The water tasted like heaven as I sipped it. The cool liquid skated down my throat and made me feel human again. “I am?” I asked as the doctor just stared at my chart.
“Sole survivor of an apartment fire? I should say so.” He paused and straightened his glasses; his milky-blue eyes showed his age as they briefly glanced up at me. “Has no one been in to talk to you?”
A shake of my head answered his question.
“You seem to be doing well now that you’re awake.” The papers rustled as he lifted a page, reading for a moment before he abruptly set the folder into a pocket that hung off the end of the bed. “I’ll get someone to come in and talk with you about what happened.” Just like that, he was gone and I was alone again.
The next time I woke up, Scarlett was there snoring softly, her head rolled back against the tan chair. We had been best friends for as long as I could remember, and she was the only one I could count on coming through when I needed someone. My heart constricted when I saw her, and like a dam breaking, the tears suddenly flooded from my eyes. The only thing I knew was that I was the sole survivor of a fire. No one had bothered to tell me anything else yet, and it made my head hurt when I tried to remember the missing time.
My small breakdown must have woken up my friend, because suddenly, she was there, hugging me tightly to her while crying.
“I thought you were dead,” she whispered.
“You can’t get rid of me that easily,” I whispered back.
She squeezed me tighter for a moment before letting me go and looking at me. “I really don’t understand it,” she said as she ran her hands down my arms. For the first time, I realized that I was only wearing a hospital gown, and I had no idea how long I had been asleep. Did I have morning breath? Was my hair ratty? Not that my best friend would care, but still.
“What don’t you understand?” I asked as I finger combed some of my hair.
“How you survived, Ava. I don’t understand how you’re alive. The whole apartment building went up like a freakin’ piece of paper. Most people who were home were dead before the firefighters even got there. Somehow you survived, and you’re the only one who did.”
“How long have I been asleep?” I asked quietly, watching my friend to see her reaction to the question.
She flinched as though the question had bitten her. “Two weeks.”
“Holy crap.” I breathed before asking the question I had been dreading since I’d heard the word fire. “Did I lose everything?”
Scarlett nodded, tears shining in her eyes as she looked at me. “You can come stay with me until we figure everything out.”
“Thanks, but it might be better for me to go back to my parents’ place,” I said, thinking of her tiny studio apartment.
“You’re just going to ramble around that place on your own? What if something happens?”
“I feel fine, and it’s not like they’re home, anyway.”
Her mouth thinned into a small line. She had never been a fan of my parents, and I understood why, but they were still my folks and I loved them, or at least, I think I would if I knew them.
She sighed dramatically. “I tried to reach them at the dig site, but they weren’t around, and the guy who answered the phone wouldn’t take a message, so I left one at the university with their secretary. They should get it whenever they decide to check in with her.”
“Thank you,” I said, meaning it from the bottom of my heart. I didn’t even realize I had fallen asleep until I woke up again.
The light had changed this time. The small window in my room was dark, and the only light came from the window in the door, which I could see a hazy outline of through the privacy curtain and the glow of the machines. Quietly, the door clicked open and a doctor came in. He moved almost silently. I expected him to turn on a light so he could see me, but he didn’t. The scent of pine and cedar tickled my nose as the room warmed. As he came closer, I could smell smoke. It was faint, barely even there, and if the apartment fire hadn’t been weighing so heavily on my mind, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed it.
He silently picked up my chart and began reading. I had no idea how he could see anything in the dim light, but he must have had years of practice.
“Hey, Doc,” I croaked out, letting him know I was conscious.
“I didn’t think you were awake,” a deep, gravelly voice responded.
“Neither did I for a while,” I tried to joke.
He looked at me. I couldn’t see him, but I could feel his gaze fixated on me. It was strangely intense. My blood heated, and if it was lighter in the room, I was sure I would have been visibly blushing. In that moment, I was thankful for the dim light. My body was reacting to him way too much to want to see any more.
A loud crashing sound made me flinch. I tried to move away from the noise as I closed my eyes and curled up into a ball on my bed. Bits of something flew through the air, occasionally hitting or landing on me, startling me each time. Bright light pierced my retinas even through my closed eyelids, and I knew the main light in the room had come on. I heard someone rip down the privacy curtain, and a low, sinister growl emanated from the doorway.
“Get away from her, fire breather.”
I opened my eyes with a series of rapid blinks as I tried to acclimate to the bright light. Finally, I saw a man with shockingly platinum-blond hair standing in what was left of the entrance to my room. The door had been ripped from its hinges, and the curtain was now a mess on the floor.
“Screw you,” the man in the white coat said, and I began to suspect he wasn’t actually a doctor.
Growls reverberated around the room, coming from each of them, before the blond guy lunged. He gripped the fake doctor around the waist, and the two of them crashed into the small sink and cabinet next to the window, pulverizing the damn thing. The sink cracked, and the wood of the cabinet folded like an accordion. The water sprayed everywhere because of the broken sink, but it didn’t distract either of them as they landed blow after blow on one another.
The fist fight sounded more like a thunderstorm. If only the shiny metal stand that held my IV had been on the other side of the bed, I could have wheeled it out of there and left them to it. It wasn’t, though, and as they tumbled toward the metal pole, I couldn’t help but wait for them to hit it and yank the whole thing out of me in a not-so-nice way. I turned my head away and cringed on the corner of the bed, huddled into an even tinier ball, if that were even possible.
When nothing happened, I looked back over and found the platinum-haired man on the floor, his head in the vice-like grip of the fake doctor. His face had gone red, and he frantically scratched at the other man’s arm—until he stopped. His hand fell to his side, and his eyelids drooped shut.
The fake doctor held him a moment longer before he let go. His victim, or the attacker, fell unceremoniously from his arms to the floor. I cowered in the corner of the bed. He was willing to do this in front of me, and he had expected me to be asleep. Dread pooled in my stomach as he raised his dark, almost bottomless eyes to mine.
“You have nothing to fear from me. He came here for you.”
“Why? Is he dead? Did you know him?” The questions tumbled from my mouth as I tried to wrap my brain around what had happened.
“It’s a long story. No. Vaguely,” the man said, ticking off my questions on his fingers.
“You’re not a doctor, are you?”
He shook his head and took off the white coat, dropping it over the other man. I watched his still form for a moment, and his chest moved gently with the rise and fall of his breathing. He was alive.
“Will you leave?” I asked, already knowing in my gut what the answer would be.
“Not without you.”
“Why?” I breathed the question, barely even forming the word with my mouth as I clutched the thin sheet around me as though it could offer any protection. I thought about screaming for help, but if no one had come at the sound of my door being bashed in, then n
o one would come for a scream, either.
“Long story. I’m here to protect you,” he said as he inched toward me, his hands raised as if he were trying to show me he wouldn’t do me any harm. Why should I believe him, though? “My name is Sebastian. What’s yours?”
“You won’t leave without me, but you don’t know my name?”
“I didn’t really get a chance to read much of your chart before you interrupted me, and the papers all left you anonymous.”
“I’m Ava.” The two simple words were out before I had even thought about what I was doing. Why was I talking to a man who wanted to take me from the hospital? A man I knew nothing about other than his name and his excellent fighting skills.
A crash sounded outside, like a metal tray hitting the floor. The ringing sound of lots of different items spilling from the tray carried through the hallway to me, making my chest tight. Was it another attacker? Why did I feel safer with Sebastian than I had since I’d first woken up? Had Frankie sent these men? Was he responsible for the fire, too?
I hadn’t even seen Sebastian move, but he was standing in the now-ruined doorway to my room, looking out as though he were acting as a guard.
Another deep male voice called down the hall, “Bas, you ready to move?”
“Not yet,” my protector called back.
Why did I think of him like that? There were so many questions circling in my mind, it felt as if my brain were a dog chasing its own tail.
Sebastian turned back to me, his big, hulking frame making me feel small and fragile while his dark eyes roamed over me. “Do you have any clothes here?”
“I have no idea. I just woke up a few hours ago.”
He looked at me quizzically for a moment before coming around to the side of the bed furthest from the remains of the door. He unclipped the metal bars that formed the side of the bed and let his side down before he held his hand out to me. He looked me straight in the eye as he said, “Do you trust me?”
The crazy part was that most of me wanted to scream yes. The logical side of my brain demanded to know what I thought I was doing as I turned toward him and extended my hand, slipping it into his. My body almost lunged at him, and I was only able to keep control by a fraction, gritting my teeth through the desire to go to him.
He gently tugged me to the edge of the bed until my legs swung over the side and I was perched directly in front of him. “Come with me . . .” His voice stroked my skin, which, combined with his touch, was having a crazy effect on me. My blood roared in my veins, and my whole body heated under his gaze.
“I—”
Before I could get the words out, his mouth was on mine, and it was the sweetest and hottest kiss I’d ever had. His lips scorched my own as they pressed down and caressed my mouth. I felt as if a switch had just been flipped; everything in me sprang to life and wanted to get as close as possible to him.
When he pulled away, I missed him. The closeness, the smell of the woods and a campfire, the sweet taste of him. The man might as well have been carved from chocolate cake—that was how much I wanted to take a bite out of him.
“Come with me,” he said again while the dark woodsy-brown eyes of his bored into mine.
My head nodded without my agreement, and he swept me up into his arms and clutched me against his chest as if I were the most precious gift in the world, before grabbing my chart and tucking it under his arm.
“My IV,” I gasped as he took a step forward, but I didn’t feel the familiar tug that I had started to associate with moving around. My hand went to my arm and found nothing there.
“Already taken care of. Now, let’s get you out of here,” he said.
I felt something brush against my hair as though he had just kissed the top of my head. A steamy make-out session was all good by me if both parties were into it, but an intimate moment like that confused me. It was why Scarlett was my only close friend. The gesture coming from a man I’d just met made my head feel all muddled. Not that much about the night so far was making me feel normal.
Two men stood at the end of the hall right in front of the exit doors that led to the stairwell. One had dirty-blond hair and stubble to match, with a piercing gaze that pinned me to Sebastian’s chest. The other had inky-black hair and an even thicker layer of stubble than his friend. His gaze seemed more focused on Sebastian than me, which I was grateful for. Being under the scrutiny of blondie was quite enough, thank you very much.
“Brother,” the darker man called out. “Are you ready to go?”
I felt Sebastian’s chin ruffle my hair as he nodded. “Brothers?” I asked, twisting in his arms to make eye contact with him.
“I’ll explain later, but right now, we have to leave before you are attacked again. Unless you have changed your mind and would prefer to stay?” He looked down at me with one raised eyebrow.
Thoughts of Frankie and his assholes filled my mind. I couldn’t afford to stay and have them find me, so I cuddled into Sebastian and whispered, “Let’s go.”
Chapter Two
Ava
The next time I woke up, Sebastian was gently pulling me from an expensive-looking car. A cold wind ruffled the hospital gown and the blanket wrapped around me. I glanced up with sleepy eyes at the building we were walking toward before we made it inside, and I snuggled closer to Sebastian. All I got was an impression of stone and wood, an old-world feel, but then everything was warm again, and sleep sucked me back under.
A cold breeze woke me once again, but when I pulled the blankets closer around my shoulders, everything came rushing back. My stomach cramped painfully as it twisted with hunger. When was the last time I ate? The hospital must have had me on something through the IV, but now that it was gone, my body was feeling the loss.
I ripped the soft, cozy blankets off me and shivered as a blast of cold air hit me. Carefully, I got off the massive bed that I found myself in and made a beeline for the door to the left, hoping that it led to a bathroom and not a hallway. The tan walls of the bedroom gave way to a more log cabin-y–feeling bathroom that also felt more modern than a log cabin should.
Large glass walls made up the shower, with a separate bathtub against the opposite wall, along with all the necessary features of a bathroom. I refused to even look at myself in the mirror as I walked by, so I just turned on the water and prepared to step inside. I paused when I noticed a small pile of clothes with a note on top of them on the counter.
Curiosity got the better of me, and I picked up the thin piece of paper.
Thought you’d want to ditch the hospital gown. - S
Sebastian had set some clothes aside for me. The thought made my whole body tingle with warmth. The small clothes clearly weren’t his, or his brothers’, although I didn’t get a great look at them. Black skinny jeans and a slouchy sweater were what I had to look forward to once I was clean. I just prayed they fit.
After standing under the water for way too long, I dressed, pulling my long hair back into a ponytail, and poked around in the room. There were no personal items anywhere indicating who had rescued me from Frankie’s goons, but the spicy smell of some kind of meat cooking wafted under the door, and my stomach clenched again.
I took a couple deep breaths and finger combed my hair once more before stepping out into the hallway. Voices carried toward me from the left, so I turned and headed in that direction, creeping as quietly as I could toward the room they emanated from.
Three gorgeous men sat at the breakfast bar, while a fourth stirred something on the stove. I recognized Sebastian sitting the furthest away from the door. His dark-brown eyes sparkled with humor as he laughed at something one of the others said. I pulled the end of my ponytail over my shoulder and played with the ends of my blonde hair. It was a nervous habit, and one I had tried to break a million times, but I couldn’t seem to quit it.
“You gonna come in, sweetheart?” a voice called out. It wasn’t Sebastian, although he was looking at me with a goofy grin on his face, and it
wasn’t the brother who had spoken to Sebastian at the hospital, because I didn’t recognize the voice. That left the blond and the man, who I assumed was a fourth brother I hadn’t seen before.
Slowly, I edged into the room.
“We don’t bite, Ava. At least, not unless you ask us to.” Sebastian grinned and waggled his eyebrows at me.
“So, this is the mysterious sole survivor,” the brother I hadn’t seen yet said as he turned away from the stove. His hair was disheveled, but in a sexy bedhead sort of way, while his brown eyes looked me up and down and the soft pink lips I could make out through his goatee formed a thin line. His eyes weren’t as dark as Sebastian’s, but they were just as alluring. “She doesn’t look like much.” He harrumphed and turned back to the stove.
I stayed frozen at the edge of the room. I knew I should ask to go home, but I also didn’t have a home to go to. Adding in Frankie’s ability to find me anywhere, and I kept my mouth shut. As though my thoughts had called him, Sebastian appeared in front of me. Usually I wasn’t so easily distracted, but apparently all bets were off when surrounded with enough attractive men.
“Did you sleep well, Ava?”
I nodded, biting my lip and wrapping my arms around myself. What was I doing in an unfamiliar place with four strange men? Had my sanity left me as well as my memories while I was in the coma?
“Come have breakfast and meet everyone,” he said as he held his hand out to me in the same gesture he had done at the hospital.
I felt almost powerless against the pull I felt toward him, so I slipped my hand into his, relishing the connection. It looked dainty and pale in comparison, not to mention how cold I must have been for his hand to feel so warm.
“Noah, can you cook up some eggs and bacon for our guest?” Sebastian called out to the brother I hadn’t seen before as he pulled me further into the room. His hand occasionally squeezed mine as if he were trying to comfort me, and in a way, it worked.
“If she wants.”
“You’ll have to ask him. He’s in one of his stubborn moods,” Sebastian whispered in my ear, his lips grazing the sensitive skin there and sending a ripple of desire through me.
Moonlight Mist: A Limited Edition Collection of Fantasy & Paranormal) Page 68
