Rising Darkness (Game of Shadows #1)(56)

Stripping naked, she scrubbed her panties, bra, socks and T-shirt in the sink. Then she tackled washing her dirty jeans, wrung all of the wet clothes out as best she could, and hung everything along the top of the warming water heater so it would dry faster.

Cleaning her teeth with her new toothbrush was nothing short of heavenly. By then the water had heated enough to make bathing comfortable, so she ran a bath and stepped in as soon as she could. The various scrapes she had acquired throughout the previous day and night stung as they came in contact with the water, and her bruises throbbed. Still, soaking in hot water eased some of the aches. When the water began to cool she soaped her hair and body.

The soap and shampoo in the bathroom were as utilitarian as the rest of the place. She knew she would pay for that later as her unruly hair dried, but she was so grateful to be clean that she didn’t care. She would have to wrestle the tangles into submission while her hair was wet and then braid it back. With any luck—she paused in the middle of rinsing and her breathing halted—with any luck she would live to wash her hair again with a decent conditioner soon.

The small bathroom had warmed to a toasty temperature by the time she dried, slipped on the new T-shirt and panties and wrapped her hair in the towel. As she walked into the main room she discovered that Michael had built a fire that crackled as it banished the damp chill from the cabin.

He had made even more coffee with an old-fashioned percolator on the stove, and he sat at the table with a cup near his elbow. She had thought that the challenging years of her residency had turned her into a heavy coffee drinker, but he had her beat by a mile.

Any pretense he had to domesticity ended at that point. Her steps slowed as she took in the various weapons he had laid out on the table. The long black bag that had seemed so heavy was open at his feet. A large Kevlar vest draped the back of one chair. He was cleaning his handgun.

As she approached gingerly she caught a glimpse of something in the bag that looked remarkably like a sword.

Easing into a chair, she watched his deft, large long-fingered hands manipulate the gun, her body tense.

“What are you so upset about?” Michael said, his tone brusque. “The weapons? You’ve got to know by now it’s what I do.”

“What crawled up your ass and died?” she said. She threw him a nasty glance, pushed to her feet and went to the kitchenette area to rummage for a glass. “I’ve had so much shit hit my fan in the last three days, you take your pick. Four people were gunned down in front of me, for no reason I can tell except that I bumped into them and my attackers liked to kill things.” She couldn’t find a glass, so she took a coffee mug, filled it with cold water and drained the contents. As she filled it again, a betraying quiver ran through her voice. “A lot of people have died on me in the hospital, but I’ve never seen anything like that—not in real life, not right in front of me—so you go ahead and do what you need to do, and you have my blessing. But yes, it upsets me.” Needing to leave the room, she turned toward the bathroom. “Do you want a bath? I’ll run you a bath.”

His hand circled her wrist as she tried to walk past. She tugged, trying to free herself, but he yanked her toward him, into his arms. Giving in to the simple, animal comfort he offered, her arms slipped around his neck, and she cried for the murdered family, for Justin and for the cruel, unapproachable look that had been on Michael’s face and the life he must have lived that made him look like that.

“I’m sorry,” he said. One large hand rubbed up and down her back.

“Me too. For the meltdown, I mean,” she said, leaning against his long, muscular body. He had so much strength it was easy to believe that he had survived so many centuries. She laid her cheek on top of his head and fingered his short military-cut dark hair. “I’m okay. I just haven’t had time to cry for them before now and I needed to.”

“I’m sure you did,” he said. He pulled her onto his lap, holding her tight. “It’s going to get uglier.”

“I know. It’s not fair,” she said. She put her head on his shoulder. “I feel like a whole person for the first time in my—in this life. I want to, I don’t know, celebrate. Play. Put on a pretty dress, go out on the town, go dancing, maybe see Paris. Then I look at the terrible things he has done to other people, and I feel like such a whiner.”

“Well, you are a whiner,” he said. He gave her a light pinch, and in spite of herself, she chuckled. He said in a more serious voice, “You should be able to put on a pretty dress, go dancing and see Paris. But that’s not what we have in front of us right now. I’d say you’re entitled to some whining.” He tilted his head and looked down the length of her body. “Your knees are all bruised and scraped.”

She looked at her knees too. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters. Poor knees.” To her utter shock, he bent and twisted, and pressed warm lips first to one knee then the other.

He lifted his head. They looked at each other. His eyes had dilated until they appeared black. Sexuality shimmered between them, a silvery, shining heat. Then he carefully, firmly put her on her feet again.

“Sit over there,” he said. “And tell me what you need to tell me.”

Even though the room was comfortable and warm, she shivered away from his body heat. Rubbing her arms, she huddled into herself and tried to adjust. “It isn’t pretty.”