Gargoyle (Woodland Creek)(27)

“No,” I muttered loudly, grabbing some toilet paper. “Not with him in bed next to you.”

Done doing my business, I walked back out into the room. But I stopped in my tracks as I felt another prickling of unease, a wave in the air…unnatural…warm. It felt like it was coming from outside, like a breeze wafting through the windows, though they were shut. My brows furrowed as I crossed my arms, waking further, my tone confused as hell. “What is that?”

I crept to the windows, ignoring how both men were now watching me curiously in the dark. I pushed a curtain aside and peeked through the blinds, glancing everywhere my view afforded.

Jonathan leaned up on one arm and rubbed his right hand over his face. “What are you talking about?”

“The air doesn’t feel right,” I grouched, knowing it sounded stupid. Though that was what I felt. “It’s like…well, it kind of feels like that power from a month ago, but it’s different. It’s not sexual in nature or even light. It feels dark…and warm.” I shook my head, taking my hands from the blinds, glancing back at them.

Both were now sitting up in bed, their eyes alert. Isaac’s were even glowing brightly now, his power sifting through the air gently.

“It doesn’t feel right.”

Both stared at me.

“I’m not crazy,” I grumbled, shivering and rubbing my arms. “I’m telling the truth. It’s in the air.”

They instantly rolled out of bed.

Jonathan marched to the wall with the light switch, flicking it on, his tone deadly, “Humans felt it first.”

“They did. It affected them more, too,” Isaac grumbled, glancing around the floor. “Where the f*ck did I put my shirt? I wadded it around my cell phone in case it rang.”

I pointed a finger to the chair where a white t-shirt was thrown. “That might be it.” I blinked sluggishly and then grabbed at my camisole, tugging it away from my skin. “Oh, God.”

Isaac grabbed my elbow when I started listing to the side, his brows furrowed.

Jonathan marched straight to me, cupping my cheeks even as the Mayor kept a firm grip on me. “What’s wrong? I still can’t feel it.”

“I’m hot,” I muttered, shaking my head past it. “It’s like an instant fever.”

“We should be able to feel it by now if it’s affecting her this greatly,” Isaac murmured, his forehead crinkled. “Maybe she’s just…ill? Humans do get sick.”

“No, it’s not right,” I argued, knocking away Jonathan’s hot palms on my cheeks so I could fan my face with my free hand. “This is wrong.”

Jonathan rubbed a hand over his face, staring at me closely. “She believes what she’s saying. She’s scared.” He started marching to his overnight bag. “Set her on the bed. We need to call our people.”

All three of us froze…when screams sounded. One after another. The sound extremely quiet at first, as if it were far away, like a slow moving train headed in our direction. More and more of them erupted. Becoming louder. Almost as one, the ugliest noise I had ever heard in my life.

Isaac gripped me more tightly as I started to tremble where I stood, the heat becoming more intense inside me. He flat out ripped the blinds off the windows, the screams coming from outside to the left. All three of us turned to stare out the glass barrier.

What was there…made no sense.

“What the hell is that?” I panted as I began to sweat.

“Jesus Christ,” Jonathan hissed. “I can’t even feel that.”

“Me either,” Isaac murmured, both of them unmoving.

“What is that?” I damn near shouted, staring at what appeared to be some type of black fog pouring out from the sky down on the city. Wherever it landed, you couldn’t see past it. It was just black, the dawn of the morning not even seen through it.

“It’s trouble,” Jonathan murmured, racing back to his bag and grabbing his cell phone and dialing on it. “We need to get the hell out of here.”

Isaac shoved me against the wall, holding me there with one hand as I jerked in pain as the heat beginning to radiate inside me. Using one hand, he found his cell phone in his shirt, and quickly tapped the screen a few times, and placed it to his ear. He talked harshly to his family, ordering them to his house for shelter.

Jonathan hung up first. His forehead crinkled. “Thomas Rickman said everyone is seeing the cloud but that it’s not affecting everyone.” The Chief of Police in Woodland Creek. “He wouldn’t lie about it.”

Isaac abruptly ended his call, his glowing green eyes looking outside. “My family reported the same. It’s only hurting shifters.” His gaze flicked down to me inside his hold. “Very interesting, yes?”

I heaved oxygen into my lungs. “I’m not a shifter.”

Isaac’s lips twitched. “No shit.” But his regard casually altered to Jonathan. A black brow lifted. “But don’t you think you should still check on your girlfriend?” His lips lifted into the cruelest smile. “You know the one you mentioned to Kennedy yesterday. The one you claimed to have only gone on two dates with, the one you claim to not have been intimate with.”

Jonathan’s head whipped back as if he had been struck. He stared.