Fated in Stone, page 9
The entire idea of that was just wild.
Her room was dim—she’d left the bathroom light on, and the TV on with the volume low as an added safety measure, giving the illusion someone was in here, but otherwise she’d turned off the rest of the room’s lights before going out—which left only the flickering of the flatscreen to see Ben by. The changing colors painted his skin, casting the still healing injury on his chest in swirling blues and yellows. Where there’d been a bleeding hole, there was now a lot of lumpy, healing scar tissue. Not fully healed, but getting there. Which was both a relief and a bit terrifying. He’d been shot in the chest a couple of hours ago. And he was nearly recovered now.
When she stopped to think about tonight, really think about it, her brain was going to rebel. And she wasn’t sure this was a situation she could discuss with her therapist. In fact, she was pretty certain this was a situation she couldn’t discuss with anyone. Mainly because no one would believe her.
She sighed and gestured to the bed. “Sit. Let me wash my hands, and I’ll put a bandage on that chest wound.”
“That’s not necessary. I’ll be fine.”
“I can see it’s almost healed, but…” She shrugged. “I’m not familiar with…what you are and how fast you heal, so, I don’t know. Old habits. I guess you don’t really need a bandage, do you?”
He shook his head, then glanced at the bed, before giving her a narrow-eyed look. “I’ll sit in the chair to leap.” With a small smile, he said, “Add to the security. Stone statue weighing the chair down’ll make it hard to move.”
She snorted a near laugh. She was too tired for a full laugh, but he was right and that was so strange it was funny. “Do you think any monsters will try to track us here?” she asked so she didn’t forget the reality of all this.
“It would be hard for them to. Driving over a highway…confuses their senses and even if the grinluk could move fast enough, it had left the area by the time we drove away. It’d have to try tracking us from where your car was. That’ll be difficult. So, we should be careful, but I think we’re safe enough here to sleep and rest.”
She nodded, her shoulders sagging with her relief. “Let me get cleaned up, then you can have the bathroom to wash.” He still had some blood matted in his chest hair, despite the rain. If she were him, she’d want that off as soon as possible.
A little unsteady as her own adrenaline waned, she grabbed a fresh t-shirt and her flannel pajama bottoms and disappeared into the bathroom. The narrow space, with a standing shower and no bathtub, felt comfortingly small and enclosed just then. Giving her some quiet isolation and privacy she hadn’t realized she needed. So much had happened, so much was still happening, she hadn’t processed any of it. Wasn’t even sure she’d be able to process it all.
And she still had a job to do.
She leaned against the black sink counter and looked up into the mirror. Winced. The bright overhead light didn’t leave much room for pretending. She was a wreck, her short hair in wild disarray, her skin pale and pasty looking, like she was in shock. There were smudges of dirt and other things on her face and hands and clothing—she tried not to think about what the other things were—and she had deep purple circles under her eyes, eyes which looked too wide, her pupils blown in the bathroom brightness.
She looked like she’d been through some shit tonight. Which wasn’t an attractive look. With a quiet groan, she pealed off her dirty shirt and tossed it under the sink. She’d consider whether to salvage it or burn it in the morning. She realized how badly she smelled when she removed the shirt, though, and frowned at the glass enclosed, circular shower stall. Yeah, she wasn’t going to sleep if she didn’t shower. But she didn’t want to leave Ben waiting outside for long. He probably felt even more worn and dirty than she did.
The shower water scalded her chilled skin and felt glorious for the five minutes she took to wash her hair and scrub her body clean. Luxuries like letting the conditioner soak into her scalp for more than thirty seconds and letting the hot water sloosh over her long enough to soften her tense muscles would have to wait.
She hadn’t brought fresh underwear into the bathroom with her, so she just pulled up the pajama bottoms and dragged the t-shirt over her head. She was going to sleep soon anyway. Exhaustion was dragging her limbs down. Niceties like bras and underwear seemed silly things to worry about given the night they’d lived through.
Still, Ben was a stranger. And walking back out into the main room to face him took a surprising effort. Not because she didn’t want to see him. Weirdly, because she wanted to get back to him a little more desperately than she should.
She shoved her dirty clothes into a pile under the floating sink counter and forced herself out the door. Ben was sitting in the plastic chair, his head lowered but his gaze raised to her as she walked out. He had dark eyes, she realized. Brown but they looked nearly black in the reflected TV light. And the expression on his face was strangely hungry. He blinked and his expression cleared. Maybe she’d imagined the look.
“All yours,” she said. “There are clean towels. Use what you need.”
He nodded, rising slowly from the chair. Not like he was sore, though, as she would have expected. More like he was moving slowly so he didn’t startle her. The shear size of him in the small room really sank in then. He really was huge. Six and a half feet tall at a guess, maybe more. And wide, his shoulders thick, the muscles on his arms corded, his chest broad. The blood matting his chest hair and the angry welt of red skin where he’d been shot brought her back to earth fast. But the size of him…
No wonder he’d stood slowly. He probably scared people regularly and was used to moving carefully if he wanted to appear less intimidating. The fact that he was taking that care with her was sweet.
She stepped out of his way as he disappeared wordlessly into the bathroom, then she frowned. He needed something clean to wear, too. But given how big he was, she didn’t have anything that would fit him. She wasn’t even sure he’d be able to squeeze those huge shoulders into one of her baggy sleep t-shirts. Cotton could only stretch so far.
She was still contemplating the conundrum of what he might wear when the bathroom door clicked open.
He’d showered, too, his hair wet and messy, his skin glistening with dampness. He’d put his cargo pants back on and they hung low on his hips, revealing that deep muscle over his hip joints that some men got. She couldn’t remember the name of that muscle in that moment, she could barely remember her own name, but it was a sign of a very fit, strong frame. Without the injury to keep her distracted, awareness of just how very male he was, how large he was, made something flutter in her stomach.
With the uneven light, she still felt like she wasn’t getting a great look at his face, but without the blood and adrenaline, she could at least take in more of him now. He had a strong jaw line, currently covered in day old beard scruff, hooded dark eyes, his light brown hair short but loose, no buzz cut for him. She thought he might be handsome but that impression could have just been a side effect of the night. After what they’d been through, she’d have been surprised if she hadn’t found him at least a little attractive.
Sucking in a quiet breath, she said, “I’m sorry I don’t have anything that will fit you. Even my t-shirts.” She gestured vaguely at his shoulders.
“I’m fine. I’ll be hanging out inside a fur coat soon.”
“Oh. Right.” She blinked hard a few times. Then glanced at the wound on his chest. “You really don’t need a bandage?”
He shook his head. “Another hour or two and I should be good.”
“Do you need… I don’t know. Painkillers or anything?”
“I drank some of your water.” He waved at an empty bottle. “I’m good now.”
They stood awkwardly staring at each other for a few moments. Without the monsters, the danger, the guns, the explosions, the torrential rain… Without the fear and adrenaline pushing her, she no longer knew exactly what to say to him.
And was saved from having to think of anything by a huge and unexpected yawn exploding from her.
She closed her eyes and shook her head, laughing at herself. “Guess I’m tired.”
“Been a busy night.”
“Understatement. Do you need anything else before you…what do you call it? Leap?”
“No. And for the record, the wolf can sleep on the floor, and he’ll be perfectly comfortable. He also won’t hurt you. You can sleep with him in the room.”
She actually knew that, which felt like a strange bit of knowledge to have about a stranger and a wolf. “When we’ve slept and you’re fully healed, will you explain…you to me, then?”
“I promised I would. I’d explain tonight but, no offense, you look like you’re going to fall down.”
She chuckled, running a hand up through her hair and mussing the damp strands. She’d regret not blowing her hair dry in the morning but didn’t have the energy tonight. “I am about to fall down,” she admitted.
“Sleep.” He nodded to the bed. “We’re safe for the night. We can talk in the morning.”
They had a lot to talk about. “You?”
“I’ll sit in the chair. The wolf will sleep on the floor. We’ll be fine.”
“If you’re sure.” Her energy was waning fast. She grabbed a bottle of water, downed its contents, then crawled under the bedspread. By the time she’d settled, the wolf was in the room. She glanced at the chair in front of the door. A statue of Ben sat there, leaning back a little, hands on his thighs, gaze focused ahead.
The wolf whined softly, then curled up at the foot of her bed, out of sight when she laid down.
Having him there, the statue in front of the door, the living wolf at the foot of her bed, was an awful lot more comforting than it should have been. She drifted off to sleep surprisingly quickly, feeling safer than she had in a long long time.
Something she’d recognize as very odd in the morning.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Elle let herself reach consciousness slowly, taking in the sounds of her surroundings first, letting her brain adapt to the strange room without washing her with panic. She’d learned a long time ago that when she wasn’t in her own home, she had to come back to her waking world slowly or she got hit by an instant panic attack—where am I? what’s going on? why am I here? Now, when she was in a hotel for a job, her brain automatically went into the slow, careful return to wakefulness.
The sounds of heavy traffic outside the motel. The very faint smell of cigarette smoke that even a full redo of the room couldn’t quite erase from the walls. The quiet electrical hum of a TV that was still on but muted. That flickering of TV light against her eyelids.
The sound of someone else in the room breathing.
The night before came rushing in, the strangeness and panic and fear and…
And the man who wasn’t a human man. The man who became a wolf. Who’d stepped into a bullet to save her. Who’d risked his own life to help her get out of a house full of nightmare monsters, and then helped her ensure those monsters didn’t escape the house.
She slowly blinked her eyes open. In her sleep, she’d rolled to her side to face the door. Facing the door was another, almost unconscious, habit when she was staying by herself in a motel or hotel room. She couldn’t get comfortable enough to sleep if her back was to the door. But this position meant the first thing she saw was the statue of Ben sitting in the chair, physically blocking anyone from entering the room.
A sense of security, of peace she didn’t normally experience when she was out on a job, washed through her. Which was so strange, so unusual to the circumstances, that it took her a few minutes to realize she wasn’t looking at a stone statue anymore. The man sitting in that hard plastic chair was flesh now, his skin a healthy pale color in the faint light leaking past the side of the blackout curtains. At least, she thought he looked healthy enough. Certainly not stone anymore.
His eyes were closed but the rise and fall of his chest proved he was breathing. A peaceful sort of rhythm, too, not anything erratic or showing signs of fever or pain. So sleeping. And because he was sleeping—sitting up in a hard plastic chair! Poor man—she took a moment to study him. His chest looked fully healed now. No rough, red, lumpy skin around the place he’d been shot. Healthy skin stretched over impressive muscles beneath a mat of chest hair that made her fingers flex against the bedsheets.
The room was still quite dark, except for the bright light leaking just around the edge of the curtain near him, but what light there was put specks of blond through his brown hair. The dim lighting cut shadows across his strong jaw and under his cheekbones. But that all gave him the look of a sleeping mythic hero rather than some sinister villain. And his presence was reassuringly comforting even when he shouldn’t have been.
She shouldn’t feel safe around Ben. He was very large, making the chair he sat in look comically inadequate and almost like a child’s seat, and his jaw was strong enough to look like he could break rocks with it. His expression in sleep was softened. But she remembered the anger when he’d talked about the monsters last night. The coldness when he’d stared at the house deciding how to destroy all those monsters. He hadn’t looked soft last night, even after they’d returned to the motel room. And yet, none of that had scared her. She’d felt awkward as hell, and uncertain. But never once had she felt afraid of him.
Hell, even when he’d clamped a hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming at the grinluk, she’d felt more comfortable with him than she should have. A strange man who’d come up behind her and clamped a hand over her mouth? That should have triggered all her most primitive fears, all the childhood nightmares. Instead, she’d leaned into him and found safety with him.
And made excuses to keep him close.
So strange.
With the daylight just outside the pale blackout curtains, she considered their mutual decision to work together. They had the same goal. Find the professor and get him away from his captors. Ben had more he wanted from the kidnappers, more information he needed. But getting that also meant rescuing Gabe Arron.
So they’d continue to work together. The relief at that thought felt out of proportion to their current relationship.
Which was…what exactly? How would she describe what they were to each other in that moment?
Associates? Compatriots? Strangers working toward a similar goal?
That last made the most sense and yet seemed the least true. Which was as bizarre as her comfort with a strange man his size sleeping in her motel room.
A handsome man, she thought. That hadn’t just been a trick of the adrenaline last night. He was objectively handsome. Quite good looking actually. Especially like this, when he was asleep, when he was relaxed and his expression softened. He was the sort of handsome that made people look twice. But not because the attractiveness was overtly obvious on the first look. That took a minute to sink in. When it did… Well, yeah, he was very attractive.
That thought was fresh in her mind when he blinked his eyes open, looking right at her, catching her in mid-stare.
Thinking about how good looking he was.
She might have blushed. Her cheeks definitely felt too warm for the temperature in the room—which was cool to the point of being cold. Fortunately, the room was dark. He couldn’t possibly see a blush in this light, with the TV still casting weird flickering shadows around the place. Still, he’d caught her staring. Which was embarrassing.
Not enough for her to look away. But embarrassing still.
“Good morning,” she murmured.
“Morning.”
“You’re all better, all healed.” A silly comment since he would still be the wolf if he wasn’t, wouldn’t he? “When did you…?” She gestured vaguely in his direction, hoping he understood. She wasn’t sure what to call what he did, the whole turning to stone thing. He’d said something about his wolf “leaping,” but was that the same for when it went…back in?
“A few hours ago. I didn’t want to wake you.”
“That chair couldn’t be comfortable.”
“It was fine.”
His voice was a little deeper and huskier this early in the morning. She felt the sound along her spine in a way that wasn’t entirely unpleasant but also probably very inappropriate.
Her gaze flicked to his chest, to his healed skin, before she met his stare again. A stare that made her fidgety. But an odd sort of fidgety. Not like she was intimidated and uncomfortable. The stare made her feel like there was too much distance between them and maybe he should be next to her in this bed.
That thought was so not like her, she nearly gasped aloud. Was it just that they’d survived something weird and scary last night? Was that why she felt all these out-of-character feelings? This draw to him? Intense circumstances making her feel more attached to him than they actually were?
Probably. At least that was the excuse she was going to use. Because she definitely needed an excuse for the direction of her thoughts.
“We should…” She swallowed and reached for the bottle of water beside the bed, a move that forced her to stop staring at him. “We should make a plan. You need clothes. And we need to find the professor.”
“I have to get my gear. I left it in the woods not too far from the house,” he said, and his mouth ticked up at one corner. “I have a change of clothes there, if you don’t mind me going shirtless a little longer.”
“Whatever works.” Was she blushing again? She felt like she might be blushing again. She hid that by taking a gulp of water.
“And I’ll need to contact my Family. They might have some information to help put us on the grinluk’s trail.”
She shivered at the reminder of the giant gray monster with eyes on its tentacles. That thing’s voice was a sound that turned her brain to a screaming ball of mush. Not something she wanted to confront again. If she could get the professor out without ever seeing a grinluk again, she’d count herself lucky. Though she didn’t think she was that lucky.
