She stepped forward at that, forgetting to be cautious as she lifted his shirt and pulled back the bandage. It had blood on it from the rigors of yesterday’s travels, but beneath the bandage his wound was knitted and well on the way to forming a fresh scar.
“Will you scar permanently or will that change as well?”
“It will most likely scar. We carry the mark of severe wounds. But only the most severe. Everything else we heal completely from.” He didn’t realize it, but when he spoke of severe wounds his hand automatically rubbed at the brand on his chest.
“What’s that called?” she asked, drawing his attention to it.
“An ouroboros. When a Bodywalker is made a tattoo of an ouroboros appears somewhere on their body. My master chose it as his brand to identify me as belonging to him so no one would question me or give me a hard time if I made demands of them. You see, no one likes a lowly Gargoyle to give them commands.”
There was anger in his eyes as he said that, but there was also a determined sort of pride as well. He would not allow his past to drag him down. That was what the lift to his chin meant. Nor would he accept any pity she might be feeling for the life he’d been forced to live. It had been what it had been. Nothing they did, nothing they felt, would change that.
She moved away from him, moving to the tightly drawn drapes. She gingerly peeked around one to look at the sky. It was nearing dusk. She stepped back.
“We have a little time. I’m going to see about getting us some food and—”
“No! You canna go out in the light!”
“I can bundle back up, use my scarf to cover my face. There’d be no—”
“I said no!” he said, his tone final and fearsome. “You’ll no’ risk yourself on account of me. Any one of a thousand things could happen and you’d get hurt. You’ve no sunglasses tae shade your eyes. ’Twould be madness and I’ll hear no more of it. We wait.”
The truth was she didn’t want to go out in the light. But she did need to check the roads and maybe see about renting a car, if it were at all possible. But she nodded to him and figured another hour wouldn’t make too much of a difference. The car rental place would not be likely to be open in any event. She looked at her watch. She was anxious to get to Walmart. She wanted to see if her ghostly friend would be able to find her note. In order for that to happen they needed to get there before nine.
“All right, we’ll wait,” she said.
She stood there for a moment longer, long enough to shiver in the stark cold of the room. It was so cold she could see her breath on the air. Clearly the electricity was still out and for some reason Clemmons, the motel owner, did not have a generator. She hoped he was just as cold as they were. It was very thoughtless of him, especially knowing what the weather could be like and the fact that this was ski season and he was more likely to be full than not this time of year.
After another second, whereupon she had begun to rub at her arms for warmth, Ahnvil cursed roundly and marched up to her. He grabbed her hand and with a jerk sent her crashing up against his body. He enfolded her in his warmth while yanking the coverlet off the bed and wrapping them both up into it.
“You’re a bloody stubborn woman,” he scolded her, rubbing her arm for her as she gratefully cuddled up close to him, her chilled state causing her to forego all demurring and protestation about allowing him to hold her close.
Oddly enough it wasn’t sexuality that entered his awareness right then. There was something about her, something so different from any woman he’d been near in such a long time. Probably because he was used to incredibly strong women with phenomenal abilities, and yet here she was with her incredibly dangerous vulnerabilities and she was bravely wanting to venture out into the world in order to further their cause. And that was perhaps why he thought her so much braver than all the rest. It was one thing to be strong and face a challenge, it was another to face one knowing without a doubt you were going to be hurt in the process. For some reason he found that to be the most amazing thing about her. He suspected that she thought she was weak because she was hiding away where it was safe and dark, but what she had done was find clever ways to live with her disability and, he had no doubt, to the maximum of her ability. Of course she was afraid of hurt and pain, she’d be an idiot not to be.
As he held her he found himself breathing in the clean warmth of her hair, and by the time she’d stopped shivering his nose was drifting down past her ear on a direct course for her neck. Something about the graceful line of it beckoned to him, like the finest lure to the trickiest of fishes she was reeling him in faster and faster every time. How the hell had she gotten under his skin so quickly? Even knowing he was the worst thing for a woman as fragile as she was. But honestly, how was her susceptibility to the sun any different from those of any Nightwalker? Did it really make her any more or less fragile? Other than the fact that she was human and that if he were to climb on top of her and suddenly turn to stone he would without fail crush the life out of her. But she smelled so damn good. Why did she have to smell so damn good?
“Warm enough now?” he asked, his voice rasping out of him.
“Yes,” she whispered back. “But we can’t just stand here like this for another hour.”
“Want to get back in bed?” he asked.
“No! No, that wouldn’t be a very good idea.”
He glanced around. There was a small chair in the far corner of the room. It was dubious whether it would hold both of them, but he took a chance, swept her up into his arms, and carried her over to it. Sitting down with her, he tried not to groan when she snuggled back against him, her bottom wriggling across his lap in little twitches.
Don’t get hard. Don’t get hard. Don’t get—
“Hey! Stop that!”
“Sorry,” he said, not sounding all that repentant. “I canna help it when you shimmy abou’ like that in my lap. Sit still.”
She did. Too still. He could tell she was holding herself rigidly, as though she were afraid to relax.
“Relax, Kat,” he soothed her gently. “I willna bother you. I swear it. I just want you to be safe and warm. Relax.”
After a minute she did, her weight coming to rest comfortably in his arms. He just contented himself with the smell of her and the rhythmic sound of her breaths.
“What’s it like? Being a Gargoyle? Is it hateful? Do you look the same as before or did that change?”
“I look the same as before. Maybe a bit more buff. More muscle, you know.”
“Yes.”
“And overall, now that I’m no’ a slave to another man’s whims and ways, I like it fine. I get to fly.”
“I still don’t understand how that’s possible …”
“Doona ask for I doona know the how of it. All I know is it works. I can fly in the night air as easily as any feathered friend.”
“Wow, I’d like to try flying like that one day.”
“I can take you if you like.”
“Oh wow. Really?” She sounded as eager and as scared as anyone could possibly be at the same time. “I’d like that. Yes. I’d like that,” she reiterated, this time sounding more sure. “And how long does it take for you to turn to a statue once sunlight hits? Is it gradual or instantaneous?”
“ ’Tis nearly instantaneous.”
“What does it feel like?”
“Truthfully? ’Tis terrifying. No matter how many years you’ve been a Gargoyle, and I’m told ’tis true for others, your first instinct is tae fight it. Mainly because your breath is the first thing you feel seize after the first blush of stone begins. You think you’ll suffocate and I suppose if we dinna turn tae stone immediately afterward, no longer needing oxygen, we might do so. But ’tis just like drowning for that brief window of time. And for a man like me, a man who fights everything headlong, that kind of powerlessness is a tough pill tae swallow.”
“I can imagine. I think it would be the same for me, too. It’s like that for me if I feel the touch of the
sun. The reaction is instantaneous. Wait! Did you hear that?”
It was a rumbling rush of sound, scraping and loud.
“Plows! It’s a plow!”
“Nay. Stay here,” he commanded when she would have run to the window and risked a peek out. “Right or wrong you’ll know in an hour. I’ll no’ have you risking as much as a single wisp of sun touching this fair, precious skin.” He found her hand among the blankets and lifted it up to his lips, kissing her gently across the knuckles. “Ask me something else.”
“Well … how rich are you? Like just stinking or ultrastinking?”
“Besides the fact that I get paid for protecting my Bodywalkers as well as other benefits, I’m three hundred years old and have learned tae look for long-term investments. What do you think?”
“Ultra-stinking. I knew it.” She sighed.
“Doona worry, Kat, I’ll pay you back for anything you need to buy for me.” And it was clear it bothered him that he was depending on her like this.
“It won’t be a big deal,” she assured him. “I have a small little nest egg and I do medical transcription to keep solvent.” She paused, fidgeting a little. “It’s something I can do it at home at any time. With technology I just send things over encrypted emails and voilà! Paycheck without sun exposure.” She quieted and said, “You know, I don’t hate my life. I don’t want you to think that I do.”
“I dinna think that. But I do think you miss your work wi’ patients. You’ve too much of a knack for it.”
“Sometimes I do. But not all that much. Like I said, I’m happy. I don’t miss getting yelled at or puked on, that’s for sure.”
“I canna imagine why.”
She laughed at that. Then another moment of silence ticked by. “Did you try to kill your forger?”
He sighed. “No, lass. Though I wish I could sometimes, I canna do so. Circumstances have put the bastard right within my reach but have also made it so I canna have satisfaction. He’s a powerful man and my Pharaoh needs him tae help fight an even more powerful evil. I doona want tae get into it because the less you know the better you’ll feel.”
“Ignorance is bliss? I don’t know if I agree to that. I think I’d rather know. Hey, what do you make of the ghost-girl Bella?”
“I doona know, lass. As far as I could see you were writing tae yourself.”
“How strange. So am I like psychic or some—hey!” She smacked his hand when he made a grab for her breasts. Or rather the pendant between her breasts. “Oh. Sorry,” she said, realizing she’d judged the worst of him.
“ ’Tis the pendant,” he said sharply. “I’ll bet it has something tae do wi’ it!”
“Hey, how come you could touch it now and nothing happened?”
He thought on it a second. “Because I wasna trying tae take it off you?”
“Let’s not try and find out, shall we?”
“No. Let’s no’ ” He fingered the cold metal slowly. “How do we know the spirit is no’ malevolent?”
“Oh please,” Kat scoffed. “She drew a little heart in the snow. She’s as malevolent as cotton candy.”
“Even cotton candy can cause something rotten. A cavity. A bad bellyache. There’s two sides tae every coin.”
“Well, she didn’t feel bad. But I’ll be careful, okay?”
“Telling the spirit where we’ll be next is no’ being careful,” he pointed out.
“I suppose not. But I just have a feeling about this.” She looked at him. “Just like I have a feeling you’re not bad either. I was a little scared at first, but … something just told me not to be afraid of you.”
“Oh aye, was that before or after I tried tae strangle you in your own bed?”
“Both,” she said with a stubborn lift of her chin. “I know you’re not responsible for that. You were hurt and you were having a nightmare. It was a stupid thing to do. And I could tell you some stories about violence from otherwise perfectly mundane people. People I knew to be harmless coming in injured and behaving like demons had caught hold of them. Injury does funny things to a body. Even more so, I imagine, when that body has been so long without its succor. Are you going to tell me how long you have before permanent being?”
“I promise, I doona know. There’s been times when only two days have passed and I feel in danger of it. And then times when a week has passed and I’ll only just be starting to get symptoms.”
“What are the symptoms? Besides turning to stone involuntarily. I got that much.”
“Madness,” he said grimly. “Nightmares. One leads into the other. Weakness. I start tae get run down. I’m stronger in stone skin, strongest in Gargoyle form. The more I stay flesh the more energy I burn. That’s why I keep eating so much. Speaking of which, I’m powerfully hungry. And no, you canna go get food. We’ve a li’le over half an hour yet.” He paused a beat. “There’s one other thing. We start tae … Gargoyles are part beast. As we weaken the beast comes out more and more. And the beast is usually … in heat. We become voraciously sexual. Gargoyles are lusty to begin wi’, but …”
He trailed off because there was nothing left to say. The implication was clear.
“I admit, I had noticed that,” she said, a warm flush creeping over her face in spite of the chill in the room. She wriggled one hand out of the blanket cocoon and touched it against his face. “Is that why you feel feverish? I thought it was an infection.”
“Aye. But make no mistake,” he said, burrowing his face gently into her hair, “I’d want you as powerfully even in my sane mind.”
How had he known that was exactly what she’d been thinking? That she had felt a sinking feeling in her gut thinking that his desire for her was nothing but a matter of Gargoyle madness and circumstance. When had it become so important to her to know that he wanted her? And why was it that the simple act of feeling his face and breath against her neck gave her a thrill of pleasure equal to the moments he had cradled her breast in his hand.
“If no’ for you, my pretty Kat lass, I wouldna’ be sane right now. The wound would have been a constant drain on my energy. The stone skin constantly trying to take me over … and likely succeeding. And while it might have helped heal the wound, as you see, it risks permanent being.”
“You’re fighting it constantly, aren’t you?”
He hesitated in his answer, but that in itself was an answer. He remained silent and she bit her lip. She was incredibly worried for him. Afraid they wouldn’t get him to his touchstone in time.
“What if you turn to a statue on the plane or somewhere in public? Won’t people find out about you?”
“No. We feel it coming on soon enough that we find a hidden place for it. Then if someone happens upon us they think they’ve found a mysteriously appearing stone statue. We doona look human at all. I fear it will frighten you when you see it. And as for the plane, it’s controlled and flown by Bodywalkers or humans who know what we are. It willna matter then.”
She looked up into his warm amber eyes and said, “I won’t be afraid of you. I’ll know what you are on the inside, no matter what you become on the outside.”
“How do you know what I am on the inside?” he wanted to know. “I’m well on tae being a stranger tae you.”
“No. You’re not a stranger anymore. And if you weren’t good on the inside, then you wouldn’t care about frightening me or worrying me. And I know you do.”
He was silent for the next several minutes.
“The sun is down,” he said after a while. “Come along. Let’s get something tae eat. And then a vehicle.”
“But by now the only car rental place will be closed, if it even opened at all what with no electricity.”
“Doona worry about that.” He paused a beat. “Is there someone in town who’s ever done you a wrong?”
“Well …” She thought about it. But she knew the answer right away. “Bill Morrow. The jerk. I was in town with Karma twice and on both occasions he threatened to run her over with his truck. H
e hates her for some reason, even though she never did anything to him. He called me a little freak, too. The jerk,” she reiterated.
“And where does he live?” Ahnvil’s tone was quiet … almost dangerous.
“Above the old five-and-dime. He owns that whole row of stores. He owns a lot of the buildings in town and he thinks that gives him the right to do whatever he wants.”
“And this truck he threatened tae run you over wi’. Do you know what it looks like?”
She scoffed. “It’s the biggest, reddest piece of over-compensation that proves he is hung like a newborn baby in the arctic cold.”
That made him laugh out loud and she grinned at him. “I used to tell him that if he didn’t clean up his act, Karma was going to bite him in the ass. Get it? Karma? Ass?”
He chuckled and nodded. “Verra well. You will go and get us some food. I will go and get us transportation.”
“In a towel. At six p.m.? And just how are you …” She narrowed her eyes on him. “Are you going to do what I think you’re going to do?”
“Oh aye. I have skills,” he confided to her, standing up and putting her on her feet.
“But that’s—” She cut herself off, thought about it for half a second and then said, “Well, you know what, I think I’m kind of okay with that!”
“Doona worry. Just be ready tae go as soon as I pull up.”
“Right. Any food requests?”
“Whatever you can find is fine.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
They parted ways, anxiety crawling around in her belly the whole time she was searching for food, which proved to be harder than she thought. The restaurants were all closed because of lack of electricity, and the small market a few buildings down was the same. She was desperate to get something, knowing what it meant for him if he didn’t eat regularly. In the end, the lack of electricity worked in her favor. As soon as the street was quiet she found a cinderblock from a nearby wall and then hauled it through one of the side windows to the market. Silence followed. No alarms, no cameras. She regretted what she had to do instantly, but it didn’t keep her from grabbing things off the shelves. She bagged everything then left. She thought about leaving money or a note, but feared the reprisals if she did. She knew Bill Mackinzie very well, and she would somehow make this up to him. She didn’t know how, but she would.
Forged: The World of Nightwalkers Page 15