once I was sure Jade had fallen asleep deeply enough not to be disturbed, I carefully slipped my arm out from under his neck and silently walked to the other edge of camp. As soon as I was in the brush, I bent and watched the contents of my stomach splatter across the ground.

  I was thankful Jade had fallen asleep when he had, because I’d been fighting the urge to vomit since he’d started talking about the man. Even though I feared that Jade would wake up and never speak of his past to me again, a small part of me wished that he would do just that.

  But gods, I felt awful for thinking it.

  If it was this hard to hear about, living it would have been unimaginable torture. But Jade had never, ever given up. He’d still been at the camp all those years later to risk everything to save me.

  And if he
hadn’t been there…

  I shook the thought from my mind as I stood. I needed to keep my shit together. Jade had only just begun to open up about his past and I had a sick, sinking understanding that the stories would only get worse. His story hadn’t made me feel differently toward him. If anything, I felt even more in awe of his strength, his bravery, and his beauty.

  How could such a beautiful creature have been forged in such a hell? Jade was like a phoenix from those old stories Ma used to tell me when I couldn’t fall asleep at night. Only he hadn’t gotten to be reborn; he’d risen from the ashes of his own hell to live on. And he was just as magical, just as incredible as any mythological creature.

  I walked to my mat and grabbed my waterskin, rinsing my mouth and taking big gulps of the lukewarm water until the skin was empty. Grabbing our blankets, I returned to where he laid on the ground. All I could see was Jade lying exposed, out in the open, the same way he’d been forced to sleep for the first year in the raider camp. Before even thinking about it, I was bending down and scooping Jade into my arms. His head tipped back and bobbed slightly as I carried him to my mat, where I carefully laid him back down again. After pausing to be sure he stayed asleep, I walked farther down the face of the rock cliff to fill the waterskin with cool, clean water.

  I meant to hurry because I didn’t want Jade waking up and thinking for one second that opening up to me had changed anything about me always being right there beside him. But after capping the waterskin, I closed my eyes and was assaulted by the sight of a bloodied and battered Jade being rutted on by a man with the head of a reptile–not unlike the enormous croc we’d come across earlier that day. I bent over and retched but had nothing left in my stomach to give.

  After catching my breath, I felt so disgusted, so dirty from the thought that had assailed me, I ripped my clothes off and stood for what could have been hours under the steady stream of water that fell from the rocks above. I was thankful that Jade almost always found a spot to camp near one of the countless runoffs from the cliffs that had been bordering our journey for several months now.