by Erica Woods
“It’s okay.” It was a breathless acceptance. The flutter of my racing pulse left me flustered, wary. But when I glanced down at Jason’s feet, it wasn’t because I was hiding—not entirely—but because I wondered how he moved without making a sound.
Are these guys ninjas?
“Up here, love.” There was a smile in that smooth voice.
My eyes snapped up to meet his, but as soon as they did, a swarm of delicate wings fluttered in my stomach and I allowed my gaze to wander. Such soft-looking lips. Smooth and inviting. A jaw that was too strong to be narrow, but not wide enough to be square. Golden skin without a hint of stubble or—
“Jason!” My hand lifted, wanting to touch, to feel, make sure. “You’re . . . you’re okay!”
He didn’t have a mark on him. No bruises, no torn skin, no open wounds. Nothing. His powerful, toned body looked no worse for wear.
Impossible!
I could have sworn I’d seen Ruarc slug him in the face at least twice—and the sheer power behind the blows should have knocked him unconscious for at least a day.
Jason’s smile dimmed, a hint of regret creeping into his golden eyes. With slow movements, probably as to not startle me again, he came closer and scanned my face. When I didn’t move or say anything, he closed the space between us until our bodies were almost touching. Standing next to him, I felt astonishingly tiny. It wasn’t his height—out of all of them Jason was the shortest and though my head only reached his chin, the difference wasn’t as big as with the others. It wasn’t his height and it wasn’t his wide shoulders, the powerful chest, or the strong arms, but his presence. He was so . . . alive. So very alive and crackling with energy.
Leaning down, he gently touched my bruised lip and grimaced, some of that energy pulling inward.
“I’m truly sorry about this.” His tone was low and apologetic, nothing like the cheerfulness from this morning.
Thrown by the tenderness in his touch and not knowing how I felt about someone touching me at all, I took a small step back. “I-it’s not your fault,” I stammered, lowering my gaze.
Jason dropped his hand and I watched as it opened and closed reflexively at his side before I peeked up at him. His eyebrows were drawn together, eyes slightly narrowed.
He didn’t say anything at first, just studied me. Being the sole focus of his magnetic gaze made me squirm. I wasn’t used to being the center of attention unless something bad was going to happen.
When he finally spoke, his voice was back to its normal lighthearted state. “Ash, good of you to join us, old chap,” Jason said, eyes never leaving my face.
Not having heard anything, I turned in time to see Ash step into the room.
Okay, now it’s just spooky.
Ash moved like the offspring of a ghost and a tiger—feet not making a sound, muscles rolling beneath taut skin, pace sure and unhurried.
“Hi,” I said warily, worried he was angry with the way I’d behaved this morning.
At my tone, he halted. The bright light streaming through the windows bathed him in a faint glow, and eyes that had made me think of stormy oceans last night now seemed to glow with a bright, white light. The pale blue roamed over my body, lingering on my bruised lip, exposed stomach and bandaged leg. And once he’d finished his inspection, his gaze moved to capture mine and time stood still. A connection flared to life between us, bright and beautiful. I could hardly breathe. I wanted to reach out and touch the invisible thread that linked us, but before I could move it shattered, leaving me with a feeling of such stark isolation that, for a moment, I felt completely and utterly alone.
What was that?
I searched Ash’s face, desperate to see if he’d felt it too, but when our eyes locked the connection was still gone and Ash looked . . . normal. Had it all been in my head?
“How are you feeling?”
“I’m . . . fine, I think. My leg is pretty sore, though,” I quickly added, when he crossed his arms over his chest and raised his brows at me.
“You had three bruised ribs, love,” Jason said. “And it looked like a t-rex had chewed on your foot.”
Ash tilted his head. “How is your breathing?”
“Are you in any pain?”
“You should sit.”
I was barely aware of my lips parting, of the wistful sigh that slipped between them. Their concern was a balm soothing my fractured soul. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had cared if I was injured. As long as it hadn’t been life-threatening, the Hunters had just thrown me into my cell and waited for me to heal.
Forcing back the sudden moisture in my eyes, I took a deep breath and carefully used my finger to feel along the edge of each rib. “Good,” I said with what felt like a wobbly smile, happy to be able to tell them the truth for once.
Neither of them returned my smile. Ash actually frowned, while Jason just looked bewildered.
Shouldn’t this be good news?
“No lingering soreness?” Ash asked, nodding at Jason while I thought about my reply.
“Erhm, a little?” I was baffled. Did they want me to be hurt? No, of course they didn’t. As concerned as they’d been over every little—
Oh god, I was so stupid! Of course they were confused. I had forgotten that normal people didn’t heal as fast as me. Maybe they thought I had been faking my injuries last night? Or maybe they—
A startled gasp broke free when strong, warm hands cupped my hips and lifted me clear off the floor. Jason’s lightly stubbled chin rubbed along my neck as he drew in a deep breath.
“W-what are you—aah!” A short, sharp giggle tore out of me as he repeated the same motion on the other side, tickling my sensitive throat. Both men froze.
My legs dangled uselessly in the air. The longer they remained unmoving, staring, the more my discomfort grew. I squirmed in Jason’s grip. “Can you put me down now?”
Without a word, he lowered me back down to solid ground. I tilted my head up and caught his slow head shake—I didn’t know if Ash’s sigh was in reply to said head shake or something else, but when Jason saw me looking, the confused grimace was wiped off his face and replaced by a charming grin.
“I think you need a shower, love.” He grinned at my appalled expression, eyes twinkling cheekily, but something else was lurking there too. A curious concern that clouded his handsome features, making his brazen smile look slightly forced.
“Did you . . . did you just sniff me?” My voice shook. I hated being embarrassed, and the low simmer of irritation growing in my chest was startling. Feelings like anger had been useless to me for so long I’d forgotten how it felt. When showing any form of heated emotion resulted in more pain, one quickly learned to suppress the dangerous emotions. Over time I’d stopped feeling them all together.
“Behave, Jason.” Ash caught my gaze and gestured to one of the chairs in front of him. “Take a seat.”
“I-I’d rather take a quick shower, if it’s not too much trouble?”
A low, comforting rumble sounded from Ash. “A shower can wait, Hope. We need to get some food in you, and I would like to take another look at your injuries.”
The steel behind his soft-spoken words had me lowering myself into a chair before I realized what I was doing.
Ash sat down facing me. He undid my bandage, ignoring Jason’s sharply indrawn breath when my calf was revealed. “It has stopped bleeding and there are no signs of infection,” he murmured. “As long as we keep an eye on it I see no reason why it should not heal completely.”
Tension I hadn’t been aware of flowed out of me. Having a permanently damaged leg would be a big hindrance if I was going to be living a life on the run or try to make my way to Canada.
“How long do you think it will take to heal?” Since the Hunters had used the strange metal in their teeth-contraption I would heal just a little faster than a normal human. Unfortunately I had no clue what normal was.
Ash searched my face. “I do not know,” he said, and shot J
ason a look I couldn’t decipher before looking back at me. When he next spoke, there was something hypnotic in both his voice and the pale blue depths of his eyes. “What happened to your foot?”
A will not my own, indomitable like a mountain cutting through the skyline, flooded my mind. It pushed, urged me to reveal the truth behind my injuries, prodded at the secrets buried in my soul. The strange, intrusive sensation made something inside me stir. My monster flexed its presence, and suddenly the pressure was gone.
“I stepped on something,” I mumbled and looked away, breaking the strange eye contact.
The scrape of a chair against the floor, then Jason’s presence behind me. He leaned close, so close his breath whispered across the back of my neck.
“What did you step on, love?” Jason murmured, his words worming their way into my chest, curling around my heart where I could pretend his concern meant he cared for me. At least a little.
“I-I’m not sure.” I was frazzled. Their heat enveloped me; Jason at my back, chin almost resting on my shoulder, and Ash in front of me, using that penetrating gaze of his to peel back my layers one by one. Suddenly I got scared. A small whimper left my throat and Jason immediately rose. He stepped away and to my right, where I could see him but not feel him. “I . . . I didn’t see it at first. It was dark and I was—” Would it reveal too much if I told them I was running? “I . . . I stepped right on it. It had these huge, metal teeth that snapped over my leg. I thought it went through the bone at first, but it obviously didn’t.”
When I finished speaking, neither of the men spoke. They stared at me with wide, unblinking eyes slowly filling with the first embers of fury. It made me wonder if I had said something wrong, revealed something I shouldn’t have.
“Do you . . . do you mean a bear trap?” Jason asked, disbelief etched into every line of his face.
“I don’t know.” I hung my head, ashamed that there was so much I didn’t know, that I hadn’t been given the opportunity to learn.
“It could’ve snapped her leg right off, Ash!” Jason exclaimed, and this time there was definitely anger in his voice.
“Unless they were modified for people.” Even though Ash’s tone was calm, the corded muscles in his neck and the vein throbbing by his left eye told a different story. “Hope, were these traps meant to keep others away or prevent someone from leaving?”
I recoiled. Jason’s eyes widened.
“Son of a bitch!” he shouted, teeth bared in a scary grimace. Watching him lose his cool heightened my own panic. It was chilling, seeing the lips that were normally curved in a charming smile now pulled back over teeth that looked a little too sharp.
Would he attack me now, like Ruarc had attacked him earlier, without provocation or reason?
I shrank back in my chair, trying to make myself invisible.
Ash rose slowly, eyes locked on Jason. “Out.”
Visibly struggling for a second or two, Jason ended up jerking his chin then striding from the room.
Oh my god.
I was petrified. The last thing I wanted was a repeat of the fight this morning, especially if it involved me. Visions of the violence I had both witnessed and been exposed to in my years with the Hunters sprang to mind, making me want to vomit.
Ash took both my hands in his and started humming. At first I thought he had gone crazy, but after a few minutes my body reluctantly relaxed and I understood what he was doing. And why.
Another tendril of trust grew from the barren ground in my heart. A man who soothed instead of intimidated, healed instead of destroyed could never be in league with the Hunters. I’d go so far as to say he had to be a good man. A rare man.
After my breathing had slowed and I was no longer on the verge of terrified tears, Ash picked up the fresh bandages he’d left on the table earlier and wrapped my leg back up.
“This has to stay dry, Hope,” he said quietly. “A shower would be difficult, but if you want to take a bath you can leave your leg up at the edge while you relax.”
The thought of stewing in my own filth did not appeal. He must have seen it on my face, because his lips twitched and his eyes warmed.
“There is a showerhead in the bath. Use it before you fill the tub, but remember to leave your bandage alone.”
“I will. And, Ash,” I said, before I lost my courage. “I . . . I just want to say . . . thank you.”
He looked at me and though his lips never curved, there was something in his expression that made a warm glow begin in my chest. “You are welcome.”
Ash somehow managed to look both impassive and disapproving when I tried to leave without accepting the apple he pressed into my hand.
“Eat,” he said, and while it was not an order, not truly, the way he looked at me—one brow raised in the mildest of rebukes—made me close my hands around his offering and bring it to my mouth.
The apple disappeared embarrassingly fast.
“Another?”
I shook my head. My skin itched. Blood and dirt and sweat acted as a physical reminder of what I’d been through. It had to go.
“Upstairs, then, I think.” He took my elbow and escorted me up the stairs—mindful of my limp. “Here,” he said, opening the door next to my room. “You will find towels under the sink and soap in the left cabinet. I will bring you some clothes.”
I didn’t say anything when he left. I couldn’t. Ash had opened the door to the nicest bathroom I’d ever seen, and I was busy ogling. At the Hunter compound, I’d been one of the lucky ones. My cell had been one of the few with a small door attached. A door leading to a tiny, square room with a toilet and a sink. The room had been so small that I couldn’t put my arms straight out to my sides without scraping them against the cold, cement walls.
The unlucky captives had been given a bucket and nothing else.
One man in particular stood out in my memory. He’d been afforded no privacy, was guarded around the clock, and occupied one of the smallest cells—just large enough for him to lay down on the floor and sleep. I’d seen him only twice in passing, and both times I’d been terrified by the snarling, ravaging beast that had once been a man. He’d been broken. The Hunters had broken him.
“Here.” A hand on my shoulder dissolved the uneasy memories. Ash passed me a small pile of folded clothes. “They will be too large, but they are warm and clean.”
“Thank you.”
He dipped his chin. “We will have dinner once you are done.”
After Ash left—and I rushed to lock the door behind him—I allowed myself a moment to bask in my opulent surroundings. Pure white tiles covered the floors and walls—I was starting to see a theme—the sheer brilliance of their brightness hard to look at directly. A massive tub took up the whole back wall, and I wondered briefly if they used it as a pool. It was certainly big enough for three or four people to lounge in, but as large as the guys were, they wouldn’t be able to do much more than to lie back and relax.
An image popped into my head, that of Ruarc’s considerable frame filling the bath, of his wide shoulders leaning against the porcelain surface, of long, powerful legs sprawling across the bottom of the tub, of his wet, naked skin glistening with droplets and—
Heat flamed at my face. I shook my head, banishing the strange thought.
What’s wrong with you, Hope?
To the right of the tub loomed a shower nearly as large as the bath. A bench of sorts occupied the corner of one wall—why would anyone need a bench in their shower?—and a fancy-looking control panel attached below the first of four showerheads.
The bathroom boasted two sinks, a mirror above each, with several cabinets below. I found the bottled soap Ash had mentioned and put down the pile of clothes before pulling out the biggest, fluffiest towel I’d ever seen.
Everything in this house is oversized.
Not that I minded. I was looking forward to soaking in the tub.
I undressed and removed the bandages around my healed ribs. The cool surface
of the tub had the skin along my back pebbling. My foot went over the edge, leaving me in a very undignified position, but I didn’t care.
I was about to have a bath. My first in over eighteen years.
After fumbling with the knobs for the showerhead attached to the bath—cursing when I got scolded by hot water—I finally got everything to work. Scrubbing my body clean while keeping my bandage dry proved difficult, but not impossible, and soon nearly half the bottle was empty. By the time I allowed myself to lean back and let the tub fill, my limbs felt heavy.
I dozed for a while, and when I next opened my eyes, my head felt foggy and my skin was pruned. Memories of bath time when I’d been a child intruded and a smile pushed past the sudden lump in my throat. How I’d giggled when my dad pretended to be horrified after I played too long in the bath, oohing and aahing and acting as though I was gravely injured when I held up my wrinkly fingers. And when I got a little older, how I’d done the same with—
Agony stabbed at my heart, quick and brutal.
The heat from the bath no longer held any appeal.
I dried, then dressed in the clothes Ash had lent me. The sleeves of the baggy, black shirt had to be rolled up several times before my hands could poke out, and I could barely walk in the sweatpants, even after I’d done the same with the legs. But, like he’d said, they were warm and clean, and the material was soft. Softer than any I’d worn during my captivity.
Feeling strangely vulnerable in my borrowed clothes and clean skin, I headed downstairs.
The heady smell of food lured me into the kitchen where, to my horror, all four men were gathered. The big kitchen table was filled with different dishes and five place settings had been readied. They obviously meant for me to eat with them and based on the cold look Lucien sent my way, they’d been waiting for me.
I blushed, embarrassed at taking so long.
They must think I am a total weirdo.
“Hope.” With warm eyes and an open expression, Ash pulled out a chair between himself and Jason. “You must be starving. Please have a seat.”