Blood Trinity (Belador #1)(93)

“I have never harmed a woman and never forced myself on one.”

“I didn’t mean to insult you.” She lost her smile. “I was just thinking out loud. It’s not smart for single women to bring strange men home.”

His brow crinkled with thought. “I sometimes do not understand your language. You were joking, correct?”

“Yes, I was joking … as long as you really aren’t here to harm me.”

“I will not harm you.”

The sincerity in his words touched her. He’d protected her earlier, and Brutus liked him. She ran out of ways to judge his character at that. “If we’re going to talk, I’d like a cup of tea. Want some? I don’t have anything stronger, like alcohol.”

“Tea would be good, but I must find a place to wash my face first.”

“Oh, yes.” She pointed down the hall. “Last door on the right.”

He pushed up to his elbows and gritted his teeth. His nice skin tone turned ashen.

She hurried over to help him before common sense jumped up to warn her about getting too close to the guy. “Take it easy. I’m not a doctor. I don’t have a car or I’d take you to the hospital.”

“No doctors or buildings. I will heal fine.” He gained his feet, stood for a moment getting his balance, then took slow steps down the hallway. The worn jeans fit his body nicely.

It had been a long time since she’d noticed any man. Chuck the Thief hadn’t interested her in a romantic way at all, but any woman would notice this Vyan in a crowd of men.

Especially bare-chested. Much as she hated to cover up that gorgeous body, she told him to wait a minute then ran to find one of her granddad’s old T-shirts. “Here you go.”

“Thank you for your kindness.” He accepted the simple gift as if she’d handed him something of great value. Then he gifted her right back with a smile that would forever be framed in her mind.

Now, if she could just get her heart to stop beating as if she were still in her teens.

When the bathroom door clicked shut, she hurried to the kitchen to make tea. The pot of water was whistling by the time he stepped into the kitchen and dropped into one of four scarred chairs sitting around a small table. She’d planned to do more with this house when she’d moved in a few years ago, once she started growing her art sales. The house wasn’t much to look at right now, but it had potential.

True potential if the rock allowed her to continue painting her giant pots and marketing them on her own. Since finding the rock, she’d been painting the last few pieces of pottery she had ready, but she needed to make more and needed two hands to handle the giant pots. Today’s project was supposed to be figuring out how to do that while holding the rock.

Not entertaining a man with magical power.

But he’d put his life on the line for her … and was still trying to protect her.

She stepped over to the table and leaned down to pour tea in the cup next to him. He smelled of the outdoors, as though he slept under the stars at night.

He waited quietly while she placed a dish of oatmeal cookies on the table. What did you feed men who fought lightning bolts with a sword? “Want anything in your tea?”

“No. You have a fine home.”

She looked around to see if she’d missed something about her home, then sat down. Maybe he saw the same potential. “Thank you. Now, explain to me about Tristan, his evil reasons for this Ngak Stone and how you fit into all this. Maybe I need to tell the police.”

The twinkle returned to his eyes. “Your police can do nothing to help you.”

She was afraid of that, but she sipped her tea so he could continue.

“Perhaps the best way to explain is to tell you where I come from.”

“I didn’t think you were from here, but we do have a large ethnic community, so I wasn’t sure.”

“I am from Tibet.”

“I figured Middle Eastern,” she said, having no clue where Tibet was.

“I don’t know of this Middle Eastern, but did you figure that I came from eight hundred years ago?”

She put her tea down. Her head spun, so she grabbed the table.

“Are you sick?”

“Not yet, but that’s probably coming next. Eight hundred years? As in you came forward in time?”

“Sort of. I have been living in immortal existence beneath Mount Meru for all these years.”

She thought she was ready to accept anything this man said, but he’d lived under a mountain for eight hundred years? How had he ended up here? “Did Tristan come from the same place?”

Vyan’s face tightened with a scowl. “No, that dog is of this era.”

“How do you two know each other?”

“My warlord escaped Mount Meru two days ago with eight more soldiers, then we went to South America to free Tristan from a spell-bound cage.”

She swallowed, trying to keep up with the story he was sharing and ask the right questions. “Why was he in a cage?”

“Because he changes into a beast that kills humans.”

The tea churned in her stomach. “Why did you free something like him?”

“Because my warlord believes Tristan can get the Ngak Stone we need to send our tribe back eight hundred years to live in our time again.”