By the time their make-shift chauffeur got into the truck, Elena wasn’t quite asleep, but she was definitely groggy.
“Did she bang her head? She really shouldn’t be sleeping in case she has a concussion.” The trucker’s gaze lingered on Elena’s tracings.
Vaughn had to bite back a possessive growl, wishing the stunning marks weren’t so visible. He hadn’t anticipated that particular side-effect of the Fae magic. “She’s just worn out. The excitement was a little much for her.”
Elena mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like asshole.
“I should drop you off at the closest emergency room,” the driver pressed. “I really don’t mind.”
Apparently it was too much to ask that the trucker be more preoccupied with Elena’s cleavage than her head. The closest medical center was at least 30 miles in the opposite direction of their intended destination, and he couldn’t chance it this close to sunrise.
He needed Elena contained by then and not asking questions that would make an already disastrous situation tumble right off the edge of a cliff.
Elena leaned into him as the rig revved to life and rolled back onto the blacktop. The instant warmth had the wolf arching at the back of Vaughn’s mind, reaching for Elena’s touch.
He could handle a lot of things right now, but that definitely wasn’t one of them.
He bumped her with his shoulder, ignoring the wolf’s protest. “Wake up, sweetie. We don’t want anyone worrying needlessly.” He waited a beat then nudged her again despite the part of him that ached to tuck her closer. “Wake up, Ivy.”
Her lashes lifted, her gaze unfocused for a beat.
“You’re feeling okay, aren’t you?”
“To be honest—”
“Tell the poor guy you’re feeling fine. We gave him one hell of a scare.”
She smiled tightly. “I’m fine. Nothing to worry about. The excitement, you know.”
The driver looked uncertain.
Vaughn spoke before the other man argued the point. “Are you from around here?” He held out a hand. “Sorry. I should have introduced myself. I’m Greg and this is my girlfriend, Opal.”
“Opal?” Elena mouthed.
The trucker didn’t notice. “I’m Jason. I live a few counties south of here. Doing my last run and then heading home.”
Vaughn spent the rest of the drive keeping Jason talking about his job and family, preventing him from engaging Elena in conversation.
The sorceress surprised him by saying little, no doubt occupied with running scenarios through her head, trying to find something to use against him.
Every now and then he’d sense her watching him, her body bumping against his a few times when Jason was paying more attention to the conversation than the road. It was a miracle Jason hadn’t hit them straight on given his tendency to forget he was the one behind the wheel.
“That motel up ahead will work.” Vaughn pointed to a series of cottages set in a diagonal line angled away from the main road. Bright yellow flower boxes were mounted beneath each cottage window, bordered in lights no one had taken down after the last holiday season.
Jason guided the truck into the mostly empty lot. Vaughn hopped out the moment the vehicle stopped. Elena lingered in the truck, her gaze considering.
Jason arched a brow. “Everything, okay?”
Unable to answer the trucker’s question, she fixed her gaze on Vaughn. “You know, I do think maybe I should get checked by a doctor.”
“Absolutely. Let’s check in and then we’ll see if there is a local doctor around here.”
Jason frowned as Elena jumped out of the truck.
“Thanks for the drive,” he said to Jason before he could offer any more help that Elena would try to take advantage of. “Have a good night.” Vaughn tucked the insurance information Jason had given him into his pocket, even though they wouldn’t need it. He closed the door, grabbed Elena’s hand and drew her away from the truck.
At least she didn’t pull her hand away until the truck was headed back down the road. “Do I get a prize for not telling him you were a serial killer?”
“That way.” He nodded toward the motel office that looked a lot more rundown than the cottages.
A bell chimed when they stepped inside and a sleepy guy in his mid-twenties emerged from a back room, a gamer headset hanging around his neck.
Vaughn pointed to one of the three plastic white patio chairs set up in the small room crammed with local artist knick-knacks and magazine racks filled with tourist pamphlets for various west coast destinations. “Take a seat.”
“Where would you like me to take it?” Elena quipped, unable to hide her flinch when she took a moment longer than necessary to move.
The wolf snarled in his head. He’d been told that the glyph would ensure her cooperation, but he hadn’t expected it to work like an electric dog collar.
She sat and flipped through a magazine while he got them a room.
“You two have an accident or something?”
“Or something,” Elena answered, before he could.
He glanced at her and she made a zippered-lips gesture and went back to the magazine.
Any other time he might have smiled. “We’ll take that one if it’s available.” Vaughn pointed out the window.
“The one closest to the woods?” The clerk pushed a key across the counter. “No problem. Sure you don’t want one of the closer units? Those ones have been refurbished.”
“We like our privacy.”
“He does anyway,” Elena said. “I’m more of an exhibitionist.”
He took the key and backtracked to the door. Elena stared at him expectantly, the fire in her eyes reminding him she was waiting for him to let her get up.
“Let’s go.”
***
Acid would be good, Elena thought.
Or something sharp, like maybe whatever mystical weapon had scarred his face. Either one of them would effectively take Vaughn’s controlling tongue out of the picture.
She wanted to sit down or run in the opposite direction, hell, she’d do anything as long as it wasn’t obeying Vaughn. Whoever had come up with this particular enchantment had created a special kind of hell.
Not long ago she would have thought herself immune to magic that weakened the Fae. Her mother had deliberately distanced herself from her and Emma to lessen the risk of them being exploited by their Fae heritage. Hearing she was actually half Fae hadn’t been any kind of setback as far as Elena was concerned.
At least it hadn’t been—until now. Her chest felt hot and the growing ache at the back of her skull had spread to her neck and spine, the pain worsening each time she tried to access her magic.
Which left her with a whopping two options. Find a way to slip the leash Vaughn had on her, or at the very least find a loophole in the magic he used to control her. Or she had to convince him not to make the trade.
With his sister’s life at stake, the latter seemed the less likely to succeed, but more than once she felt Vaughn’s gaze linger on her the way it had in Vegas. If there was even a small chance she might be able to take advantage of that, she at least had to try.
And hope it didn’t blow up in her face.
Exhaustion pulled at her, but she stayed a few steps ahead of Vaughn. The cottage looked like something from a horror movie. Fairly unassuming upon first glance, but once she crossed the threshold, the real action would begin.
The stairs even creaked under her weight as she paused at the top of the stairs, stepping aside for him to unlock the door. The narrow space didn’t leave much wiggle room between them.
He slid his bag off his shoulder, bumping into her as he stepped up and slid the key into the lock. “Sorry,” he said, then glanced down at her as if realizing he shouldn’t be apologizing.
He studied her cheek, his gaze lingering on the bruise she felt from where the side of her face had struck the window during the accident.
This time when he ra
ised a hand to touch her, she didn’t try to stop him. She did, however, have to remind herself to breathe the second his finger grazed her cheek.
He traced the swollen area, his touch soft, careful.
And it was killing her. Self-preservation kicked in. “It only matters if I’m alive, right?”
Eyes so cold she barely recognized them snapped to hers. No playful wolf to be found, only detached, calculated Shadow.
“Unless this isn’t as easy as you want me to believe.” For a second she almost let herself believe it. Then she remembered the naïve woman who’d believed he was coming back the night he’d disappeared in Vegas. Never again.
“Activating the glyph was the only hard part.” He pushed the door open. “After you.”
Locking down the unexpected pull of the past, she stepped inside and found herself in a small room with a couch and television on one side and a small kitchenette and a table with two chairs on the other.
The door to the bathroom was ajar ahead of her. Two doors on the left led to bedrooms just big enough for a dresser and narrow space to walk around each double bed.
“Let me guess? I don’t get my own room?”
Vaughn closed and locked the door behind him, then crossed to the phone sitting on a table that might have been thrown up against the wall at some points and glued back together without thought for making sure the legs were even.
Chilled from the mud and bruised in more than a few places, Elena peeled her boots off and sank onto the couch. She probed the side of her head injured when Jeff Gordon lost control of the car.
She might have thanked whoever was responsible for knocking them off the road if she thought they were doing her a favor. Her luck didn’t usually run that way and she wasn’t so sure their mystery player was done with them yet.
But she’d been granted a slight reprieve and she planned on making the most of it. There was too much on the line to let herself be handed off to whoever had tasked Vaughn with her abduction.
She still hadn’t ruled out Morgana or one of her people, but the other sorceress likely wouldn’t bother with secrecy. She’d want to make an example of Elena and wouldn’t hide that she was coming for her.
Unfortunately, even if she could rule out Morgana, it didn’t exactly shorten the list. More than a few immortals still carried grudges against her for perceived slights and that wasn’t counting anyone who may have stumbled upon her other activities even if Morgana hadn’t.
There were enough immortals satisfied with the current power dynamic in Avalon who would be happy if Elena minded her own business.
She dragged in a breath, inwardly wincing at the ache in her chest.
Damn the wolf, and damn the way he kept looking at her when he didn’t think she was paying attention. The occasional flash of regret in his eyes, so brief she had to be imagining it, was probably just another head game designed to mess with her.
Like Vegas.
Do not go there.
“There was a complication. I need you at this address now,” Vaughn said into the phone, rattling off the name and location of the motel.
So another gargoyle was joining the party? Good times.
Vaughn glanced at her, then took a few steps away from the couch as he hung up and dialed another number.
She leaned forward, snapping the remote off the coffee table with a 3-inch burn mark ingrained in the scarred wood. She’d seen hole-in-the-wall convenience stores with security T.V.’s bigger than the television in front of her.
Still, they had paid options that looked interesting. She scanned the titles and picked one. The film began, diving right into the action.
Five…four…three…two…
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Vaughn pivoted to face the screen. His eyes widened, his gaze sliding from the screen, then to her and back before he finished leaving a message asking someone to call him back.
She increased the volume and propped her feet on the coffee table, aware of the muscles in her back groaning in protest. She couldn’t remember the last time her body felt so battered, and she’d already one hell of a rough night before returning home to find Vaughn in her pool.
The television screen brightened, the movie’s hospital background a little too bright on her eyes, but she wasn’t changing it.
“You ordered porn?”
“It’s an erotic masterpiece,” she parroted from the description she’d read on the screen before selecting it.
Vaughn grabbed the remote and checked the listing. “Naughty Nurses Volume 5.” He snorted.
Elena shrugged, feigning interest in the thorough examination the nurse was giving to her patient. “What? No nurse fantasies?”
“I’m not playing games with you, Elena.”
“Isn’t that what this is?” She waved a hand around the room. “Snag a sorceress and win a prize?”
“You should get cleaned up.”
She pushed to her feet before he made her. “So I’m too dirty for you, who knew?”
“You don’t leave this cottage without my permission.”
“Whatever you say.” She headed for the bathroom.
Refusing to second-guess the wisdom of trying to get under the gargoyle’s skin, she tugged her shirt over her head.
She could feel the primal weight of his gaze burning into her back, the heat of it caressing her spine like a lover’s touch. She was almost relieved when he remained at a distance, then mentally chided herself for letting feelings that should have been ground to dust get in the way of achieving her goal—her freedom.
Walking into the bathroom, she undid the button on her pants, tugging the zipper down before she faced him. “Sure you don’t want to make sure there aren’t any weapons I can use against you in here?”
He didn’t move.
“You certainly didn’t have a problem getting into my personal space before. But I guess in Vegas it was all about luring me in.”
His lips parted a beat before he pressed them into an unforgiving line.
Had she really expected him to deny it?
She reached for the door. Between one second and the next he was in the way, blocking her from closing it.
Maybe she was getting to him. Progress.
He scanned the interior without stepping a foot inside the cramped space.
She leaned over to turn on the taps. “What, did you develop a phobia of bathrooms? Recent traumatic experience perhaps?” she taunted. She shimmied out of her mud covered pants next and tossed them into the corner.
“I need my bag, assuming you packed more than just your favorite panties for me.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw.
She leaned in a little closer. “I’m not making you uncomfortable, am I?”
“Trying to seduce your way out of this is a little beneath you, isn’t it?”
“If I wanted to seduce you, you’d be begging for it already.”
He held her gaze and it took everything she had to maintain her feigned boredom.
Inside she was coming apart. He was standing too close and the memories of his touch were playing havoc with her heart no matter how hard she fought to ignore it. Vaughn wasn’t the only one with something to lose playing this kind of game.
Vaughn cocked his head, then retrieved her bag from where she dropped it by the door.
She grabbed for it when he was as close as she could handle.
He refused to sacrifice his hold on it, leaving them at an impasse, and her with no choice but to keep pushing. “What? No offer to wash my back this time, Snoopy?”
He let go.
She turned away, but didn’t make it far. His fingers curled around her wrist, stopping her. She braced herself, sensing he was about to call her bluff.
“Make it quick,” he growled, and something in his voice—something she knew she should ignore—made her glance over her shoulder.
An unmistakable hunger took the startling blue depths from unsettling to possessive. Steam billowed past the
curtained bathtub, super-heating the already scorching air.
He leaned toward her, and she held her breath.
And then he was gone, the doorway empty.
“Leave it open,” he called out.
Her eyes slid shut, but that was all the reaction she would allow no matter how much her legs wanted to let go. She had slid to the floor over him once before, and that had been one time too many.
As if the exchange drained the last of her energy, she barely managed to finish undressing before she slipped under the spray, nearly wincing as the hot water beat down on her earlier scrapes.
The brand on her chest was definitely affecting her ability to heal. She touched the center of the glyph, her skin feverish, and this time it had nothing to do with the gargoyle pacing the living room.
Sweet Avalon, what was wrong with her?
She stuck her head under the water and groaned. He’d abducted her, had plans to trade her away. She should be plotting ways to destroy him, not thinking about—
A sudden chill kissed the back of her spine. She jerked the curtain back, certain she was no longer alone.
No one else was in the room. So why didn’t it feel that way?
She scanned the interior, verifying the small bathroom window remained shut. Beyond the bathroom, she heard Vaughn on the phone again, but knew he was too smart to say anything she could use as leverage.
She waited a long moment before returning to her shower, rubbing the spot at the back of her neck that spread goosebumps down her back.
Quick to finish up despite her growing exhaustion, she wrapped a towel around herself, using a smaller one to dry her hair. Vaughn hadn’t packed anything that could help with her present predicament, forcing her to be content with clean clothes and a hairbrush.
It wasn’t the first time anyone had come for her, but it was the first time anyone had packed her a bag in preparation. Not that it counted for a damn thing.
She threw her brush back in the bag just as she felt his presence in the doorway. “Your turn.”
“I’m good.”
“Does going to stone make you squeaky clean, too?” She picked up her bag and didn’t care that she bumped into him on her way by, choosing the bedroom furthest from where he stood.
Primal Bounty_Pendragon Gargoyles Page 17