Warrior (Relentless #4)(44)

I took a tour of the apartment to redirect my thoughts. It was a nice place, comfortable and simply decorated. Sara’s uncle obviously lived on the main floor where the wide doorways provided easy access for his wheelchair. Dax’s background check had revealed that Nate Grey had been in the Army until he’d been injured by a roadside bomb in Bosnia. Now he wrote military novels and was the legal guardian to his niece. From everything I’d heard and observed about him, he was a good man who cared for Sara as if she was his daughter. She might have grown up without her parents, but she had never been without a parent’s love.

Studying the titles in the bookcase in his office, I noticed we shared a similar interest in books, and I grabbed one to read while I waited for Sara. But after forty minutes had passed with no sign of her, I wondered what was taking so long. The water had stopped long ago, and I could hear no sounds of someone moving around upstairs. She wasn’t happy to have me here, but she wouldn’t…?

I laid aside the book and noiselessly went up the stairs to the third floor that had been split into an attic and a spacious loft bedroom. On the far side of the room, I saw a bed, a desk, and a closed door to what was most likely a bathroom. There was a couch and several overflowing bookcases and not much else. On the walls hung several framed photos of her friends and one of a man who had to be her father, judging by the resemblance.

The Beagle lay on a rug by the bed, and it lifted its head to look at me when I walked over to listen for sounds on the other side of the bathroom door. Water sloshed quietly, telling me Sara hadn’t taken off at least, though she was obviously in no hurry to talk either. If my headstrong mate thought I would get tired of waiting and leave, she was in for a disappointment. I wasn’t going anywhere.

I walked across the room, intending to go downstairs, but I was drawn to the bookcases instead. There was so much I didn’t know about Sara, and my curiosity got the better of me. Unlike her uncle’s collection of books about war, Sara’s was made up mainly of well-worn classics such as Bront?, Hemingway, Fielding, and Wilde. On the bottom shelf of one of the bookcases, I was surprised to discover an impressive collection of vinyl records from the sixties and seventies. I pulled out a Fleetwood Mac album and stared at it as if it would reveal the secrets of the girl I still knew so little about.

I put the album back on the shelf and turned to the stairs again when a book on the couch caught my eye. An artist’s sketchbook? Unable to resist, I picked it up and opened it to a drawing of a crow perched on what resembled the desk across the room. The detail in the sketch was incredible, from the shape of the feathers down to the intelligent gleam in the bird’s eyes. In the bottom right corner of the page were the initials S.G.

Enthralled by this other side of Sara, I forgot my intent to go downstairs and sat on the couch with the sketchbook on my lap. A few seconds later, a gray tabby jumped up to lie beside me, purring loudly as it began to wash behind its ears. I smiled as I turned to the next page where a drawing of the three-legged Beagle came alive on the page. After that it was Roland and Peter, her uncle, a bog creature, an imp in a ragged loincloth, a werewolf.

My hand hovered over the page when I uncovered an eerily accurate drawing of a troll, and I wondered where on Earth she had found a picture to draw from. There weren’t many books that could boast a true depiction of the fiercely reclusive creatures.

I turned the page, and my breath caught at the next drawing. It was me, emerging from the shadows with a sword in hand, and I knew immediately it was from the night we met. She had drawn me strong and lethal, but there was also a calm reassurance in my expression, as if she’d had no doubt I would save her from Eli. As if she’d had complete faith in me before we –

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”

I looked up and sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of Sara standing across the room, wrapped in a white towel that barely came to mid-thigh. Water glistened on her bare shoulders and arms, and her hair hung in wet curls around her face. Heat shot through me, and my body immediately responded to my beautiful mate.

Her voice rose. “Get out of my room and keep your hands off my things.”

“You took so long I thought you’d tried to run off again,” I drawled in an effort to hide my aroused state before it became embarrassing for us both. Not an easy feat with her standing there in all her half-naked glory.

An angry blush spread across her skin, and she clenched the top of the towel to her chest. “Well, as you can see, I am still here. Now do you mind leaving my room so I can get dressed?”

“Of course.” I knew I was invading her space, but she looked so adorably flustered that I couldn’t help but smile.

I stood, leaving the sketchbook open on the couch. “Your drawings are quite good. Has anyone ever told you that?”

She scowled at the mention of her work. “I don’t show them to anyone. They’re private.”

So many secrets. It was time to start unravelling the mystery that was Sara Grey. I’d almost forgotten the reason I was here tonight. I’d give her the privacy she wanted…for now. But we were going to talk at some point.

“I’ll see you downstairs shortly,” I said before I descended the stairs.

At the bottom, I took a deep breath and shook my head at how easily she affected me without even trying.

Rain battered the windows as I walked into the kitchen, and I felt the building shake from the gale force wind. I listened to the storm, relieved that Sara was safe here with me and not out in that weather.