Stone Cold Lover

by Christine Warren

  Spar found he enjoyed the chance to tease her, just to watch her eyes light with mirth and temper. “Everyone must be too dim-witted to understand what is clear to my eyes. Fil is a name for a man. I could not mistake you for a man, Felicity, not if the Darkness struck me blind and stupid.”

  “I think someone already beat them to that second one,” she shot back, but he heard no heat in the words. In fact, he thought he detected a certain amount of pleasure. Did she like the idea that he needed her to see him as separate from any others? Or did she like the knowledge that he saw her first as a woman, someone to be desired?

  Tearing her gaze from his, she dropped another brush into her jar and set aside her palette. “I need some more linseed oil. I think I have a new jug in the back. Be right back.”

  He wanted to seize her, to grasp her and force her to meet his gaze, to see the feelings she stirred in him, but he held himself back. His female was skittish. He sensed the attraction in her, the way she was drawn to him, just as he felt the way she fought against it. She wanted to reject the magnetic force that pulled them together, but he could have told her it was futile. Never in his life had he felt an energy as strong as the one that drew him to her.

  Clenching his hands into fists, he watched her step through the half-open door into the stockroom at the back of the shop that she now used for storage. She disappeared from his sight for only a moment before he found himself leaping to his feet and charging after her.

  She had screamed violent, bloody murder.

  Chapter Eight

  Fil drew in a deep breath as she headed toward the stockroom. She had to fight back the urge to run, to put as much distance between herself and Spar as quickly as she was able. The electricity that flared between them had reached the kind of voltage she knew could stop her heart with one careless touch.

  She had no intention of getting burned.

  When she thought about the strange fascination she’d felt for the gargoyle statue just twenty-four hours earlier, Fil wanted to throw back her head and laugh. As scarily intense as that feeling had been, it was like a drop in the ocean of what she felt for Spar every moment she spent in his company. It was as if there was some strange physical force that wanted to draw them together, some potent pheromone that turned normally rational art restorers into raging nymphomaniacs the minute they came into range of a living, breathing gargoyle.

  Or maybe, Fil winced, it was just her.

  She really wished she had been able to convince Spar to let her out of his sight for even ten lousy minutes. A brisk walk around the block, just a few minutes of peace out of range of his brooding, sexy presence would have done her a world of good. With luck, it might even have given her panties a few minutes to dry out.

  But no. The stone-skulled lummox had been adamant. She would not stray from his line of sight for so much as a minute longer than it took her to pee, and even then he had insisted that she leave the bathroom door open a crack so he could hear if someone tried to accost her. At this point, Fil could have told him that the only one in any immediate danger was Spar himself, and that was because she was about ten seconds away from wrapping her hands around his neck and squeezing for all she was worth.

  Either her hands, or her thighs.

  Groaning, Fil pushed open the storage room door and stepped inside. Convincing him to let her come down to her studio had seemed like a major victory an hour ago. It had certainly taken a hell of an argument and three of her favorite curses learned from her grandma to win him over. She’d thought that immersing herself in her painting might prove enough of a distraction that she could be in the same room with him for an entire hour without fantasizing about licking him somewhere inappropriate.

  By her calculations, she’d lasted approximately seven and a half minutes.

  It didn’t help that the man had started a conversation with her. Why did he have to ask about her life? And why the hell did he have to sound so sincere when he told her that her grandparents sounded like fine people? Her life had been hard enough when she’d just lusted after his delectable body. Why did he have to go about making her like what was on the inside, too?

  Maybe coming to the studio hadn’t been the best idea. Fil was starting to think that the paint fumes in the air could not be helping her struggle for rational thought and hormonal control. After she grabbed the oil, she’d ask if Spar would let her open a window or two. She could definitely use a breath of fresh air.

  Fil didn’t bother flipping on the light in the storage room. She’d been mucking around back here since the time she could walk, and she’d arranged every one of her supplies with her own two hands. The linseed oil, she knew, sat on the second shelf from the floor against the back wall. In her mind, she was already reaching for it when something shifted in the shadows.

  She screamed before she could think.

  The thing snarled at her. At least, she thought it did. It was hard to tell since she wasn’t even certain it had a face. Could something without a face really snarl?

  Okay, having this conversation with herself was probably the first sign of hysteria, but what the hell with this day?

  The thing leapt at her, and Fil dove to the side. Instinct sent her in the direction of the exit door to the alley behind the building, but it didn’t protect her from slamming her shoulder against the wooden frame hard enough to make her cry out. It also didn’t stop the thing from catching her side with the tip of a wickedly sharp claw. It slashed through fabric and skin and muscle like paper, leaving behind a gash that felt bathed in acid and lit on fire.

  Pain and fury welled within her, and her vision went dark. Not black, like when she had lost consciousness, but darkened, as if she looked out through a thin veil of black tissue. She could still move, still think, could still hear the thunderous roar of Spar’s battle cry as he launched himself through the door to rescue her. She could even see perfectly clearly, as if her special sight had activated without her even trying. Both Spar and the creature crouched on the floor between them glowed with energy, Spar’s a brilliant blue-white, the thing’s a sickly yellow-green.

  Her Guardian had come prepared to save her. Gone was the gorgeous human form with the dark stubble and the snug, worn jeans. In its place stood the seven-foot warrior with claws and spear and vengeance in his eyes. Even as he shouted and raised his spear, Fil knew he intended to destroy the creature that had threatened her, and she felt a stirring of warmth.

  Too bad her left hand felt as if it had been encased in ice.

  Without conscious thought, Fil raised it, she thought to check if it had turned blue with the cold, but instead she turned it outward, pointing her palm at the slimy, furry, faceless thing in the center of the storage room.

  Seriously, how could something be slimy and furry at the same time? she wondered vaguely.

  She knew she opened her mouth, but she could have sworn that the word that came out was nothing she had ever heard before in her life. It felt thick and heavy on her tongue, and it left a bitter taste behind. Almost before the last foul syllable had passed her lips, her palm turned from frozen to incendiary, and a ball of red-black energy flashed from her to the nasty little creature that had attacked her.

  It exploded.

  In an overwhelmingly creepy, messy, entrails-on-the-ceiling kind of way.

  Fil screamed, and the veil over her eyes lifted, just in time to see black sticky thing’s guts drip off the tip of Spar’s wing. Turning, she took one frantic step and vomited violently into the trash can.

  She heaved for what felt like forever, but there wasn’t enough in her stomach to sustain the episode for long. The dry heaves hurt enough that by the time she was finished, she fell to her knees on the concrete floor and was just grateful for the strength to keep her from landing face-first in a pile of putrid black goo.

  Her eyes drifted shut, whether to block out the sight of the mess all around her or because her body had just expended enough energy to fuel a nuclear reactor for three days
, she wasn’t certain. Either way, her lids simply felt too heavy to hold up. She kept them closed when Spar’s arms closed around her and scooped her off the floor in a single smooth movement.

  Something in her wanted to protest that he shouldn’t touch her, but somehow she found herself leaning into his hard chest. “Put me down. I’m disgusting.”

  He grunted. “I have emerged from battle with far worse than a bit of hhissih blood on me. You’re fine.”

  Fil hadn’t been talking about the blood, but she kept quiet.

  She felt him shoulder through the door to the enclosed stairway to the second floor. Carrying her seemed not even to register as an effort for him. He whisked her up the stairs and through her apartment without his breathing even changing, providing her with the clearest possible evidence that yes, he was exactly as strong as he looked.

  When her feet touched the floor, she opened her eyes and found herself standing inside her bathroom being crowded toward the tub. Spar reached around her to turn on the shower and then frowned down at her.

  “The smell of the blood will make you nauseated again if you don’t wash it off. Get under the water.”

  Fil had no argument with that. He was right about the smell. Sulfur and rusty iron and rotten meat made for one hell of a stench, and her skin crawled when she realized it was coming from her. Well, to be fair, from both of them.

  She waited for him to leave so she could strip, but Spar had other ideas. He reached for the hem of her tank top, clearly intending to whisk it off over her head. Fil squeaked in protest and slapped at his hands.

  “Watch it, buddy! I can take care of that myself.”

  “You are not in the water yet,” he grunted, ignoring her ineffectual blows and taking the expedient way into her panties. He flexed his talons and ripped straight through both the tank top and her battered BDU trousers. Her thin cotton panties never stood a chance.

  By the time she had blinked past the shock and on to the outrage, he had lifted her over the edge of the tub and whisked the curtain closed around her. Fil stared at the expanse of white cloth and bounced between outrage and gratitude. The gargoyle might have the manners of a wild pig, but he was taking care of her, in his own brusque, domineering way. It was almost sweet.

  That thought lasted all of five seconds, which was how long it took for the curtain to open again and a very human-looking and very naked Spar to step into the tub with her. Fil sputtered in outrage.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” she shouted.

  The man shrugged and reached for her bottle of shampoo. “My true form would not fit in such a confined space, so I shifted.”

  Belatedly, Fil wrapped an arm over her breasts and pressed the other hand to the juncture of her thighs. God, she felt like a bloody cliché, but shock and the feeling of being really, really exposed could apparently do that to a girl.

  “I mean, what the hell are you thinking, climbing into this shower with me?” she said, shooting him a glare that would have knocked his stony head right off his shoulders if he’d still been sleeping. “Get out! Now!”

  Spar ignored her and spread a ridiculous amount of shampoo over the top of her head before beginning to work up a lather. “You are injured and in shock. I am tending to you. Now be quiet and let me tend.”

  “No! I’m naked and wet, and I’ve known you for less than twenty-four hours. Get out. I can bathe myself, for chrissakes.”

  Spar lifted his hands from her hair and raised an eyebrow. Very gently he touched one finger to the cut in her side. The contact made her hiss, and it wasn’t because he’d gotten soap in the gash. It hurt, burned and throbbed and stung badly enough to bring tears to her eyes. She’d almost forgotten it until he pointed it out. Maybe she was in a little bit of shock.

  Then he lifted that same finger and grazed it along the side of her jaw. Abruptly Fil realized her teeth were chattering as if she’d been standing naked in a February blizzard, instead of directly under the spray of her steaming-hot shower. The fight drained out of her, and she dropped her forehead to his shoulder.

  But she kept her hands over her important bits.

  Spar said nothing, not even the mildest of I-told-you-soes. He just lifted his hands back to her hair and finished washing the silky strands. She obeyed the gentle pressure that urged her to tilt back under the spray for a rinse. When he was satisfied that the water ran clean, she let him turn her to face the tile while he reached for a bottle of body wash.

  When his gentle fingertips brushed the bare skin of her rib cage just below her right breast, Fil gasped and stiffened.

  “Your wound,” he murmured, and his fingers stilled but didn’t retreat. “The creature’s claws can carry poison. Let me cleanse it, and I will leave you to do the rest.”

  Her head jerked in a shaken nod.

  His hands were tender as they traced the length of the cut from a few inches below the lower curve of her breast, around her side, to a few inches above the dip of her waist. At least six inches long, she guessed, but judging by his probing not worrisomely deep.

  Keeping her left arm over her breasts, she had to raise the right over her head to give him access, which also allowed her to see the cut. The edges looked clean and straight, as if they’d parted beneath the sharp edge of a razor, but the skin on either side looked almost bruised, mottled a nasty blackish-purple. The highlights of putrid green really gave it a certain je ne sais quoi, she reflected sourly.

  Spar patiently soaped and scrubbed the wound, easing back every time she hissed in discomfort but never stopping. When he stepped back and angled her into the spray to let the water rinse the slice clean, she sighed in relief.

  “Finish cleaning yourself,” he said gruffly. “When you are through, I will bandage the wound.”

  “Will it need stitches?” she asked. At the moment, going back to the hospital sounded about as appealing as running a full marathon. Uphill.

  He shook his head. “Sewing the cut would do more harm than good. I washed it as well as possible, but any remaining poison will need to drain. A bandage will protect it while you heal.”

  “Okay.” She nodded, and he vanished behind the curtain.

  Fil hurried through the rest of her shower. Well, as much as she could, given the pain and stiffness in her side. She wished for a second that Spar had left the injury alone, since it hadn’t started to hurt until she remembered it was there, but somehow the idea of the huge Guardian ignoring anything that harmed her made her snort. She didn’t think he had the gene for that. The man was a natural-born caretaker, like her grandmother had been.

  Not that the feelings that overwhelmed her whenever she got close to him had anything to do with grandmothers. Even in her current state, weakened, injured, and traumatized, with the remnants of shock clinging to her like icicles, she couldn’t make herself stop wanting him. Oddly enough, the nudity of their shared shower hadn’t been what fed her desire. Instead it had been the tender way he had tended her wound, the care he had taken to examine and clean the gash that had brought her attraction to him welling back to the surface.

  That had to be a sign of some kind of sickness, right? First, that she could even think about sex after having been sliced up by some kind of demonic creature lurking in her storage room; and second, that it was the man who had signaled the transformation of her life into the surreal nightmare it had become. There had to be something wrong with her.

  The thought unsettled her, but it didn’t stop her from finishing up as quickly as she could so she could get back to Spar. Whether it was healthy or not, she felt comforted by his presence. He had already proven he would do whatever it took to protect her, and these days it looked like she could use the help.

  When she pushed back the curtain and stepped from the tub, she found him waiting on the other side, a snug pair of jeans his only covering and half the contents of her medicine cabinet spread on the counter behind him. He moved so silently that she hadn’t even realized he’d stayed in the room.
Of course, preoccupied with her own thoughts, she hadn’t exactly been listening.

  Spar said not a word, simply handed her a towel and waited while she dried herself. When she began to wrap the cloth around her, he shook his head.

  “I still need to bandage your wound. I brought this to protect you from the chill.”

  He handed her the white spa robe she kept in her closet. Fil slipped it on, grateful for the covering, not just because she felt chilled after the warmth of the shower, but because standing naked in front of him set her nerves to rioting. Her skin pebbled with gooseflesh, and her nipples followed suit. No need to flash him with the evidence of her clamoring hormones.

  “Come. Stand here.” After a glance to make sure his supplies remained in easy reach, Spar shifted to sit on the lid of the commode. Spreading his knees wide, he urged her to stand between them and brushed open the sides of her robe.

  In this position, her breasts were almost level with his head, but instead of staring at them the way most men would have, Spar immediately ran his gaze down to the cut on her side. He frowned when her robe threatened to fall closed and block his view.

  “Hold this,” he told her, pinning the fabric against the back of her hip with her own hand.

  Reaching for a gauze pad and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, he wet the material and began to wipe carefully at the wound. Fil hissed at the first touch of cold, then relaxed. The solution caused minor stinging, but the sensation dissipated quickly. As sore as the gash felt, Spar took obvious care to be gentle.

  “How does it look?” she asked, her voice sounding husky in her own ears.

  “Offensive,” Spar rumbled. “I should not have let you out of my sight. The hhissih should never have gotten near you.”

  “Hhissih? Is that what that thing was called? I’m still trying to figure out what the hell it was.”

  “They are creatures of the Darkness, minor, unintelligent beings that are drawn to black magic. The Order often uses them as a distraction in battle or as a sort of guard dog. We are fortunate there was only one. Often, they travel in packs. They are not difficult to kill, but they are vicious and in numbers are capable of inflicting great harm.”