Forged

by Jacquelyn Frank

  “Oh. All right. But that doesn’t solve our problem. You have no clothes and you can’t walk forty miles naked in the freezing cold snow! And that’s if the Walmart is even open. The storm was very widespread and we still don’t have electricity. And I have a dog here. There’s no one to take care of Karma.”

  At the sound of her name, Karma perked up from where she’d been having a nice long nap in front of the fire. However, she immediately put her head back down, clearly not interested in moving.

  “She’s a breed meant for snow,” he pointed out, looking at Karma who immediately began to wag her tail in loud thumping sweeps against the floor. As if she understood everything they were saying. “We can bring her wherever we need tae go. But what we need tae do is get to a viable airport as soon as possible so we can fly out of here. We can take her with us if you want—”

  “I am not flying Karma commercially! Do you know what they do to live animals on flights? They stick them in cargo holds that aren’t even climate-controlled!”

  “Lass—”

  “No! Don’t you ‘lass’ me! I won’t do it. And I’m not coming with you on this snow-covered Bataan death march!”

  “She will no’ be flying cargo, Kat lass. She’ll be on a private jet in the cabin wi’ us.”

  “You …” She blinked. “You have a private jet?”

  “No. But my employer does. No’ that I canna afford my own, but why waste money on two?”

  “Y-you can afford your own plane?”

  “Aye. One or two.”

  “One or …” She closed her eyes and swallowed. Focus. Stay focused. “Again, that doesn’t change the fact that you have no clothes now.”

  “I have a shirt. I found this big T-shirt in your things.” He indicated a shirt he’d been holding in his hand. He put it on to demonstrate, shrugging into it and pulling it down.

  “That’s a nightshirt. And what were you doing in my things?” she demanded.

  “Looking for a shirt,” he said with a grin. “Doona worry, I only touched your underwear a li’le.”

  “You—” She was gearing up to yell at him, but then realized he was teasing her. Despite herself, she found herself fighting back a smile. “You have nothing to wear on the bottom.”

  “This’ll do for now.” He indicated the towel and the way the shirt came down low on his body.

  She eyed him dubiously. “Maybe I have some sweatpants …” She trailed off … because they both knew that even her baggiest sweatpants wouldn’t come close to fitting him. She was too small and he was too big. As it was her nightshirt was busting at the seams.

  “Doona worry. I’m no’ human, Kat. I willna feel the cold like a regular man would. And if it gets tae be too much I’ll change into my stone skin.”

  The truth was he could be just as sensitive to the cold as any other man might be after a certain level of exposure. And changing into his stone skin was out of the question. He wouldn’t risk not being able to change back.

  “I gather there’s one or two houses between here and there,” he went on. “Is there no one you know close to my build?”

  “No.” No one. Everyone she knew was six feet tops. And she didn’t know that many men to begin with. She didn’t socialize all that much with the townsfolk. She did her shopping forty miles away in the twenty-four-hour Walmart that didn’t care about the fact that she could only shop in the dark.

  “Then it is what it is. The sooner we start the better off we’ll be. So let’s go.”

  “I don’t want to go,” she whined as he took her hand and tugged her along in his wake. “It’s so cold out there and so warm in here. I tell you what, I’ll snuggle with you if we stay by the fire.”

  That brought him up short, causing her to slam into his broad back. That was how she came to realize just how good he smelled. He seemed to think about her proposal very seriously, but with a sigh he went on into the bedroom.

  “I’ll take a rain check,” he promised her.

  And if she hadn’t thought she was in hot water before, she now had no doubts about it.

  “Snowshoes,” she grumbled, stepping wide with every step. Karma was of course loving every minute of the trek, bounding with endless energy ahead of them, her tongue lolling happily. She would tire out eventually, her big body weighing her down, but for now she was happy. They were just passing Huntsmen’s Lodge, a very small ski resort farther down the mountain from her. The runs were dark, night skiing out of the question when there were no lights to be had. She could imagine any visitors would be chomping at the bit for daybreak.

  It was right about then that she ran full force into something. The impact knocked her over and she went down in the snow, her head spinning. Ahnvil was by her side in a second, helping her out of the snow.

  Bella ran full force into something, going down on her ass in the snow. She went so deep that she was covered like a sugar cookie from tip to toe. She spit snow out as Jacob helped her back up to her feet.

  “What was that?” he asked with a chuckle.

  “Damned if I know,” she said. “I ran into something.”

  Jacob was looking around and seeing absolutely nothing around her save unblemished snow. He grinned and readied to tease her.

  “I did not trip!” Kat said indignantly. “I ran into something.” She looked around after Ahnvil had helped her to her feet. The snow was swished all around from her flailing, but as she looked she realized there was a set of footprints leading right up to where she was and then as much disturbed snow as there was on her side.

  “That’s … strange …?” she said questioningly, as if looking for verification. “It looks like I ran into someone, but there’s no one there.”

  “Kat lass, there’s nothing but unblemished snow all around us. No one has been through here but us.”

  “No! Look! See the footprints?”

  “I doona see any footprints,” he argued with her.

  “They’re right there!” She pointed at them.

  “Kat …”

  “Wait.” She cooled her temper and tried to think. For some reason, a reason she would never know, she took off her glove, leaned forward and slowly pressed her hand into a spot of new snow. It left behind a perfect handprint.

  To her shock after a moment a second handprint appeared right next to it, pressed there by a seemingly invisible hand.

  “Holy shit! Tell me you don’t see that!” She pointed. “That handprint.”

  “Of course, I do. You just made it.”

  “No, I mean the one right next to it!”

  “Kat, there’s only one—” He cut himself off, looking at her like she’d lost her mind as she ignored him and slowly drew a heart in the snow. A second heart appeared right next to it and then a name.

  Bella.

  “Whoa. It’s a ghost,” she breathed. Any other day, any day before having met a Gargoyle, she would never have believed any such thing. But this wasn’t any other day.

  “I still doona see anything.”

  “Well, I can!” Bella said belligerently to her husband. Then she gasped as a name began to appear in the snow.

  Kat.

  “Look, her name is Kat!”

  “Bella—”

  “Oh, hush up!” she said irritably. “Let me think! This means something. It has to mean something. It means something, too, that I can see it but you can’t! Okay, so her name, and I’m assuming it’s a her, is Kat.” She then proceeded to have what looked like, from his perspective, a completely one-sided conversation with herself in the snow. She asked questions like Who are you? Are you dead? Why can’t I see you?

  “She doesn’t know she’s dead or something,” Kat said, nibbling one of her chapped lips.

  “Kat. ’Tis cold and time is wearing on,” he said gently.

  “I know. I’m sorry. I just want to try one more thing. Where are we going?”

  “For now? Walmart,” he said dryly.

  “Right. Okay. That’s too long. It’s goi
ng to take us forever. I was thinking if the plows come through by the time we get to town then we could get a car somehow and drive the rest of the way there. The main roads might be better than the side roads … plowed sooner anyway. So let’s see if she can make it off the property.”

  She looked around. “Aha!” Then she wrote, “Meet me at the willow tree.”

  The willow was about fifty yards away on the other side of the road. Then she immediately began to hurry away, her companion tagging along behind her. As she ran she could see a second set of footprints running along beside her, though at a careful distance. After all, they didn’t want to run into each other again. The first time had hurt bad enough.

  Sure enough the ghost made it off the property just fine. They began to write back and forth again furiously.

  “Are you a ghost?”

  “Are you a ghost?” she responded in reply.

  “Hmm. Odd.”

  “Kat, I’m freezing my bollocks off.”

  “Right! Sorry. Let’s have them meet us at Walmart. It’ll take us another couple of hours to get into town and if the roads are better … I’d say tomorrow night? Maybe around nine p.m.?”

  “Yes, but where? And what if we’re late?”

  “Do you have any paper? Let’s see if she can read from a note.”

  He looked at himself and his nearly nude state and then back at her as if she’d lost her ever-lovin’ mind.

  “Oh! Right. Okay, so no paper. But they’ll have paper there if we can get there.”

  Will leave a note at River Ridge Walmart entrance. Right-hand side.

  “Those entrances are huge. Inside or outside?” Ahnvil asked.

  “Oh right!”

  All the way inside immediate right. 9 p.m. tomorrow night.

  Okay! The ghost replied.

  “Wow! Let’s go! I want to see if she can make it and if she can find the note. This is so cool!”

  Suddenly the woman who had been dragging her feet the whole way was delighted and eager to be going. She whooped out, the sound echoing in the night, as she hurried her way down the mountain. Good thing, too, because Ahnvil couldn’t feel a damn thing from the waist down.

  It was nearly dawn by the time they got into town. There wasn’t a plow in sight. Her disappointment was legendary.

  “Doona worry, Kat. We’ll make it there come time for her to get the note. Let’s find a place to warm up.”

  “There’s a motel.” She eyed him up and down. “I’ll get the key. You can wait and I’ll let you in the room.”

  By the time he got into the room with her he thought he’d rather be dead. He was so cold he could hardly move and his feet were torn up and bloody, a fact he was going to have a hard time hiding from her once they were in close quarters again. He could only hope that lack of electricity would work in his favor.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said under his breath once he had excused himself to go into the bathroom. He was hunched over into himself, leaning back against the door. There was nothing for it. There was only one way he could think of to get warm the way he needed to get warm fast. And since sex wasn’t likely to be the best idea in her opinion, he would have to settle for less. He took the time to wash his feet in cold water—cold water, which felt a damn sight warmer than his feet right then. He changed his flimsy towel for a clean, dry one then hurried out of the restroom.

  “Oh good!” She went to hurry past him. “I snuck Karma in. Took me a few minutes to pull the hunks of snow out of her fur, but she’s good now. I’m going to use some towels to dry her. And I have to pee fiercely bad. Needed to for hours but, you know, baring my ass in the cold was so not in the cards. I was—Hey! What is this?”

  She came out of the bathroom holding up the bloody towel he’d used for his feet. “Is your wound bleeding again?” she demanded, running over to him, but he grabbed her hands and kept her from raising it.

  “ ’Tis nothing. Now hurry up and get into bed wi’ me. We need tae conserve what li’le warmth we have left.”

  “In bed with … oh.” Clearly she hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Maybe we should get separate—”

  “No,” he said, hard and short. “ ’Tis no time for you to be quailing about. You’ll sleep wi’ me.”

  And that apparently was the end to it. And, gratefully enough, worrying about getting into bed with him was enough to keep her from remembering the blood on the towels. Not willing to press his luck he made sure all the drapes were as tightly closed as possible and then shivered his way into the cold bed. When she was done drying the dog off as best she could she shucked off her snow pants, and climbed gingerly beneath the covers as well. Then before he could reach for her and drag her up against him she whistled for Karma and the big dog lumbered up into the bed and, bless her heart, crawled right up between them.

  “Och, lass, a Newfoundland chaperone?”

  “Yup,” she said grinning at him through the dark. “Plus, she’ll keep us warm.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. It was probably for the best, he thought. He really needed to keep his distance from her. He was no good for her. Despite his cravings otherwise, she would be better off the sooner she got him out of her life.

  But hours later as he lay there in excruciating pain listening to her snore, he couldn’t keep track of that fact.

  He whistled and snapped his fingers beside the bed. Karma obediently perked up and after a minute lumbered down off the bed. Clearly she was used to the big animal moving in and out of the bed because Kat didn’t so much as flicker an eyelash at the departure. Once he had gathered her up against himself, rolling her to the center of the bed, he patted the bed on the other side of her and called up Karma. Karma came back eagerly. Now she would be swaddled in warmth from back to front and he would have the feel of her to add even more pain to his already agonizing existence. Despite having warmed up a modicum, he was still feeling cold and his side and feet were on fire. The idea of putting on those snowshoes again was unbearable. As it was he would need to get boots when they finally made it to Walmart and he had no idea just how swollen he was going to end up being by then. It didn’t matter. As long as he got through to the next leg of their trip.

  Soon after his exhaustion caught up with him and he fell asleep.

  He wasn’t aware of when his stone skin began to ripple along his body in alternating waves.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  When Kat awoke it was to the feel of something hot and rough surrounding her. She started and the roughness immediately dissipated and melted into heated male sinew in an arm locked around her. As her movements stirred him, she twisted around to face him.

  “Were you just stone?” she asked.

  “Hmm? No, I …” Then he went very still, seeming to think about it and doing an internal check of some sort. Then his expression grew shuttered and shadowed. He pushed away from her, backing out of the bed until he hit the nearby wall on that side. “We better get going,” he said after a moment.

  “Wait a minute,” she said, scrambling after him. “You did! You did turn to stone. And you were lying to me weren’t you? You don’t have as much time as you led me to believe you did, do you?”

  “Leave me be,” he said darkly, moving to push past her.

  “That’s it!” she cried. “I’m right! You lied to me!”

  “Doona fash yourself, lass. Now let me by … unless, of course, you’d rather help me with the raging cockstand sleeping again’ you has given me. Maybe that’s the stone you were feeling?”

  “Oh!” She hauled off and smacked him on the shoulder … and she didn’t pull the punch. Not that it hurt him. And that was the problem. Nothing hurt him. Not his side, not his feet. Nothing. And that could only mean one thing. He’d turned to stone while he slept. Turning completely to stone state increased his healing time exponentially. “You are not going to try and use sex to scare me off. That’s what you’ve been doing, isn’t it? With the towels and now with this. Where was that blood from anyway, if
not your side?”

  “My feet. They were cut up something fierce.”

  “Were?” She immediately knelt down at his feet and began to inspect them. This time the groan he bit back proved he hadn’t just been using sex as a device to keep her at bay. Kat down on her knees before him while he was hard as nails erect sent desire clawing through him. He shook his head and tried to stay focused.

  She’s mad. Remember she’s mad, he thought to himself.

  “There’s nothing wrong wi—”

  She chose that moment to look up and with a gasp she realized his loosened towel was doing very little to hide the state of his body. In fact, she was so close to his erection that all she would have to do was rise up a little more on her knees and she’d be able to kiss him on it.

  No! No kissing! No thinking about kissing a large, hot, incredibly hard penis, she reminded herself fiercely.

  Nope. Not her. No, sir.

  “I warned you, lass,” he said, one of those shit-eating grins spreading wide across his face. “You doona wish for me to lie tae you? Well, I want your mouth on me fiercely bad an’ there’s no lie abou’ it.”

  Just speaking the words made his cock ache twice as hard with need. He would never have allowed it of course because she would deserve a lot of attention long before he could even think about her gracing him in such a way, but there was no curbing the hot flash of fantasy seeing her on her knees in front of him was riding hard on him. He could just imagine what the warmth of her wet mouth would feel like. The stroke of her tongue. The touch of her hand.

  “Jesus woman, stand up. You’re killing me.”

  Kat hastened to her feet and backed up a careful step.

  “Your feet are healed,” she said. She swallowed, clearly trying to pretend he wasn’t sporting the most stellar erection of his long long life.

  “When I turn stone it hastens healing,” he told her. The reminder that he’d lost control over himself did wonders for cooling his ardor. Still, ardor was becoming a constant state around her. “My side is near healed as well.”