Forged: The World of Nightwalkers (18 page)

Because at the rate her child’s powers were developing, she would soon be leaving their house and going to her foster parent’s homes instead. In the Demon culture it was believed that foster parents were better equipped to mold and train fledgling children, since their parents might be inclined to be too gentle and too forgiving. This allowed the parents the opportunity to maintain a purely loving relationship with their child and to leave disciplining and training to a trusted family friend. In Leah’s case the foster parents were Elijah, Noah’s former Warrior captain and Legna, the Demon King’s sister.

The fostering usually took place as soon as a child began to show signs of its powers, usually around the late teens. But Leah was her father’s daughter and had been showing signs of power since as young as two years old. It was of course far too young to take the child from her parents so Bella had been working diligently to put off the fostering as long as possible. Both of her foster parents resided in Russia and Bella couldn’t bear the idea of her moving so far away. She had already warned her husband that the odds of them moving to Russia after the fostering began were very high indeed.

But she was almost ten now and it was only a matter of time before Jacob made the decision to let their daughter go. She was the first child of the previously undiscovered
element of Time. Until Leah there had only been six elemental Demons: Fire, Water, Earth—like her father—Wind, Body, and Mind. Now she had introduced control over Time and another child, Seth, was prophesied to have control over Space. As such Leah needed to be nurtured and controlled very carefully. There was no telling the amount of havoc that could occur if she wasn’t raised with proper control. There was also no way of truly knowing what she was capable of. They would all be learning alongside of her.

“Stop fretting,” her husband murmured gently against her throat. “I won’t let her go until she’s ready.”

“I know. It has to be when it’s best for her,” she said softly. “Because if it were up to me she would never go anywhere. I want to go for a walk,” she told her husband. The desire was compelled by her morbid thoughts as much as it was compelled by her suspicions that she was having premonitions.

“Are you kidding?” he asked incredulously. “It’s freezing out there and the snow has got to be at least two feet deep!”

“It’s nice! It’s fresh and clean and crisp outside. I love it after a snowfall like this.”

He looked entirely skeptical, but he said, “All right, if that’s what you want.”

And that was why she loved him so much. Because for him, it was always about what she wanted. And she knew exactly how lucky she was.

With the exception of eating a few more meals, Kat almost didn’t interact with her guest at all after their first meal together. Apparently his injuries caught up with him and all he wanted to do was sleep. Which she was completely fine with her because she didn’t think she could handle much more time in his presence what with him being all gorgeous and overwhelmingly sexy.
It just wasn’t fair that he had it all coming and going like that. How was even the sanest woman alive supposed to resist that?

She wondered if he had always looked like that; if he had looked that way before he had been forged. Or had he needed to get used to seeing a stranger’s face and body in the mirror along with getting used to being a slave?

“The snow has stopped.”

Kat had been at the sink washing dishes when he suddenly spoke in her ear from behind her. She dropped her pot with a clatter and swung around to face him, unwittingly dripping water and suds on his feet. He was so close she could feel the inferno-like heat of his body flowing into her.

“I know. I peeked out earlier.” She lifted her hands, wanting to push him back a step and yet somehow afraid to touch him. As though if she started touching all that gorgeous male virility maybe she wouldn’t want to stop. And that just wouldn’t do. Not after spending the past few hours lecturing herself on all the reasons why it would be a bad, bad, very bad idea to get entangled with him any more than she already had. One: he was a Gargoyle. Two: he was obviously dangerous. Three: they didn’t make safety gear for battling back lusty Scottish men. Not since the chastity belt went out of style.

He seemed to notice her dilemma, because one of those heart-stopping smiles spread cockily over his lips. “Is there a problem, Kat lass?” he asked, the throaty rumble of his voice washing down over her as she cocked her head back and looked up at him.

“No. Nothing,” she said a bit hoarsely. And there was a gleam in his eye that told her he didn’t believe her for a single solitary second.

“Verra well then. Best be getting dressed. We’ll be leaving soon.”

“Leaving! We can’t leave! And if you hadn’t noticed
you don’t have much in the way of clothes! I had to cut through your jeans in order to get them off you.”

“I was thinking maybe you know of a store in town that might have my size.”

“That’s open at eleven o’clock at night?” she countered. “Right after a
blizzard?
And town isn’t just a hop, skip, and a jump away. It’s miles between here and there and even with my truck we couldn’t make it through this snow.”

“I dinna say you were going tae
buy
the clothes for me.”

“You mean break in?” She gasped, utterly horrified. “That’s breaking the law!”

“Kat lass …”

“Don’t you ‘Kat lass’ me! We’re not breaking in … and the closest store that’s open twenty-four hours a day is forty minutes away! Walmart. But—”

“Then we’ll go there.”

“How?” she demanded to know. “We can’t drive! The roads are going to be impassable for days!”

“I noticed you had a coupla fine pairs of snowshoes in the front closet.”

“The front … when did you get the chance to look in the front closet?” she wanted to know.

“When you fell asleep earlier. Did you know,” he said, bracing a hand against the counter and leaning in even closer, “that you have the cutest li’le snore when you’re sleeping?”

“I do n—” Well, maybe she did. It had been a while since she’d actually fallen asleep with someone around. And even then they were at least polite enough not to mention it! “Yeah, well you snore like a freight train.”

“Aye. I likely do. I’m no’ used to sleeping in order to catch my rest. I’m used to being in the sun, baking the stone of my body while my touchstone regenerates me.”

He made it sound so beautiful, and she could hear the longing in his voice.

“But then that means you never get to sleep with …” She flushed. She had no right to posit about something so personal.

“No, lass. I only need tae regenerate a few hours every day. Four is well enough. So I can stay and sleep with you most of the day and go out into the daylight about four hours before dusk.”

“With me? I’m not sleeping with you,” she said, trying for indignant and achieving breathless.

“Well, for example then,” he said, his grin turning utterly devious.

“Oh. All right. But that doesn’t solve our problem. You have no clothes and you can’t walk forty miles naked in the freezing cold snow! And that’s if the Walmart is even open. The storm was very widespread and we still don’t have electricity. And I have a dog here. There’s no one to take care of Karma.”

At the sound of her name, Karma perked up from where she’d been having a nice long nap in front of the fire. However, she immediately put her head back down, clearly not interested in moving.

“She’s a breed meant for snow,” he pointed out, looking at Karma who immediately began to wag her tail in loud thumping sweeps against the floor. As if she understood everything they were saying. “We can bring her wherever we need tae go. But what we need tae do is get to a viable airport as soon as possible so we can fly out of here. We can take her with us if you want—”

“I am not flying Karma commercially! Do you know what they do to live animals on flights? They stick them in cargo holds that aren’t even climate-controlled!”

“Lass—”

“No! Don’t you ‘lass’ me! I won’t do it. And I’m not
coming with you on this snow-covered Bataan death march!”

“She will no’ be flying cargo, Kat lass. She’ll be on a private jet in the cabin wi’ us.”

“You …” She blinked. “You have a private jet?”

“No. But my employer does. No’ that I canna afford my own, but why waste money on two?”

“Y-you can afford your own
plane
?”

“Aye. One or two.”

“One or …” She closed her eyes and swallowed. Focus. Stay focused. “Again, that doesn’t change the fact that you have no clothes now.”

“I have a shirt. I found this big T-shirt in your things.” He indicated a shirt he’d been holding in his hand. He put it on to demonstrate, shrugging into it and pulling it down.

“That’s a nightshirt. And what were you doing in my things?” she demanded.

“Looking for a shirt,” he said with a grin. “Doona worry, I only touched your underwear a li’le.”

“You—” She was gearing up to yell at him, but then realized he was teasing her. Despite herself, she found herself fighting back a smile. “You have nothing to wear on the bottom.”

“This’ll do for now.” He indicated the towel and the way the shirt came down low on his body.

She eyed him dubiously. “Maybe I have some sweatpants …” She trailed off … because they both knew that even her baggiest sweatpants wouldn’t come close to fitting him. She was too small and he was too big. As it was her nightshirt was busting at the seams.

“Doona worry. I’m no’ human, Kat. I willna feel the cold like a regular man would. And if it gets tae be too much I’ll change into my stone skin.”

The truth was he could be just as sensitive to the cold as any other man might be after a certain level of exposure. And changing into his stone skin was out of the
question. He wouldn’t risk not being able to change back.

“I gather there’s one or two houses between here and there,” he went on. “Is there no one you know close to my build?”

“No.” No one. Everyone she knew was six feet tops. And she didn’t know that many men to begin with. She didn’t socialize all that much with the townsfolk. She did her shopping forty miles away in the twenty-four-hour Walmart that didn’t care about the fact that she could only shop in the dark.

“Then it is what it is. The sooner we start the better off we’ll be. So let’s go.”

“I don’t want to go,” she whined as he took her hand and tugged her along in his wake. “It’s so cold out there and so warm in here. I tell you what, I’ll snuggle with you if we stay by the fire.”

That brought him up short, causing her to slam into his broad back. That was how she came to realize just how good he smelled. He seemed to think about her proposal very seriously, but with a sigh he went on into the bedroom.

“I’ll take a rain check,” he promised her.

And if she hadn’t thought she was in hot water before, she now had no doubts about it.

“Snowshoes,” she grumbled, stepping wide with every step. Karma was of course loving every minute of the trek, bounding with endless energy ahead of them, her tongue lolling happily. She would tire out eventually, her big body weighing her down, but for now she was happy. They were just passing Huntsmen’s Lodge, a very small ski resort farther down the mountain from her. The runs were dark, night skiing out of the question when there were no lights to be had. She could imagine any visitors would be chomping at the bit for daybreak.

It was right about then that she ran full force into something. The impact knocked her over and she went down in the snow, her head spinning. Ahnvil was by her side in a second, helping her out of the snow.

Bella ran full force into something, going down on her ass in the snow. She went so deep that she was covered like a sugar cookie from tip to toe. She spit snow out as Jacob helped her back up to her feet.

“What was that?” he asked with a chuckle.

“Damned if I know,” she said. “I ran into something.”

Jacob was looking around and seeing absolutely nothing around her save unblemished snow. He grinned and readied to tease her.

“I did not trip!” Kat said indignantly. “I ran into something.” She looked around after Ahnvil had helped her to her feet. The snow was swished all around from her flailing, but as she looked she realized there was a set of footprints leading right up to where she was and then as much disturbed snow as there was on her side.

“That’s … strange …?” she said questioningly, as if looking for verification. “It looks like I ran into someone, but there’s no one there.”

“Kat lass, there’s nothing but unblemished snow all around us. No one has been through here but us.”

“No! Look! See the footprints?”

“I doona see any footprints,” he argued with her.

“They’re right there!” She pointed at them.

“Kat …”

“Wait.” She cooled her temper and tried to think. For some reason, a reason she would never know, she took off her glove, leaned forward and slowly pressed her hand into a spot of new snow. It left behind a perfect handprint.

To her shock after a moment a second handprint appeared
right next to it, pressed there by a seemingly invisible hand.

“Holy shit! Tell me you don’t see that!” She pointed. “That handprint.”

“Of course, I do. You just made it.”

“No, I mean the one right next to it!”

“Kat, there’s only one—” He cut himself off, looking at her like she’d lost her mind as she ignored him and slowly drew a heart in the snow. A second heart appeared right next to it and then a name.

Bella
.

“Whoa. It’s a ghost,” she breathed. Any other day, any day before having met a Gargoyle, she would never have believed any such thing. But this wasn’t any other day.

“I still doona see anything.”

“Well, I can!” Bella said belligerently to her husband. Then she gasped as a name began to appear in the snow.

Kat
.

“Look, her name is Kat!”

“Bella—”

“Oh, hush up!” she said irritably. “Let me think! This means something. It has to mean something. It means something, too, that I can see it but you can’t! Okay, so her name, and I’m assuming it’s a her, is Kat.” She then proceeded to have what looked like, from his perspective, a completely one-sided conversation with herself in the snow. She asked questions like
Who are you? Are you dead? Why can’t I see you?