Killian rumbles an almost-laugh sound, most likely at my shift in emotions. I seem to do that a lot: start a thought feeling one way, then something smartass occurs to me and makes me feel entirely different. It amuses Killian – or maybe he can just read minds. I’m undecided.
But he’s frowning now. “She’s not serious?”
I nod, long slow motions, as Pax thunders back down the stairs demanding, “Show me – now.”
I want to argue. After all of my ordering them not to walk through the house wet, he’s asking me, the most wet and muddy out of the lot of us, to do it. But the look on his face, drawn with fear that’s barely masked under the anger, ends that idea. I glance around the room, because I’m not going back out into the rain, and decide to pace across to the furthest corner with my arm in front of me to save my nose and counting.
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve –” Wall.
I turn in a circle, shock punching me in the chest.
“No, it was fifteen,” I stammer.
Pax’s fist is already clenched, and he turns sharply to punch the solid beam beside him. The whole damn house shakes. He stares at his fist and breathes heavily, as if something has him frozen.
Roarke paces across to me, his brow drawn and one finger tapping the corner of his lip as he silently counts the same steps. Then turns and counts them back. He doesn’t say anything.
“You had twenty-two,” Seth says, pointing at the space between us in disbelief.
A shiver rakes over me, and I hug myself tighter. I had twenty-two. Then seventeen, then fifteen, then twelve. There’s no logic!
Killian turns side on and points sharply, almost viciously, up the stairs.
“She’s cold,” he snaps.
Agreed. Very cold.
Pax takes the stairs two at a time before I can even get to him, which leaves me at the bottom of them with Killian.
“Too far?” Killian asks, his voice low enough to be a whisper, only on him, it’s more like a grisper.
Oh, I like that one. Grunt-whisper. Grisper.
I nod, and he paces the first three steps with me. “Thank you.”
His and Pax’s walls overlap, and I take my opportunity to move from Killian’s space into Pax’s.
I hadn’t thought of it as their spaces before, but as I step from one to the other, I can feel the difference. The shift from Killian’s sense of safety to Pax’s sense of strength. Pax waits until I’ve joined him before he moves into the bedroom and looks around.
“No doors,” he comments.
“I’m sorry,” I begin, but he sets his full attention on me before I can finish and the words vanish in my throat.
He dumps his bag on the floor and crosses the room, wrapping his arms around me. “I hate it when you use that word.”
I hug him back, though all of my hugs are really half-hugs because I really only have half use of my arms.
“Sorry.” The word slips out before I can check myself.
He chuckles, soft and slowly relaxing. “Shower, then we’ll make a plan.”
And that’s when my hug ends. He leaves me, grabs his bag, and drops it onto the foot of the bed.
“Pax, it’s wet!”
He sets his gaze on me, part disbelieving and part mocking, while he tugs one strap and lets the thing fall back to the floor.
“Drama queen,” I mutter, turning to the clothes rack behind me and resisting the urge to tackle him and rub mud into all kinds of places.
Which I’m rather successful at.
He begins to pull out two piles of clothes – clean and dirty, but there’s not much left in the way of clean clothes – while I flick through the collection of Eydis’ things. Several long white robes, and a few more dress-tunic-type things, but towards the back she has plain black cotton pants and tops. The tops have long, loose sleeves, but the fabric across the chest is designed to be form-fitting. Which could make them useless to me, because the woman was paper-thin…
Thinking of it that way makes me realize these clothes don’t look her size at all. I dig deeper. Five sets in total stashed right at the back. All in grays, blacks, and blues. All completely different from her other choices.
I guess I owe it to the woman to try them on – even if I am being completely big-headed in thinking that she acquired these specifically for me.
I pluck a fresh breastband and braies from her drawer, because life is just more comfortable in a breastband, even if they do belong to a dead woman. And to be honest, I’m looking forward to wearing something feminine. The cotton is soft, the cuts are as good as a mortal noble would wear, and the colors are never-been-worn vibrant. I move a deep blue top to the front, then turn to find Pax already has his shirt off. The wet fabric is in his hand, almost forgotten as he watches me.
“What?” I ask.
I trace his gaze over my shoulder to the clothes I just found.
His nostrils flare, looking wolfish and disgusted. I sigh heavily.
“If you need to pass these around and get your scents all over them, can you do it quickly? I’m getting cold.” I rub at the goosebumps on my arm to prove my point. “How was Roarke walking around out there in his braies!”
Pax moans, covering the distance between us before the deliciously low sound has evaporated.
“Mortal,” he says.
“Part-mortal,” I correct.
Obviously, super-elite-pains-in-my-ass-Sabers don’t get cold the same way I do. I grind my teeth, trying to decide if he’s insulting me or just stating a fact.
“The only thing going through my mind right now is how much I want to put my scent on you. Damn the clothes.”
My stomach does a low, hard flip.
“Mortal,” he whispers, like
