Teeth of Beasts

“Barbarian,” Cole muttered.

“No, I didn’t seal the hotel room…Why not? Because that’s a bunch of superstitious bullshit, that’s why not. Paranormal is one thing. Supernatural is something too. Magic is bullshit…No, I don’t know how Lancroft teleported, but there’s gotta be an explanation. How long before Tristan is ready to go?…Tomorrow?” She sighed and flexed her right hand until her fingers were almost opening and closing at normal speed. “No. We’re way across town, so you work on that and I’ll check later…Okay. Yeah…Okay. ’Bye.” She snapped the phone shut and tossed it onto the bed.

“What did he mean by sealing the room?” Cole asked.

“You remember all that writing on Ned’s walls?”

“Yeah.”

“There you go,” Paige grunted. “It’s the same language that was on the walls of Henry’s room back at the reformatory. Rico still believes all those charms and runes and whatever else can keep evil at bay.”

“Does it work?”

“It sure didn’t work when Henry and those Mud People found Ned’s house.”

“Sure,” Cole said, “but did any of them get inside?”

“No, because we kept them out the old-fashioned way.”

“No offense, Paige, but we tend to get attacked in a lot of hotel rooms. Me especially. If there’s a chance to cut down on that, I’m willing to draw some symbols on the walls.”

“It’s more than that,” she explained. “It’s a whole ritual involving paints, a new language, and precise patterns to focus some very unpredictable energies.”

“But it works?”

After mulling that over while licking some taco sauce from her fingers, she admitted, “Every now and then. Most of the people who attempt it anymore aren’t doing much more than writing ‘Keep out’ in seven languages on their windowsills. All that does is ruin the paint.”

“What did Rico say about your arm?”

“Never mind that. I just need to wrap it up and learn to fight better one-handed.”

“Great,” Cole said while getting to his feet and brushing the chunks of taco shell off the front of his shirt. “Let’s see what you’ve got for a new fighting style.”

“We don’t have time for that.”

“All we’ve been doing for the last few days is drive around. How much more time do you need?”

“I fought pretty well at that club,” she said. “If that’s not enough, then screw it.”

Recoiling as if he’d just been popped between the eyes, Cole asked, “What happened to the Paige Strobel that used to put me through my paces four times a day?” Getting nothing more from her than a shrug, he crossed his arms and said, “You want to be punished for screwing up? You got it. You’ve sentenced yourself to a whole lot of extra training to get back to where you were. Maybe you’ll never get all the way back. Maybe you’ll get to a whole other place.”

“Like you have any fucking idea what you’re talking about.”

Stepping close enough to grab the arm of her chair and turn it so she was facing him, Cole looked her in the eyes and snarled, “I had a job. A good job. A job I loved. Now it’s gone. I had a girlfriend. I had a great apartment. I had a goddamn monster-free life and it was fan-fucking-tastic! Well I don’t have any of that stuff anymore. Some of it’s changed, some is gone for good, and some is better than what I had before.”

“It’s not the same,” she said as she quietly looked away. “I’m not the same. The only reason I got out of that club alive is because I had backup. I’m lucky I can steer a car. What if the next mistake I make kills me? What if it kills you?”

Cole gently placed the edge of his hand beneath her chin and said, “Then don’t do that.”

“I don’t want to become like Ned.”

“Then don’t.”

“It’s not always that easy,” she said.

“True. But sometimes it is. You want something to happen? Make it happen. If you can’t do it right away, find a way. Even if it doesn’t happen, at least you didn’t just sit around whining about it.”

Paige reached up to place both hands on his face. “Pretty third-rate stuff as far as advice goes, but it’s nice to hear. Especially from you.” Then she pulled him down some more and kissed him on the lips. “Now that you mention it,” she said while pushing him back so she could get out of the chair, “there is something I’ve been meaning to make happen for a while now.”

Sliding one hand around Cole’s neck, she pressed against him and ran the tip of her tongue up along the base of his neck. He didn’t waste a second before wrapping his arms around Paige and lifting her off the ground. Their next kiss was deeper and much longer than the first. All of the aches, pains, and worries that had filled him a few moments ago were forgotten as he allowed himself to do something that he’d imagined more times than he could count. Paige’s body felt warmer than he’d anticipated and she hung on tighter than he could have hoped.

Dragging him down to the bed on top of her, she traced the lines of muscle on his shoulders and back that she’d help sculpt through the last several months of sparring. Cole placed one hand at the small of her back and moved the other up into her thick black hair. Paige arched her back, which prompted him to move his mouth down to taste the freckles spattered just above the curve of her breasts. When he tugged at her shirt, she squirmed out from under him and off the bed.

“What’s wrong?” Cole asked.

“This heat is making me sweaty,” she said while pulling her shirt up and over her head to toss it onto the floor. He’d seen her in a sports bra more than once, but this time his eyes burned trails across her skin.

Turning to face him, Paige unbuttoned her jeans and eased them over rounded hips. Her little black panties rolled down as the denim moved past them, but stopped just short of revealing the Promised Land. Smiling while reading everything going through his mind, she flipped her jeans away with one foot and peeled off her bra. As she began unbuckling his belt, Cole pulled his shirt off and tried to think if he was wearing any boxers that had a pattern or picture dopey enough to blow the mood. Paige bypassed that potential obstacle by pulling his jeans and boxers down at the same time. She then turned her back to him and asked, “Who gets the shower first? You or me?”

Cole kicked the jeans away as if they’d tried to bite his ankles and grabbed her by the hips. “If you think I’m letting you get away this time, you’ve got a whole other fight on the way.”

She placed her hands on his as they eased her panties all the way down. Taking another half step forward, Cole pressed against the curve of her back. He was already hard enough to cut glass, and Paige slowly wriggled against him to see if she could possibly break that record. Before too long she did.

Stepping into a tub that was just large enough to comfortably fit one and a half people, they got a shower going and spent a few minutes beneath a spray of cool water. She twisted the knob to the warmer side as Cole rubbed a little square of complimentary soap against Paige’s wet, naked body. When it was her turn, she rubbed the soap over his chest and across his shoulders. Paige rinsed off, handed the foaming bar back to him, and then turned to reach for a miniature plastic bottle of generic shampoo. “I know you’re an ass man,” she said, “but try to get the rest of me just as clean.”

“I can try,” he said as he started rubbing her hips. “But it might take a while.”

Now that the initial tension had passed, Cole put his hands on Paige’s shoulders and started to massage. She let her head roll forward while scrubbing the shampoo through her hair. After rinsing off, she placed her hands on either side of the showerhead and let the water flow down over her entire upper half. “That feels nice,” she said.

“No,” Cole replied as he pressed against the smooth curve of her backside and reached both hands around to cup her breasts. “That feels nice.”

Shifting her hips to coax a bit more from his erection, she said, “It most certainly does.”

Every inch of her was wet, soft, and warm. As his hands moved up and down her sides, Cole listened to Paige’s breaths mingle with the spatter of water against the tub and walls. When he hit a certain little spot near the upper portion of her inner thigh, she let out a giggle that echoed through the bathroom. Her hair hung in two thick sections divided unevenly between her shoulders to expose a soft, rounded divot that Cole had never seen before. As he placed his lips on that impossibly silky skin, he moved his hands to the warmer, even silkier region between her legs.

Suddenly, Paige turned around and planted a kiss on him that drove Cole back against the shower stall. Her feet