He Came from Ice

by Kody Boye

  I was fucked. No matter what way I looked at it, I was utterly, truly fucked.

  It wasn’t all bad though. A quick glance at Guy was enough to show he cared about me, at least in part. I mean, he’d taken me in, and was now leading me on a desperate quest for safety. He could’ve left me in that apartment to take the blame for everything, including the murders of the people along the Lake Lady Bird trail. The fact that he’d brought me along showed his worth as a man. Or whatever he was.

  I rolled my head along my shoulders to look at him.

  “Guy,” I said. “You never mentioned what would happen after we hit Fredericksburg.”

  The man’s brow furrowed and his lips narrowed into a frown.

  “Guy?” I asked.

  “My father has a ranch outside town,” he said, drumming his fingers along the wheel in tune to the sound of something on the radio.

  “You don’t think anyone will recognize you while we’re there, do you?”

  “I doubt it. I may be European, but that isn’t going to be a red flag in a state like this. Besides—it’s you I’m more worried about, what with that scar and all.”

  I shrugged my oversized T-shirt to the side. “There’s a reason I wear baggy clothes.”

  “There shouldn’t have to be one. That’s what I’m saying, J. You’re gorgeous as hell, and the scar only adds to that.”

  I lowered my head to hide my blush. “Thanks,” I said.

  He reached over and pushed my glasses up my nose. “Gonna lose these if you’re not careful,” he smiled, patting my cheek. “I ever tell you I have a thing for guys with glasses?”

  “No.” I paused. He looked out the corner of his eye at me. “We haven’t told much of anything about ourselves to each other.”

  “Guess we’ll just have to remedy that then, huh?”

  I smiled.

  Chapter Nineteen

  We pulled into Fredericksburg early in the afternoon and immediately began to peruse the various shops for clothes and other basic necessities. Given our situation, we kept our heads down—always speaking low, not bothering to give a cashier or even a drive-thru clerk much of a direct gaze. We barely even addressed each other by name, such was the need for discretion. The whole thing made for a very, very dark situation.

  By the time we pulled up to the bed and breakfast, the worst of my fears had begun to manifest.

  “Guy,” I said, grimacing as he popped the driver’s-side door open. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

  “What?”

  “Getting a room, staying here for the night.”

  “We have to sleep somewhere,” he said. “Besides—I have a way with people.”

  The slight wag of his eyebrows, followed by that devilishly-sexy yet dangerous grin, gave way for nothing but sarcasm.

  With a sigh, I crawled out of the car, gathered the few bags filled with our necessities, and followed Guy up to the inn.

  Immediately upon entering, the hairs on my neck rose on end.

  I wasn’t one for paranoia—at least, not normally. Maybe it was because I was usually so laid-back about anything and really didn’t have anything to be nervous about, but standing here, in the bed and breakfast lobby, I felt like I had a target trained on the back of my head.

  Pop goes the weasel, I thought rather grimly.

  The young man behind the counter—who couldn’t have been much younger than I was—raised his head as Guy and I approached and smiled. “Ah, gentlemen,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

  “We’re looking to get a room for the night,” Guy responded, inclining his head toward me and giving me a reassuring look.

  “Just one bed, or…”

  “One is fine.”

  The clerk turned to a computer system and began to click keys at a breakneck speed. “All right, mister…”

  “Gordon,” Guy said. “Gordon Johnson.”

  “Johnson. I’ll just need a form of identification and a credit card and then I’ll be able to…”

  Guy jerked his elbow and upended a plastic cup of pens at the side as he reached into his pocket to pull his wallet out.

  The young man leaned forward.

  “Here, let me get that,” Guy said, pressing his hand atop the clerk’s. The man’s eyes softened and appeared to take on a brief, translucent hue before returning to normal. “Sorry about the mess. I’d just remembered that I don’t have my credit card on me right now.”

  “Oh,” the man said.

  Guy’s hand didn’t stray.

  “Is there any way you could accept cash?” Guy asked. “Just for me. Just this once?”

  “I… my manager…”

  Guy slid his thumb along the underside of the man’s wrist.

  “I guess I could do it, just this once,” he said, pulling his hand back. “A one-bedroom for a Mr. Johnson? For how many nights?”

  “Three days and four nights,” Guy said.

  “That’ll be three-hundred even.”

  A number of bills were passed between Guy and the man behind the counter before a room pass was exchanged. “Third door on your right,” he said. “Overlooking the courtyard.”

  Guy smiled and offered the man his thanks before taking some of our belongings in hand and leading me up the stairs.

  Chapter Twenty

  “So… a way with people,” I said as I settled atop the bed, a fresh undershirt stretched comfortably across my chest.

  “Yeah,” Guy smiled, spreading out widthwise beside me.

  “What’d you do down there?”

  “Let’s just say I worked a little magic.”

  “A little?” I asked.

  Guy winked.

  “Seriously,” I said, rolling over onto my stomach. His gaze, set toward the beams crossing the well-decorated room, strayed toward me upon my questioning.

  “You ever heard of something called ‘Glamoring?’”

  “Yeah. It’s what vampires do when they’re trying to sway their influence on you.”

  “The Kaldr can do the same,” Guy explained. “But unlike vampires, our influence tends to lie in seduction. Not that they don’t use it—because really, they do—but we don’t have the sheer willpower to force someone to do something for us by thought.”

  “Have you ever used it on me?”

  Guy frowned. “Why do you ask that?”

  “Because if all it takes is a simple touch…”

  “Jason,” Guy said, rolling onto his side. He made a move to touch my arm, but stopped and instead allowed his hand to fall slack between us. “I’ve never had a reason to push my influence on you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I wanted to do it the right way—unlike others of my kind.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say. I could admit that, up until this point, I’d played the role of the Mary Sue just because I felt it necessary. Here I was—Jason DePella, nearly twenty-six years old and living in a ramshackle shithole of an apartment after being kicked out of school for something I didn’t do—getting hit up by some gorgeous hunk of man whom my nerdy ass would’ve never landed in a million years. Yet here we were, lying side by side—him looking at me, me at him—and there was absolutely nothing awkward about it.

  Was I being complicated just for the sake of being complicated?

  I’d been trying to figure that out—had been since I first set foot in Guy’s apartment and then in the short amount of time spanning our flight from Austin—yet the answer escaped me. Who knew when I’d figure that out.

  All I knew was: I liked this guy. We may have met under unusual circumstances—and yeah, we may have had sex on the first date and then moved in together a few days later—but that didn’t diminish everything he’d done for me up until this point.

  As I’d so horribly thought before, he could’ve left me behind.

  He could’ve let me take the blame.

  He could’ve let me rot in prison.

  And perhaps worst of all: he could’ve let me live on the str
eets, if somehow I managed to escape the cruel fates previously imagined.

  “Jason?” Guy asked. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said, blinking, smiling as I took in his odd eyes and the ruggedly-handsome features of his face. “I’m fine.”

  “Good. I was worried you might think less of me.”

  “I don’t.”

  I stretched my hand out over his and laced the three of our largest fingers together.

  “I’m not asking you to do anything,” Guy whispered, laying down and settling his head atop his arm.

  “I know,” I said. “Don’t worry.”

  I laid down beside him.

  His fingers flexed beneath mine.

  I found mine within his.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  There was a long conversation about who would sleep in the bed. Guy proposed that he sleep on the couch in favor of my recent injuries. I said that I was fine—that my back was feeling better and that it didn’t matter if we were both on the bed. Several tense moments of silence passed thereafter, until we finally agreed to sleep in the same bed.

  Now almost ready for bed—he in his briefs, I in my boxers—we spread out along the bed and prepared to tuck ourselves in. He was just about to pull the covers over us before I rolled over and he took notice of my back.

  “Jason,” he said, pressing a hand to where I’d brutally been rammed against the kitchen counter.

  “I told you,” I said, adjusting my place beneath his touch. “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine. You’re all swollen.”

  I’d never paused to consider my injury. I’d been popping pain pills so much that I’d automatically assumed that my back was feeling better and thought nothing more of it. But now, feeling the slight pressure of Guy’s hand atop my swollen back, the dull pain slithered into my brain.

  “I can do something for this,” Guy said. “That is, if you’d be willing. And you’d let me.”

  “What’s that?”

  Guy shifted the blankets across his waist and pushed himself up with one elbow. “You know how I drew the heat out of your body when we were in the car,” he asked, gently running his hand along the upper portion of my back.

  “Yeah.”

  “I can do the same for your back.”

  “But my back’s not burned. I don’t see how that would help.”

  “The muscle is enflamed though. And what do they tell you to do to take swelling down?”

  “Put a cold compress on it,” I said, without much in the way of thought. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to clear my head. “Is this going to hurt?”

  “No. If anything, it’ll make you feel better.”

  “If you say so,” I said, spreading my arms out over my head.

  Edging the blanket up over my hips, Guy straddled me and braced his knees along my thighs. “You might feel cold,” he said. “Tell me when you want me to stop.”

  Nodding, I closed my eyes and waited for him to begin.

  His touch was like fire.

  It was unlike anything I’d ever felt. A pinprick upon my flesh, a never-ending pressure within my spine, a supernova inside my body who in its rage consumed everything within its path—the urge to scream was so great that I nearly cried out at the top of my lungs, but Guy’s lips at the curve of my shoulders brought calm to the wildfire brewing within my mind, as if his body were the temple through which the fires could not burn.

  “Shh,” he whispered, lips close to my ear. “It’s all right. I told you it might hurt.”

  “No you… didn’t,” I gasped.Biting my lip, I stuck through the pain and kept my silence.

  There was no need to speak.

  I trusted him.

  He knew what he was doing.

  The radiating sensation of pain dissipated and was replaced by luxury. Spiraling outward, seeping into the fabric of my person, weaving through my muscles to sew an undeniable euphoria of space—from the tips of Guy’s fingers came an unbridled passion that brought peace upon my damaged body through its undeniable chill.

  The sharp bursts of breath that passed into my lungs threatened to make me pass out.

  Breathe, a voice said. Breathe.

  I wasn’t sure if it was Guy’s voice. So lost to utopia, I could barely make sense of where I was. My head was filled with pleasure, my lungs the tang of air. My body shivered as from the base of my neck to the curve of the collarbone ran a chill that subdued any action and quelled every thought.

  My eyes, already closed but occasionally opening to view the threshold of the physical world, rolled up into my head as something in my lower back gave way.

  I moaned.

  Guy’s lips touched my neck.

  Unlike his hand, I felt breathtaking chill upon his lips.

  In a moment, it was over.

  When Guy’s hand came free of my back, I lay there only long enough to recover from the overwhelming numbing sensation before pushing myself upright and planting myself on him.

  “God,” I gasped, pressing my lips to his face, my hand running through the thin sheen of blonde hair on his chest. “I can’t believe what you just did.”

  “You need to rest,” Guy said, turning his head the other way.

  I moaned. “I’m so turned on.”

  “All the reason to lie down and go to sleep. Screwing around isn’t going to help your back again.”

  “Come on.”

  Guy shook his head and pressed his hand to my face. “Lay down,” he said.

  I looked him straight in the eyes, the desire to fight him overcome by the urge to do as he said. It felt no different than breathing—watching him, waiting for a further response. Only when he took hold of my shoulder and eased me onto the bed did I cave to his requests.

  Once firmly settled on the bed, he turned the lamp off and drew up alongside me.

  His hand fell across my ribcage.

  “There,” he whispered, pressing his lips to the back of my neck.

  My eyes fluttered shut.

  It wasn’t long after that I nodded off.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I slept deeper than I had in the past few months. Lying completely prone on my stomach, the knots of tension free from my shoulders, my neck devoid of the familiar ache that had come from years of looking over textbooks—I opened my eyes to find the room lit in a fine gray twilight and Guy’s eyes watching me from between finely-veiled slits.

  “Hey,” Guy said. “Feeling any better?”

  “Better than ever,” I yawned, arching my back to release the kinks from a night’s worth of sleep. “Why?”

  “Do you remember anything that happened?”

  Flashes of the previous night entered my head. “Yeah,” I said, playfully batting his hand away as he reached for me.

  “And?”

  “You owe me.”

  “You have my word,” Guy said, leaning over to kiss my brow. He sat up and ran his hands along the side of his head, shivering in the breeze imparted by an untended air conditioning unit. I pressed a hand to his back and marveled at the muscles beneath my touch.

  “Can I ask you something?” I said, haphazardly pushing myself into an upright position.

  “Shoot.”

  “How old were you when you… uh… became a Kaldr?”

  “I’ve always been one. Supposedly that’s special.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Guy shook his head. “It’s nothing important,” he said. “At least, not to me.”

  I didn’t bother to push it. It didn’t seem like he had much to hide. His biggest secret was already revealed. What more could he be keeping from me?

  Though I was most likely jinxing myself by questioning that, I shook the idea of unnecessary secrets from my head and scooted up beside him, my arm instinctively wrapping around the free space between his ribcage.

  “Thank you for last night,” I said.

  “It hurt to see you in pain.”

  “You’re sweet.” I
kissed his stubbly cheek. “We should probably shower. We might still be able to catch breakfast.”

  “Lead the way?” Guy asked.

  He took hold of my hand after we crawled out of bed and headed toward the bathroom.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Earlier this morning, police reported breaking news in regards to the possible identity of the Lady Bird Lake Killer,” an anchorwoman said as Guy and I ate strawberry waffles with a side of eggs.

  A picture of Guy, likely pulled from the public records and taken at the DMV, appeared onscreen.

  “That sure didn’t take ‘em long,” Guy said.

  “What the hell are we going to do?” I asked.

  “Hang low, sneak out after dark, and get the hell out of here. Which reminds me… how do you feel about being my hostage?”

  I slugged his arm and cast a glance over my shoulder at the clerk—who, as usual, was completely enraptured in his cell phone and whatever happened to be on it. “What about him?” I asked, jutting my chin out to the side.

  “What about him?”

  “How much of your love juice did you shoot into him?”

  “Love juice?” Guy smirked.

  “You know what I mean!”

  “Only one I’m going to be shooting is you, if I have it my way.”

  “Guy,” I growled.

  He chuckled. “Relax, babe. I hit him hard yesterday. I’m surprised if he even remembers who ‘Gordon Johnson’ is.”

  Sighing, I pushed the remains of my half-eaten waffle across the table and raised an eyebrow. “You want that?”

  Guy dug in without question.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  We knew we would have to leave sooner rather than later. With the knowledge that cops could come busting down our door at any moment, Guy decreed that it would be best if someone went out and got us a day’s worth of supplies in preparation for our likely hike to the park—particularly me, since my picture had yet to hit the news stream.