Hunted

“She’s not normal, that’s for sure. Her powers are bizarre. I swear she can spy on people better than Kalona can.” He looked away from me, and when he met my eyes again, his were shadowed by a soul-deep sadness. “I wish you had been there instead of Neferet.”

“Been there?” I asked, even though the tightening in my gut told me I knew exactly what he meant.

“You’d been watching my body, hadn’t you? With that camera thing.”

“Yeah,” I said softly. “Jack installed it. I didn’t want to leave you alone and that was the best way I could think of to keep an eye on you. Then my grandma was in an accident and things got crazy…I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too. It would have turned out differently if it had been you instead of her I opened my eyes to see.”

I wanted to ask him questions about what exactly happened with the whole dying and un-dying thing, as well as question him further about Neferet, but his face was closed off and his eyes were filled with pain.

“Look,” he said, abruptly changing the subject, “you want to get some sleep. I’m tired, too. What if we sleep together? Just sleep together. I promise I won’t try anything.”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“You’d rather have Kalona show up in your dreams again?”

“No, but I, well, I, uh, don’t think you sleeping with me is a good idea.”

His expression got hard and cold again, but I could see the pain that was still in his eyes. “Because you don’t think I’ll keep my promise.”

“No, because I don’t want anyone to know you’ve been here,” I said honestly.

“I’ll leave before anyone knows,” he said quietly.

And suddenly I knew my response to him could be what tipped him over in the struggle for his humanity. The last two lines of Kramisha’s poem echoed through my mind: “Humanity saves her / Will she save me?” I knew what I had to do.

“Okay, fine. But you really have to get out of here early before anyone sees you.”

His eyes widened in surprise, and then his lips tilted up in his cocky Bad Boy smile. “You mean it?”

“Sadly, yes. Now come over here because I’m about to fall asleep in the middle of talking to you.”

“Cool! I don’t have to be told twice. I’m a monster, not a moron.” He moved quickly back to the bed.

I scooted over, dislodging Nala, which pissed her off. Grumbling, she padded to the end of the bed, made three quick circles, and I swear she was asleep again before her head was pillowed on her paws. I looked from her to Stark and hastily threw my arm across his side of the bed before he could tuck himself in.

“What?” he said.

“First you have to get rid of that bow and arrow business that’s practically growing on your back.”

“Oh, okay.” He pulled over his head the leather contraption that held the bow and quiver of arrows to his back and dropped them on the floor beside the bed. When I still didn’t move my arm, he said, “What now?”

“You are so not getting in my bed with your shoes on.”

“Crap. Sorry,” he muttered, kicking off his shoes. Then he looked down at me. “Want me to take anything else off?”

I frowned up at him. Like he wasn’t hot enough already in his black T-shirt, his jeans, and his cocky smile? But no way was I going to tell him that. “No. You may not take anything else off. Jeesh, just get in here. I’m seriously tired.”

As he slid into bed beside me, I realized just how small my bed was when I was sharing it with a guy. I had to remind myself that I really was tired and that the whole point of Stark sleeping with me was for me to get some rest.

“Turn off the light, would ya?” I asked him, sounding way more nonchalant than I felt.

He reached over and snapped the light off.

“So, you think you’ll be going to class tomorrow?” he asked.

“Yeah, I suppose.” Then, because I really didn’t want to talk about why I might be going to class so soon after I’d been hurt so badly, I added, “And I have to remember to look through the Hummer Darius drove us in here with. I think I left my purse in it. Or at least I hope I did, ’cause having a lost purse really sucks.”

“Now that scares me,” Stark said.

“What scares you?”

“Chicks’ purses. Or at least all the weird stuff you people keep inside of them.”

“Us people? Jeesh. We’re girls, and purses just have girl stuff in them.” His normal-sounding guyness was making me smile.

“There’s no just about purse stuff,” he said. And I swear I felt him shudder.

I laughed out loud this time. “My grandma would say that you’re a conundrum.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“A conundrum is something that’s puzzling, even kinda paradoxical. For instance, here you are this macho, dangerous, warrior guy who can’t miss anything he shoots at, but you’re totally squeed out by girls’ purses? It’s like they’re your spiders.”

He chuckled. “My spiders? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, I don’t like spiders. At all.” I shuddered like he’d just done.

“Oh, I get it. Yeah, purses are my spiders. Really big spiders you can open up and they’re filled with a whole nest of baby spiders.”

“Okay! Okay! You’re totally grossing me out. Let’s change the subject.”

“Sounds good to me. So…I think you have to be touching whoever you’re sleeping with for this to really work.” His voice sounded weirdly intimate coming from the darkness beside me.

“Yeah, sure.” My stomach felt all fluttery, and not just because we’d been talking about spiders.

His sigh was heavy and long-suffering. “I’m telling you the truth. Why do you think it doesn’t keep him away if you’re just sleeping with a roommate? You have to be touching. A guy and a girl. I guess a guy and a guy would work, too, if it was like Damien and his boyfriend. Or even a girl and a girl if they were into each other.” He paused. “I think I’m babbling.”

“I think you are, too.” Actually, babbling was usually what I did when I was nervous, and it was refreshing to meet someone else who was a nervous babbler.

“You really don’t have to be scared of me. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Because you know I can kick your butt with the elements?”

“Because I care about you,” he said. “You were starting to care about me, weren’t you? I mean before all of this happened to me.”

“Yes.” On one hand, right about then was an excellent opportunity for me to mention the little fact that Erik and I were supposed to be back together. And maybe even say something about Heath. (Or maybe not.) On the other hand, I was trying to somehow fix the kid’s humanity, or lack thereof, and it probably wouldn’t help for me to be all: Hey, I’ll sleep with you and act like I care about you, but I kinda have a boyfriend. Or two. And besides all that, I needed to start being honest with myself. Erik had seemed so perfect for me; he’s who everyone thought I should be with. Then why have I always liked other guys, too, and that’s even before he started acting all insanely possessive? It wasn’t just Heath I’d been drawn to, but Loren and then Stark. The only thing I could think was that something must be missing with Erik, or else I was just turning into a nasty skank. I mean, really. I didn’t feel like a nasty skank. I felt like a girl who liked more than one guy.

He shifted on the bed beside me and I tried not to jump when I felt his arm lift up. “Come on over here. You can put your head on my chest and go to sleep. I’ll keep you safe. I promise.”

I pushed the Erik problem from my mind, and figuring I might as well—I mean, I was already in bed with the kid—I slid over. He put his arm around me and I tried to relax against his side with my head kinda awkwardly resting on his chest. I kept wondering if he was comfortable. Was I too heavy? Was I too close to him? Not close enough?

Then his hand lifted and found my head. At first I thought he was going to move my head (because it was too heavy), or maybe even strangle me or whatnot. So it surprised me when he started to stroke my hair like I was a skittish horse.

“You have really pretty hair. Did I tell you that before I died, or did I just think it?”

“You must have just thought it,” I said.