Forged: The World of Nightwalkers (14 page)

He shouldn’t be dwelling on this. He shouldn’t be doing things to push her away. If he had any hope of getting out of this mess he was going to need her help and his goddamn cock was thinking for him and fucking things up.

Why? Why canna I leave off her and let her be?

His life depended on her. He was entirely in her hands. And he suspected she knew that and that it was a heavy burden for her to carry. God, he wished like hell he could leave her out of this, but he had few choices available to him. He couldn’t turn to stone. He couldn’t risk it. Being away from his touchstone for this long could mean he would turn to stone permanently if he did. But it was only in his grotesque form that he could have access to his wings, the wings he needed to travel with any speed back to New Mexico. So that meant traveling by conventional means and considering his stripped down state he was going to need funds and resources for that.

And then there was the small issue of leaving her behind or taking her with him. Well, actually, it wasn’t an issue at all. He truly had no choice in the matter. The problem was, he didn’t think she would come willingly.

Damn him. Damn him to hell for ruining another woman’s life. For risking another woman’s life. And this one was mortal, human, and far more fragile than the one who had been lost before. At least the other had known what she was getting into. Despite all his revelations to her, Kat had no idea of the danger involved in being this close to him.

Kat avoided the bedroom like the plague for the next few hours. She was tired, her usual bedtime having come and gone and the stress of the whole situation wearing her out even more. She tried her mother two more times and got the same lacking result. She wished, for the first time in all of the time she’d lived there on the mountain that she had a landline. Normally she wouldn’t have needed it, and it wouldn’t have mattered to her to be cut off from the rest of the world. After all, it was kind of the whole point of having moved there in the first place. And the cost of a landline on top of a cell bill was prohibitive. She’d had to make a choice and this was what she’d chosen.

Of course, when making the decision she hadn’t taken Gargoyles into consideration.

And other things.

She ran through a list of beasties and ghouls in her mind and then shoved it all away. She had enough to worry about with the Gargoyle in her bed. No need to go looking for any more trouble than that.

In spite of all her fretting, she did drift off to sleep for a little while, napping in the recliner in her living room. When she awoke, she found she had a blanket draped over her that she hadn’t had when she’d fallen asleep.
She looked around in confusion for a moment, but then remembered there was a Gargoyle in the house. A very considerate Gargoyle, she noted, unable to help the little smile the idea brought to her lips.

Well, she could at least return the favor and make him more food. Hadn’t he said that he had a high metabolism? Although at this rate he would eat through all of her stockpiled supplies in a week! Thankfully the storm wasn’t supposed to last that long and the roads would be cleared a few days after.

It was only shortly after she started moving around the kitchen when Ahnvil walked out of the bedroom. When she glanced over at him she ended up doing a double take. He had apparently showered, cleaning away all the remaining blood and grime from his injury and from being in the woods. He was wearing one of the white terry towels from the bathroom and somehow looked twice as sexy as when he was completely naked … which was saying a lot because a completely naked Gargoyle was nothing to shrug your shoulders at.

“Are you hungry?” she asked, turning her back to him in hopes that it would keep her from running greedy eyes all over his glorious muscles, his wet hair which made him look attractively tousled and that enticing line of hair that began slightly above his navel and darkened the farther down below his navel it went.

Yes, that towel was slung across his hips very low indeed.

Luckily for her he took a seat at the breakfast bar, sliding onto a barstool and putting an entire granite countertop between them as she moved around the kitchen. That was good, she thought. The more things that were between them, the better off she’d be.

“Are you hungry?” she asked again.

“Always,” he said, and she was glad she couldn’t see the grin that no doubt followed. His smile was an absolute
killer all on its own, but add those vibrant amber eyes to the mix and it was utterly devastating. “And yourself?”

“Actually, I think I am a little hungry,” she admitted. “I could make some more sandwiches or something hot …”

“Hot. With meat. Something that’ll stick to a man’s ribs.”

And better still
, Ahnvil thought,
to that already delectable fanny of hers
. Which was, at present, facing him as she did her damnedest to avoid looking in his direction. But he wasn’t fazed by her obvious awkwardness. It was actually satisfying for some reason to know that she was so affected by him … no matter whether it was a good effect or a bad one.

Honestly, he had no right to be looking at her as a man looks at a woman. He had made her life complicated enough as it was. She certainly didn’t need him making advances toward her and, logically, he couldn’t afford to do anything that might put her off to him. But as prevailing as his need for her to help him to get back home was, he was finding his unexpected desire for her to be equally prevailing.

All the more reason to let her be. He was a rough, powerful man with equally powerful passions and she was human.

Human and fragile
, he reminded himself.

There was a basket of fruit next to him and he picked a tangerine, pulled a napkin over, and began to gently peel it. She was a lot like the fruit he held. He had to be gentle with it or he would damage it and lessen the experience of enjoying it.

On principle, Kat made herself turn around and face him. Principle and the fact that her cutting surface was in that direction. She moved all the vegetables over to the countertop on the opposite side of the breakfast bar and busied herself chopping them. Facing him … but
not facing him. Staying intent and focused on her task. Not so focused, however, that she didn’t see him peeling his tangerine, his hands seeming so graceful despite their size as they completed the task. He slowly began to section the pieces, eating them one by one.

“So do you have a wife?” she heard herself blurt out. “I-I mean …” she flushed, knowing it must sound like she was fishing for selfish purposes. “Do Gargoyles take wives like people do?”

“We do everything like people do,” he said. Was it her, or did that sound suggestive? “But no, I doona have a wife. Nor a girlfriend. I have … partners.”

“Oh! You mean … like you’re gay?” she was incredulous. “Or, I mean, bi. Right? You’d have to be because earlier …” Kat knew she was blushing, and his growing amusement at her expense wasn’t helping.

“No’ gay. Just no’ attached. My partners are like me. Heavily sexual beings looking for a way to vent their intense sexual cravings.”

“Intense?” she heard herself asking. She shouldn’t be even exploring this information. It was a bad idea.

“Gargoyles are as much animal as they are human. When we’re forged we are actually blended with an animal.”

“So … a human and an animal,” she encouraged.

“Yes. And then a Templar priest used a vile spell to forge me, using a bear, in my case. I was always a big man, but that made me bigger, as well as faster and stronger. And, make no mistake, more vicious. More territorial and protective of what’s mine.” The way his eyes moved over her just then made her crave for a moment what it would be like to be his. To be protected by him. He would care for a woman, she decided thoughtfully. The fact that he had checked in on her, been thoughtful enough to realize she would be chilled on such a stormy day with nothing but the fire to warm her
and then covered her. Yes, he would be very caring. And then for that libido to come with it, it would be a very intense package.

“What’s a Templar?” she asked.

He picked up another tangerine and began to peel.

“Enough about me and my world for now. What of you, Kat? Is there no man to warm your bed?” Now why did the very idea of that bother him, he was forced to ask himself when a visceral clenching of his gut took place.

“No,” she said, looking down at her hands even more intently.

“Let me guess,” he said quietly. “You’re too weird for a man to be liking you.”

The way he said it he sounded angry, as if he took offense from it. She was cautious as she nodded.

“What in bloody hell is so wrong wi’ you?” he demanded, his hand slapping down on the countertop.

“I don’t expect you to understand,” she said defensively. “You just don’t know—”

“Then make me understand. What’s so bloody wrong wi’ you?”

He could tell she was very reluctant to speak about it, but he gave her a fierce look, making it very clear that he would not be swayed from this or mollified by halfanswers.

“I’m allergic to the sun,” she said in a sighing rush. “It’s called xeroderma pigmentosum, or XP. I can’t go out in even the smallest amount of sunlight. It’s why there’re shutters on all the glass and I have automatic shades that draw down at dawn every day.”

For the first time, Ahnvil looked at his surroundings, and saw that, though the windows were vast and large, there were indeed shades dropped down over every last one of them, even the largest picture windows. Even the sliding door had had shades pulled down, but instead of admitting she had a condition that would make it impossible
for sunlight to penetrate inside, she had gone out to close the shutters, pretending rather than exposing herself for the freak she imagined herself to be.

“The slightest touch of the sun can cause terrible blisters on my skin, at the very least a rash. People with XP can get skin cancer easily … many often die from it before they get to be my age. I-I’m just lucky I guess.”

“ ’Tis a medical condition. There’s nothing you can do about it so how does that make you weird?” he wanted to know, his tone hard and angry.

“Oh, come on. You know the way the world works. We can be as politically correct as we want, it doesn’t change the fact that people who are different are looked on as weird and as something to be avoided. When it comes to blisters and rashes the likes of which I suffer from, it’s worse because people are afraid you’re contagious or something. They don’t even want to”—she swallowed noisily—“touch you. So”—she lifted her chin in a gesture of bravery—“I live nocturnally, avoiding daylight at all costs. I used to work the night shift, but people still noticed that I never wanted to go out in the sun, never wanted to do things in the daytime even on my days off. They thought I was being unsocial, but I was just trying to protect myself.”

“I see,” he said. “And instead of telling them the truth you let them think you were just weird.”

“They would have thought me weird either way.”

“Your friends are in the medical field are they no’? Surely they would understand—”

“Maybe. But maybe not. It wasn’t anyone’s business anyway.”

She was hiding behind the fall of her hair.
Just like she hid from the sun
, he thought,
just like she hid from the people around her
. But he could imagine that growing up that way would make it very difficult for her to trust others. The more he thought about it, the more he
thought of how hard it must have been for her to work her way through school, avoiding all classes or training that took place during the daylight. It showed a level of strength and fortitude that was very rare in humans.

“I canna go out into the sun, either,” he pointed out.

Her chopping slowed, paused. “Well …” she said, “you didn’t say why exactly.”

“I wouldna have would I?” he said with amusement. “But there’s little left to hide so … The touch of the sun turns me tae stone involuntarily.”

Her mouth dropped open in a silent O of surprise.

“In fact,” he went on, “there’s no’ a Nightwalker in the bunch who can stand the touch of the sun wi’out it affecting them negatively. So in a way, that makes you an honorary Nightwalker, now doesn’t it?”

She would have never in her life imagined that there could be an entire
species
of people in the world who were just like her! “Like what?” she wanted to know, unable to hide her eagerness. “What happens to them?”

“The Djynn turn tae smoke. The Bodywalkers are paralyzed. Wraiths, I’m told, are turned solid and vulnerable. Easier tae kill them. And trust me, you want tae be able tae kill a Wraith. Night Angels are rendered powerless and turn from having a beautiful skin of black to the palest ghostliest white you’ve ever seen on a living being. Leaches the color straight out of them, making them look like albinos.”

“Oh. Wow.” She smiled as he picked up his third tangerine. “That’s … I just never thought I’d be hearing about so many people who are like me.”

“So, Kat lass, no’ feeling so weird anymore now are you?” he said a bit smugly. She had to laugh and her smile grew.