He laid on the floor, tracing idle circles across Freya’s naked back. He needed to stop; it had only been minutes since the most intense orgasm of his life, and yet feeling her against him, touching her soft skin, he wanted her again already.
But he couldn’t. Their coming together had left bruises all over her body, and guilt ran almost as hot in his veins as desire. He’d suffered his own fair share of injuries; her nails had left deep scratches down his back, her teeth had broken through the flesh of his shoulders, and she’d wrapped her legs so tightly around him, his hips were no doubt bruised to the bone. But his injuries would fade quickly, and he didn’t regret a single one of them.
Damn it! he cursed silently, sliding out from underneath where her head laid on his chest, surging to his feet. “Freya, I’m sorry,” he started, looking down at her and watching as the last of the bruises he’d left on her arms faded away to nothing. He’d known she would heal quickly after watching the speed with which her wounds had recovered last night, but it was still strange to see. He wasn’t accustomed to other beings with abilities that were in some ways similar to his own.
“Why are you sorry, Grant?” she asked, looking genuinely perplexed.
But before he could answer, every muscle in his body tensed. He could sense him: the dragon. He was nearby, no more than a mile away, and coming closer every second. There were others with him, but he could tell no more, not like this. He’d know more if he could shift, but he couldn’t do that in the middle of her apartment, even if he wasn’t concerned about her finding out more about him than she already knew.
“Get dressed, Freya,” he said, more harshly than he’d intended, and she stared up at him, baffled and stung by his words.
“We need to get out of here.”
“Look, if you think I’m the kind of woman you can boss around, think again, Grant.”
“Yes, I noticed that,” he remarked wryly, looking down at the scrapes, bruises and bite marks on his own body that were healing quickly, but not as quickly as hers. “The men from the other night, Freya. I can protect you, but I don’t know what they want with you, so unless you know something you aren’t telling me, then it’s best to stay clear of them until we know more.”
“Oh, okay. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” she said, apparently satisfied with his answer, throwing on her clothes and darting off to the next room. She returned with her cat in her arms seconds later, and something else in her hand.
The medallion.
She still had it…but how?
“Let’s go,” she said, grabbing her purse off the table, already starting toward the door. She held the ancient pendant in her hand, not even trying to hide it from him. She really had no clue!
They hurried out the apartment’s door and down the steps to the main lobby. She was calm; too calm. Any other woman in her position—finding out the same man who’d nearly killed her was on his way—would be surging with panic. But her heartbeat was steady, her breathing hadn’t sped up. Did she not understand the danger of the situation? That seemed unlikely, given the intelligence she’d exhibited thus far.
So, did she not experience fear the way other humans did, or had she just learned to master her fear response? It was an interesting question—and either answer was an intriguing one—but also a question he didn’t have time to analyze at the moment. He’d be sure to return to it later, though. The woman was downright fascinating.
Out the front door, he looked up and down the street, but they were still half a mile away.
“My car’s just a few yards up there,” he said, motioning to the left and urging her forward from behind.
Inside the car, she placed the cat on the back seat, but the animal remained perched at the edge of it, seeming to glare at him intently—a conundrum he’d have to investigate later. There was something odd about that cat, who he was beginning to suspect wasn’t an ordinary cat at all.
He revved the engine and maneuvered the car onto the road, but she put her hand on his thigh.
“This doesn’t feel right, Grant. I shouldn’t be running away like this,” she said as he slipped into the stream of traffic flowing by.
“Why not?” he asked, not bothering to slow down. He admired her bravery—he’d never relished running from a confrontation either—but this wasn’t the time to fight to the death; it was time to gather as much intel as possible to figure out what the hell was going on. Yes, he could easily eliminate the dragon and any hunters with him, but he needed to figure out why they were after her. Killing the dragon without finding out the reason he was hunting her would only leave her open to an onslaught of unknown hunters.
And the more he thought about it, the more certain he was that they’d had no intention of killing her. They had brandished no weapons aside from the syringe wielded by the dragon, which had only managed to knock her unconscious. The dosage would have killed any ordinary human, but he suspected they knew there was nothing ordinary about her. So, what was it she had or could tell them that was so valuable?
He debated taking her to his home; they would be safe there for a short while. But there were no answers to be found there, and since answers were what they needed most of all, that left only one destination in mind.
He swerved onto the on ramp of the highway, and settled in for a long drive. And since it would be a while before they reached their destination, it was time to see what answers he could discover on his own.
He glanced over at her, but immediately regretted it. The desire that was already coursing through his veins surged higher, and it took more self-control than he thought he possessed to stop himself from swerving off the road and pulling her onto his lap. But succumbing to it the last time, he’d nearly gotten them trapped. Whatever it took, he needed to keep his mind on the task at hand, no matter how much he’d rather be putting his hands all over her.
“Who were they?” she asked before he could force his mind back onto an interrogation of his own. “Do you know them? Do you know what it is they want?”
“No, I don’t, Freya,” he said, and before she could ask any more questions, he launched into a few of his own. “But you have to know something. There must be things you aren’t telling me.”
“It would seem there is plenty I’m not telling you, but there’s nothing I can do about that.”
“What? “
She sighed heavily. “I woke up in my apartment one morning three months ago with absolutely no memory of…anything. I had no idea who I was or what had happened. I only knew my name because it was written on a piece of paper on my dining room table and on the birth certificate in the wallet in a purse next to it.”
“Amnesia?” He hadn’t met too many genuine amnesiacs but it was a plausible explanation for why she couldn’t tell him more. However, it would also be a very good cover in order to keep her story to herself.
“I guess, but…”
“But…what?”
“There are just things that I know, and I have no idea where the information came from. Like that statue I delivered to you…I knew it was a fifteenth century relic from the Ottoman Empire without researching it at all. The information was just there. And the other night, I was terrified, and then all of a sudden one of them touched me, and it was like something else took control of my body and knew exactly what to do.”
She went on to list dozens of other examples from the past several months where she’d seemingly pulled information out of nowhere, and he had to admit that it seemed far too elaborate to be a lie. The first rule of lying was to keep it simple, and this was anything but simple.
But more than that, Freya’s distress was genuine; the way her pulse increased and her breathing sped up—it would be difficult to fake that. What could have zapped all the memories of her life while leaving behind all the remnants of information she’d gathered in it? And if her mind had no knowledge of who or what she was, how could her body have responded like it had against the hunters?
It could have been a spell, but it was unlike any that he’d ever encountered. A curse, perhaps, but that didn’t seem to fit, either. The more she told him, the further he got from any answers.
More questions swirled in his mind every minute, but questions weren’t the only thing occupying his mind. He was painfully aware of the light, heady scent of her and the heat of her skin. Her tongue darted out to lick her dry lips, and a hundred erotic images came to mind. She crossed her legs, and he couldn’t help but think of parting her thighs. He was conscious of every movement she made, and every one of them sought to distract him from the road in front of him and the task at hand.
Eventually, he swerved off the highway, taking the nearest exit, heedless of where it led. The sun was beginning to set on the horizon, and they’d covered enough distance for one day. It was time to take a break; to get out of the close confines of his car.
It wasn’t until he pulled up in front of the nearest motel that he realized his error, trading the close confines of a vehicle for the spacious confines of a motel room—with a bed…a shower…a sofa.
And yet, he found himself parking the car in the nearest available slot, and sliding out of the driver’s seat to come around and open her door. Three minutes later, they’d secured a room for the night.
“Why don’t you get settled in, Freya, and I’ll go grab some dinner?” He turned and strode away without waiting for an answer, knowing he needed to find some way to get himself under control.