The tea had given her a small boost of energy, but heavy exhaustion dragged at her, and she knew she had a limited amount of time before she had to go horizontal.
Nikolas had straightened to his full height when she had, and he was watching her sharply. He took a step closer until she could sense his body heat along one side of her body. "You said you weren"t bitten, but you were hurt, weren"t you?"
"Soft tissue stuff," she said in brief reply. "I strained old injuries. I"ll be okay, but I need your help. Would you carry my luggage down to the car? I can"t stay here."
"Of course you can"t. Let"s go get your things."
The police had the front of the building cordoned off, so they walked together around to the back entrance. Maggie broke away from her husband and a cl.u.s.ter of neighbors to hurry over to them. "I can"t thank you enough for what you did," she said to them. She looked at Sophie. "You risked your life to save mine."
Guilt gnawed at Sophie, much like the corrosive spell. If she and Robin hadn"t been at the pub to begin with, the attack would never have happened. She met Nikolas"s eyes and saw a dark understanding. Then she turned to Maggie. "I"m glad there was something I could do. I can"t stay here tonight, so I"ll get my things."
"Of course you can"t, love, but where will you go at this time of night?"
"I"ll go ahead and go to the cottage."
Maggie"s expression creased. "It"ll be cold, and the bed will be unmade, and you won"t have any supplies with you. And I don"t like how isolated that old moldy place is."
"It"s all right," Sophie told her. "It doesn"t matter. I like isolation. It"ll be a roof over my head, and I can get groceries in the morning."
"I"ll stay with her," Nikolas told the other woman. "She won"t be alone."
He would? Sophie raised her eyebrows as she looked at him pointedly. Thanks for asking, a.s.shole.
He looked magnificently impervious to her speaking glance. Actually, truly magnificent. His innately elegant, erect carriage and the imperious tilt of his head drew glances from everyone around them. The fact that Sophie was affected by it irritated her to no end. With an effort, she had to restrain herself from making a face at him.
"Well... all right," Maggie said reluctantly. "But at least let me gather some things together for you, love." As Sophie started to protest, the other woman insisted. "Just a small box to get you started."
Let her help you. Nikolas"s deep telepathic voice sounded unexpectedly in her head. It"s a small thing, and it will make her feel better about your leaving.
Sophie glowered at him, and when that look rolled off his broad shoulders too, she said to Maggie, "That would be wonderful. Thank you."
"I won"t be just a minute." Maggie hurried into her shattered kitchen, muttering under her breath at the mess.
Silent as a wraith and just as deadly, Nikolas followed Sophie up the stairs.
There was no need for her to unlock the door to her room. Like the front entrance to the pub, there was no door. She paused in the doorway to take in the mess inside.
The furniture had been knocked askew, and the bed had been shredded.
She took in a deep breath and glanced over her shoulder. Nikolas"s expression was grim. He nodded in the direction of the rest of the hall. As she looked down the hall, she realized all the other doors were still intact and closed.
Her stomach clenched. Either the Hounds had been hunting for the puck, or her, or both.
Nikolas said, "Let"s hope this cell of Hounds didn"t have a chance to relay information up the chain of command."
He didn"t sound very hopeful, and she didn"t blame him. It sounded too much like unrealistic optimism to her as well.
She limped into the destroyed room. Since she"d been planning to stay only for one night, she hadn"t unpacked very much, and the pieces of her st.u.r.dy Samsonite luggage had been knocked around, but at least they were intact. Picking through the mess, she collected the rest of her things-a cell phone charger, clean set of clothes for the morning, and her travel toiletry bag.
Straightening with an effort, she pressed a hand against her aching side and said breathlessly, "Okay, I"m ready."
Nikolas had collected her suitcases. He waited by the door, watching her with an inscrutable expression. As she reached him, he picked up the luggage and led the way down the stairs.
Maggie greeted them down below. She held a cardboard box. Sophie caught a glimpse of tea bags, a bottle of milk, and a loaf of bread tucked inside, along with other items. Maggie said, "It"s not much, but it will get you started in the morning."
"It"s terrific, thank you." Sophie set her toiletry bag on top of the box and accepted it. "It was kind of you to think of this with so much else going on."
"It"s the least I can do in return for what you did for us." Maggie"s eyes glittered with wetness. "You not only saved my life, but Arran says you saved his too." She turned to Nikolas. "Thank you, both of you."
He didn"t appear to look uncomfortable at all, while Sophie was barely able to keep from blurting out the truth. She swallowed the impulse down. It wouldn"t do anybody any good, and the knowledge could possibly put them in more danger.
Instead, she said, "I"m sorry for the people you lost tonight."
"It"s a hard blow," Maggie said. "It"ll be hard for the whole town. They were good men just enjoying a bit of an after-hours card game, you see."
"I do see," Sophie said gently.
Maggie turned back to the shambles of her pub. As Sophie and Nikolas walked to the Mini, Sophie muttered between her teeth, "I want her dead for this."
Nikolas said, "As do I, and mine."
Chapter Eight.
When they reached the Mini, they discovered the puck, still in the form of a monkey, waiting inside.
No doubt Robin found opposable thumbs more useful than dog paws. After setting the box and the luggage into the boot of the car, Nikolas stood back and watched Sophie drive away, then he walked down the side alley where he had parked his Porsche and followed.
He didn"t like how she had looked. Underneath the thorough dousing of blood, her skin had turned chalky, the freckles standing out in stark contrast, and the shadows underneath her spectacular eyes were as dark as bruises. She didn"t complain, but she moved like she was in pain, stiffly and off-balance.
He pulled into the property drive and parked beside the Mini. By the time he had switched off the engine, Sophie was already at the entrance of the cottage, unlocking the door by the light of her slim flashlight.
He pulled his go-bag out of the car and retrieved her luggage from the Mini"s boot. When he stepped inside an aged but comfortable-looking kitchen, she had turned on all the lights and stuck her head into a cupboard.
"There"s some way to turn on the water heater," she said, her voice m.u.f.fled. "The solicitor told me how to do it, but I don"t remember."
"Sit down," Nikolas ordered.
That made her emerge so she could glare at him. He could almost hear her say it: Thanks for asking, a.s.shole.
"Seriously, sit," he told her impatiently. "I"ll take care of the water heater."
She must be feeling even worse than he thought, because she straightened to ease into one of the four chairs at the wooden, farm-style kitchen table.
He moved quickly through the cottage, taking stock. The rest of the furnishings looked as aged and comfortable as the kitchen. There was a musty, unused smell in the place and a slightly damp feeling.
The sitting room had a gas fire, and he paused to light it so it could chase the chill and the dampness out of the place. There was a minimally furnished bedroom with a bare mattress, a halfway-decent bath with a washer/dryer unit tucked in one corner, and the kitchen, which was actually the largest room in the cottage.
The refrigerator needed to be plugged in. After doing so, he set the bottle of milk in it and checked the contents of the box that Maggie had given them. There were eggs as well as bread, an orange and an apple, a package of cheese, and sugar for the tea, along with a few packets of guest soaps.
"You don"t have to stay," she said.
He glanced at her. She sat with her forehead propped in one hand, and she looked as weary as anyone he had ever seen. "Yes, I do," he told her. "There may be more Hounds on the hunt. I won"t have you getting hurt or killed, not when you can be of use to me."
She laughed and immediately winced. "That"s breathtakingly callous, even for you."
"So it is." He had also regretted it as soon as he had said it, but he didn"t bother to apologize. Not only was it true, but he also didn"t think she would believe him if he did. Rummaging through the kitchen cupboards, he found and filled a teakettle and set it to warm on the stove. "In a half an hour or so, you"ll be able to take a comfortable shower, but in the meantime, there"ll be warm water here in a few minutes to wash up at the kitchen sink."
"I don"t care," she said as she rummaged through her toiletry bag to locate a small travel-sized bottle filled with liquid. Pushing to her feet, she moved to the sink, turned on the faucet, and stuck her head under the running water, swearing at the cold.
He laughed silently. They had only been acquainted through the course of a very long evening, but she had already surprised him in a mult.i.tude of ways. The water ran dark pink as it whirled down the drain.
"If you can stand it for long enough, I"ll help you wash the blood out of your hair."
"Please," she said through gritted teeth. "But hurry."
She thrust the small bottle at him blindly, and he took it to squirt some of the liquid into the palm of one hand. Working the shampoo quickly through her hair, he ma.s.saged her scalp until there was a thick lather. The water ran cold enough to make the bones of his hands ache, and he could feel her body shaking.
"Hold on," he said. Twisting, he grabbed the full teakettle. It hadn"t had a chance to get very warm, but it had to be better than sticking her head under the tap again. Carefully he rinsed the dark stream of wet hair, marveling at how the curls sprang up when he ran his fingers through the long strands. As he worked, she scrubbed at her face and hands.
The act of helping her to wash her hair seemed inappropriately intimate. It was as velvety soft as it looked. He wondered what her skin would taste like at the nape of her neck. He wondered what she would say or do if he bent to find out.
But no, he didn"t have to wonder very much at that.
Thanks for asking, a.s.shole!
Biting back another smile, he found he was reluctant to draw the task to its end, but then the kettle was empty and there was no reason to keep her hanging over the sink any longer.
"Thank you," she told him, turning her head to one side to squeeze the excess water out of her hair. "My clothes feel vile enough, but somehow it was worse having blood all over my head and in my hair."
"Stay put. I"ll get you a towel." Down the short hall, he found the linen cupboard and brought back a towel for her to wrap her hair in.
When she stood, her face was no longer pale but a deep, pleasing pink, although the shadows under her eyes were still too dark. "If any more of those werewolves crash in here, I"m not going to be much help," she said. "I"m jet-lagged and exhausted, and I pulled something deep on my bad side."
He nodded to himself. It was pretty much what he had thought. "I"m going outside to lay some aversion spells around the area. If we"re lucky, the rest of the night will be quiet."
"Quiet would be good." Her face tightened. "Those things hardly paused when Arran shot them."
"He probably didn"t have silver in his bullets," Nikolas told her. "Most gun owners don"t. The bullets are expensive, and a lycanthrope running wild is pretty rare. Most of them are disturbed by the change, and they"re all too happy to cage themselves during full moons."
Her expression lit with interest. "Silver bullets affect them?"
"Yes." He paused, reluctant to look away from her mesmerizing eyes. "They"re still tough to kill, but if you put a silver bullet between their eyes, it"ll kill them well enough. Also, they can"t heal at a magical rate from wounds inflicted with silver bullets or weapons."
"Good to know." She clenched her hands. "I"m never going to be able to get a gun legally here, am I?"
"As you"re not a UK citizen, it"s highly doubtful. You would only warrant one if you needed it in some official capacity, and the government approved of that reason. Some demesne leaders and their entourages are granted firearm certificates." He c.o.c.ked his head. "Why, do you want one?"
"Oh my G.o.ds, yes. Like I told you, my spells are only useful in close quarters." With an explosive sigh, she said, "The water has got to be at least bearable by now, don"t you think? I"m going to finish cleaning up."
She had gone head-to-head with monsters that were over twice her size and weight, and she had done it without hesitating. He had seen her race alone toward the pub. It was one of the bravest things he had ever seen anybody do.
As she turned away from him, he caught her by the arm. "What you did back there-"
"Jesus, don"t touch me there!" she cried, yanking away from his hold. They stared at each other. She whispered, "I had one active spell left."
He clenched. She grabbed his hand and turned it over, stroking his fingers and palm and turning it over. After a moment, she sagged and looked up at him again with relief br.i.m.m.i.n.g in her eyes.
She said, "Thank G.o.d. The spell didn"t recognize you as an enemy."
He gave in to his impulse at last and cupped her chin, stepping close so that he could feel the heat from her body. It was a subtle warmth that touched him in places he didn"t understand and had long denied existed. "That"s because I"m not your enemy, Sophie."
As he watched, she licked her lips. Watching her tongue slide over the plush, pink curve of her lower lip caused him to harden and woke a hunger he hadn"t felt for anyone in years.
Years.
What the h.e.l.l was happening to him? He jerked away and stalked toward the door. He snapped, "I"m going to lay down those spells while you shower."
"Right," she said without looking at him. "I"ll make it quick, so there should be some warm water left for you."
He didn"t bother to answer that. Instead, he stalked out the door, breathing hard in the cool, damp night air. He had no business feeling any kind of desire for her. She was someone who was possibly of some use to him, nothing more.
She chose to stay when she shouldn"t have. Earlier, she had chosen to engage with the Hounds-and she shouldn"t have. She was also choosing to defend the puck, and by G.o.ds, she had already been warned multiple times she shouldn"t have done that.
And he had his mission. There was nothing more critical, more important, than making sure he did everything he possibly could to keep his men alive, to try to find a way back to Lyonesse, and to take down Isabeau and Morgan any way he could.
He had no interest, and no time, for anything else.
After a few minutes, the unwelcome tightening in his groin eased.
He got down to business and set a series of aversion spells around the property, grimly ignoring the ghosts in his head and the ancient memories of the battle that tried to resurface. Whether or not the aversion spells would be useful was anybody"s guess.
The effect of an aversion spell could be directly measured against the intelligence and determination of the creature that encountered it. At least if something tripped a spell, Nikolas would feel it, so he would have advance warning before anything got too close to the cottage.
Also, there were no direct scent trails to lead any questing Hounds to this location. The only way the Hounds could possibly learn to come here would be if they spent some time in human form, questioning people in town. Nikolas and Sophie were probably safe from attack for one night. Possibly not for any longer, but he felt fairly confident about tonight.
Finally he felt like he had done what he could. Only then did he pause to text Gawain. Hounds attacked the pub. Sophie, Robin, and I have moved to a different location.
Gawain replied almost immediately. d.a.m.n. Was anyone hurt?
Four casualties. We"re fine. Nikolas paused, then typed more slowly. Sophie ran into the pub to help before I could stop her. She saved lives. She"s a brave fighter.