Ivarr stilled.
“We’ll need to get you to the hospital,” he said with resolve, but did not release me from his arms.
Instead, he leaned in and gently pressed his lips to my forehead. His kiss left a dusting of frosty sensation on my skin, and the budding desire in me dissipated instantly.
I shifted in his lap uncomfortably, promptly removing my hands from him. With the warmth of arousal gone, the awkward feeling of unease quickly filled the void left behind.
Sliding to the side, I let him move into the driver’s seat.
“Hospital it is.”
Chapter 15
WE DIDN’T LEAVE MUCH in the motel. Ivarr took his backpack to the truck before going to the bar, and the only things left behind were my filthy clothes—nothing I wanted back, anyway.
He used the first aid kit in the truck to clean the blood off my arm and to cover the cut by his ear with a Band-Aid. Then in the yellow light of the cab, I figured out the map, and Ivarr drove us to the next town south along the highway.
Before going to the hospital, though, he pulled into the parking lot of a shopping plaza.
“A women’s clothing store and a lingerie boutique right next to it,” he announced with satisfaction in his voice, and placed his hand on the door handle, ready to exit.
“They’ll be closed at this hour.” I stopped him. “Are you planning to break in? Or are you going to seep through the wall the way you did to get in the truck at the motel?”
He squinted my way.
“You noticed?”
“Of course I did. What was that?”
He frowned. “There was no time to open the door.”
“All of you can do it? The other demons, too? Walk through doors like that?”
“Yes. Any door, wall or fence.”
Another new thing I learned about them. “Why have I never seen the others do it?”
“They’re not allowed to walk through walls in front of humans at the base. That’s a rule.”
The list of rules proved even longer than I thought.
“Is that how you’re planning to get in the store now?”
“Do you see any other way?”
I glanced at the storefront, a neon ‘closed’ sign glaring bright on the door.
“No. I guess not.”
“I’ll go in, take some clothes for you and leave the money by the cash register along with the price tags.” He took a wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans. “What’s your size, by the way?”
“You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”
He just gave me a non-committal shrug in reply.
I’d just have to add this to the long list of unusual things that I got to witness lately.
“What about the cameras? Motion sensors?”
“Unless things have changed drastically during the past two years I spent in Deep Sleep, Katherine, many cameras have blind spots. Small mom-and-dad stores like these aren’t likely to have many motion sensors, either, if any. Here.” Ivarr inserted the key back in the ignition, obviously humouring me. “Be ready to start the truck and get out of here if you hear any alarms blaring. Now, what are your sizes?”
“THESE ARE RATHER DRESSY.” I lifted a pair of black slacks from the pile of clothes Ivarr had shoved in my lap, admiring the faint shimmer of the material in the dim light entering the truck.
We made it to the parking lot of the hospital, and I was about to get changed, with him turned to the side window to give me privacy.
He zipped up his hoodie to hide the blood stains and the torn-off hem of his t-shirt he used to bandage my arm. Astonishingly, this was all he had to do to appear impeccably dressed despite his casual clothing.
“Those were the simplest things I could find,” he grumped in reply. “Lots of evening gowns and stuff.”
“Oh, I don’t mind. They are beautiful. Thank you.” I fingered the red lace of the bra and panty set next. “It’s just if you want our story to the hospital to be that I cut my arm by fixing some farm machinery, these clothes may raise some questions.”
That was how Ivarr suggested to explain my wound to the hospital staff, since I was positive that telling the truth would send the police—and possibly demons—our way.
“I’ll deal with the hospital staff.” He shrugged my concerns off.
I sneaked a glance his way to make sure his back was still to me, before slipping the t-shirt off over my head, then quickly put the underwear and the pants on.
Carefully, so as not to aggravate my injury, I slid the straps of the bra over my arms.
“I’ll . . . um, I’ll need your help,” I realized that I wouldn’t be able to close the hooks of the bra with only one arm fully functioning.
With my back turned to him, I felt the light touch of his fingers as he deftly closed the little hooks for me.
“Red suits you.” He traced the satin strap with one finger after he was done.
“I—I don’t believe I own anything in red.”
I wore a lot of grey. Black shoes. White blouses. Sensible clothes. Derek, my ex-boyfriend, used to appreciate my choices. He was planning to run for public office one day and used to say that I had the perfect style for the wife of a future politician.
“Well, now you do.” Sliding up along the bra strap, Ivarr’s finger reached my shoulder.
“I’ll give you the money for it. When I get back home,” I whispered. My throat went suddenly dry, as sweet little tingles prickled my skin under the strap he touched.
“It’s a gift.” His lips unexpectedly brushed against my shoulder blade.
My cheeks burning hot, I halted my breath, but he just gave me a small squeeze on the forearm.
“Get dressed, I’ll take you in.”
Chapter 16
“KATHERINE IS MY COUSIN from The States. I live on a farm just north of here,” Ivarr explained to the triage nurse at the hospital. “She insisted on helping me to sharpen the lawn mower blades.” He shook his head dramatically and added, following the nurse’s gaze that flickered to my red silk top with gorgeous beading on the shoulders. “She wouldn’t leave the house without changing out of her work clothes first.” He let out an exasperated sigh.
The nurse’s smile shone with warm sympathy as she talked to him over my head, “Does she have travel insurance?”
I shook my head in response to her question, but I didn’t think she noticed it. All her attention was directed at Ivarr standing next to me. She had to crane her neck to maintain eye contact with him, but she didn’t seem to mind the inconvenience.
“I’ll pay.” He reached for his wallet in the back pocket. “It’s my farm, I’m responsible.”
“It’s so very nice of you,” the nurse cooed, taking the cash from him to process the payment.
“YOU DID PRETTY GOOD out there,” I said as we sat in the examination room, waiting for the doctor. “For someone who finds lying unnatural, you sounded very believable.”
“Lying costs a lot of energy.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Ivarr shifted in the green pleather chair next to my cot. The chair groaned under the weight of his massive body.
“I’ve had practice—lying is unavoidable when living among humans. Even though I tried to keep away from people, I still had to lie, pretending to be one of them, whenever I came close to feed. I’ve had enough experience over time.”
“You said you’re about eight hundred years old?”
“At least. That’s how far my memories reach right now. Most likely, I’m considerably older.”
“How much of this time did you spend asleep?”
“I missed most of it. Between Deep Sleep and Inferno, probably about five-six hundred years.”
“Centuries of pain,” I whispered. “Why? What is the purpose of your being here?”
I shouldn’t be asking him questions. Being ready to jump in bed with him for the thrill of physical pleasure I believed he could deliver was one thing. Getting to know him o
n a personal level was entirely different and, I sensed, more dangerous for me, because the more I learned about him the more things I found in him to admire.
Learning about his past helped me understand him as a person. By now, I no longer viewed him as a demon, a creature vastly different from me. When I looked at Ivarr, I saw a man, capable of feeling pain of loss, pride for his life choices, and concern for people like me. A man with solid principles and quiet dignity.
“No one knows why we’re here, Katherine.” A gloomy cloud shadowed his features, making his face appear truly world-weary for a moment. “The most common belief is that we came to this world as a punishment. But no one remembers exactly what the crime was or what to do now to be forgiven for it.”
“Would you ever remember? How long do you need to have sex with women for all of your memories to come back?”
I asked this without judgment. Now that I understood his world a little better, I couldn’t hold the way he had to obtain his nourishment against him. At least Ivarr, as opposed to the rest of them, had found a way to feed without harming anyone.
Some unpleasant note must have still slipped in my voice, because his frown deepened.
“It depends. What exactly do you mean by sex?”
“Well . . .” I sensed an unbidden flush of warmth spread up my face. “Whatever it is you do to get yourself fed.”
He nodded slowly, his eyes on me. Unable to hold his gaze, I dropped mine. He sat with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together. And I focused my attention on his large hands that I knew could equally deliver a bone-crushing blow and a gentlest of caresses.
“I don’t fuck random women, Katherine.” His gruff voice reached me, and I flinched. This was the first time I heard Ivarr curse.
“What do you do?” I asked quietly, knowing it would be best not to go there but unable to stop.
“Whatever gives pleasure to the woman I’m with.”
“Without the actual intercourse?” I ventured a glance at his face.
He nodded, his mouth pressed into a firm line.
“I don’t take my clothes off when I feed, Katherine, not even the gloves. I give the women pleasure and take their sexual energy. There is no other exchange that takes place.”
“How about your own pleasure?”
“Mine?” He lifted an eyebrow, as if I’d asked something unreasonable and out of place. “That’s not what feeding is about for me.”
“So, it’s really just about nourishment, then?”
“For the past two hundred years, yes.”
Two hundred years? Since Margreta then.
“You haven’t . . .”
“I haven’t been inside a woman for over two centuries, Katherine. If that is what you’re trying to ask.”
His directedness, the way he opened up to me, laying his life bare for me to examine and judge made me want to do anything but that.
Another glimpse in his soul, dark and turbulent as it might be, revealed to me a man, who remained loyal at heart to the woman he cared about, even as his very nature left him no way to stay physically faithful to her.
“Hunger is the most prevailing urge.” Ivarr spoke while I remained silent. “It overpowers everything, even arousal in the likes of me. It takes someone very special to make a demon lust after them in every way.”
His words tugged at my heart with a new jolt of ache.
“Was Margreta that special woman for you?”
“Yes.”
“Did you remember everything when you were with her? Were you no longer hungry then?”
“I’m sure I must’ve had more memories than I do now. The hunger was definitely more bearable during the six years I spent with her, but it was still there. It’s inescapable. They say it only stops with forgiveness.”
Six years were not enough? Demons were truly insatiable.
“Miss Jones?” The doctor walked in, holding a clipboard in his hand and interrupting our conversation.
It was a man, I noted distractedly, hoping he would be able to pay more attention to my stitches than to Ivarr’s handsome face.
IT WAS STILL EARLY morning when we left the hospital. The sky had just begun to change to a lighter grey on the horizon.
My wound neatly stitched, my arm freshly bandaged, I clung to Ivarr’s forearm, almost running at his side, trying to keep up in the gold-lace Mary Jane shoes he had gotten for me.
Less than ten feet from the truck, I tripped, and Ivarr lifted me in his arms, without skipping a step.
“You need some sleep, sweetheart,” he said with a concerned frown. “There should be a coffee shop somewhere around here. They generally open early. I’ll get you breakfast. You can sleep in the truck while I drive.”
Curled against his chest, I felt I could just sleep like this right now—no breakfast necessary.
Reaching the truck, Ivarr shifted me in his arms to open the passenger’s door, then placed me gently into the reclined seat.
“What should I get you for breakfast? Herbal tea or milk? No coffee. Coffee will keep you awake.”
“Tea, please.” I figured I’d fall asleep before he found a coffee shop anyway. It would be an iced tea by the time I woke up.
“Are you wearing your amulet?”
I nodded, lifting my hand to the silk cord around my neck, just to make sure.
“I’ll lock you in the truck afterwards, Katherine, and find a phone to call Sytrius.”
“Oh, can you ask him about The Priory?” I perked up. “What’s their part in the new agreement? I need to figure out how much I can trust them.”
We’d been driving south, towards the border and my home. I had to know if it was safe for me to return to my life back in Seattle. On one hand, I could definitely use The Priory’s protection from demons. On the other, I was uncertain whether I could wholly trust the organization that made deals with them in the first place.
I hoped whatever news Sytrius might share would help me make a better-informed decision on what to do next. Ivarr seemed to believe we could rely on Sytrius for an accurate update, and at the moment, I had no other way to get the information I needed.
I fought to keep my eyes open. “I want to know what Sytrius tells you.”
“Sure.” He undid my shoes and slid them off then rubbed my feet gently.
“Those shoes are so beautiful,” I mumbled sleepily as he took off my black coat and tossed it into the back seat, then buckled me in. “I feel like Cinderella wearing them.” He grabbed the quilt from the back and tucked it neatly around me. “Thank you,” I whispered, my heart warming with gratitude. “Thank you for looking after me.”
“You’re welcome,” he said quietly, smoothing my hair out of my face. “I have no idea why I am in this world, Katherine. But this . . .” He tugged the quilt up to my chin. “This right here gives me a true sense of purpose.”
Chapter 17
IT FELT AS IF I’D ONLY managed to doze off for a moment when my throbbing arm woke me up.
“Ivarr?” I called, blinking in the bright sunlight flooding the cab of the truck. “What time is it?”
“Almost two in the afternoon.” The answer came from the driver’s side.
“Did you talk to Sytrius?” I rubbed my eyes, straightening in my seat.
“No. The phone number I had for him has been disconnected.” He flexed his jaw, his mouth forming a hard line. “I got a cell phone while you slept, but I don’t trust anyone else at the base enough to call them.”
So much for getting more information. Disappointment spread through me, raising more concerns.
“Do you think he’s been sent after you again?”
“There is no way to tell for sure.”
My anxiety accelerated. In addition to demons who might be searching for me, we could also have Sytrius on our heels.
“Don’t.” He glanced my way. “Please don’t worry yet. Sytrius is not that quick. The way the Council feeds him, it’d take him a while to catch up with me.”
He took his hand off the steering wheel and squeezed mine reassuringly.
“I just wish I knew what’s going on . . .” I exhaled, stroking my thumb along the side of his glove.
“We’ll figure it out,” he promised reassuringly. “I got you a sandwich and fruit salad for lunch.” He gestured to the paper bag on the front console. We’ll be in Calgary in a few hours. There, we’ll stop for dinner and a better rest for you.”
I was more than willing to forgo all comfort for the sake of getting home faster and opened my mouth to protest.
“In a real bed.” He cut me off before I had a chance to say anything.
‘Real bed’ sounded amazing after being curled up in the seat of the truck for hours. Still, I worried about the delay from stopping.
“Are you sure it’ll be safe? Shouldn’t we just keep going?”
“First, we really need to figure out exactly where we’re going. Otherwise, I’m afraid we run the risk of making a mistake.”
With everything that happened last night, I remembered, Ivarr never got fed and still couldn’t properly analyze our situation. The lack of information didn’t allow me to make a confident decision, either.
“I wonder if I should get hold of anyone at the base after all.” Ivarr sounded as if he were thinking out loud. “Someone from the Eastern Council may be safer.”
“Right. There is more than one Council.” I recalled him speaking of them in plural before. “How many?”
“Two. One in each hemisphere.”
Twice as many demons.
“Fortunately for us, neither of them are fast to act. From what I know about life at the base, it’s slow like molasses. It takes a while for the Council to reach a decision and even longer to act on it.”
“Why?” My monotonous days at the Base and the fittingly slow manner of Garrett’s speech rose in my memory.
The Forgotten (Demons Book 2) Page 9