by Karin Shah
Sofia met his gaze at that. “You did?”
Roan seemed to think for a minute. “He had his family to worry about.” His chest convulsed in a dry laugh. “I don’t know if I have family. If I did, they must not have looked for me very hard. Still, even now, if they showed up, there’s not much I wouldn’t do for them.”
The loneliness in the statement crawled into her chest and made a home. “I understand. My tia isn’t exactly warm, but my parents worked themselves to death when I was in elementary school, so she’s all I’ve got.”
The atmosphere suddenly seemed to press down on her shoulders. Her cheeks heated. She lifted the book to hide her face, feeling awkward.
Maybe he felt the same, because he ducked his head, allowing his hair to obscure his expression. “I think I’m tired now. You’d better go.”
Although, his tone wasn’t hostile, his words still cut. It was he who’d started the conversation, after all. She sighed and stood, oddly reluctant to leave. “Lu said you shouldn’t do much moving for at least a week. Maybe I can come back and read some more tomorrow?”
He pressed his lips together. To refuse? Damn, she was holding her breath. She released it.
Finally, he nodded. “I’d like that.”
Despite that sentiment, as she exited the trailer and navigated the steps to the ground, she couldn’t help but feel that it was a lie.
~ ~ ~
Roan examined the ceiling as the door clicked behind Sofia and punched himself repeatedly in the temple. “Stupid! You’re supposed to make her fall in love with you, not use her as a therapist.”
What had made him spill his guts? He was supposed to charm her, woo her, not expose the pathetic recesses of his soul.
Still, he couldn’t hold in a wide grin.
She’d come to him. God, her voice was husky and sweet. He could have listened to her read all day.
Her scent had preceded her into the bedroom. He’d had to adjust his legs under the sheet to hide the sweet ache it triggered in his groin. Damn, could he be any more ridiculous? After so many years of zero sexual response, in her presence he was as horny as a freshman in high school from nothing but her scent?
Mate. The word didn’t echo from his memory, but from the strange voice inside that was both him and other. From what the poster on the message board had said he supposed that other was his dragon.
Every moment he spent in her presence the explanation on the message board seemed more credible.
Of course, he would respond to her. She was his mate. His other half. Nothing could be more natural.
And what was there in her not to love? Though, he hadn’t known her long and part of that time he’d spent either purposefully or accidentally pushing her away, he saw plenty to admire.
She wasn’t just the sum of her lovely features, glossy brown skin, ebony curls, melted chocolate eyes, or lush curves. She cared. She made time to help everyone from the newest roustabout to the oldest ride operator. Hell, she’d braved his notorious temper to come and read to him.
He, who was so afraid of being rejected he was basically a professional asshole.
She was his mate. He caught sight of his bizarre features in the mirrored door of his closet. But was he hers?
It didn’t seem likely. Who could be attracted to something so hideous? Even he couldn’t bear to look at himself most days. How could he court her in this state?
He grabbed a tablet from his drawer and re-read the message thread, but there were no answers there. He had so many more questions for the mysterious That5W1tch2U, but he didn’t dare ask them on the forum. Too much information might lead enemies his way.
The screen had gone dark and his unnatural-looking eye reflected back at him from the shiny surface. Chimeras were shifters. They had several forms. Surely, they could change at will. So how was it that he was stuck in this mishmash?
A growl rolled through his trailer. His chest burned and throbbed. He didn’t just need Sofia to love him so that they could mate and he wouldn’t turn feral. He wanted her to love him because she saw things in him no one else did.
But what was there in him to love?
~ ~ ~
Thalia tossed her grimoire on the kitchen table and leafed through its pages as if she hadn’t studied it from binding to edge since childhood. The pages protested as she charged through them, turning the aged vellum with unnecessary force. Her insides knotted with worry.
“Hey, if one of the kids treated that so roughly, you’d take away their electronics.” Gideon popped open the microwave and extracted the mug of blood he’d been warming, then joined her at the table. He straddled a ladder-backed chair, dropped into the seat, and took a deep swallow of the crimson liquid.
She raked a hand through her tangled hair. “I know. It’s just, if the person I’m talking to is Caleb or Roan, they’re already stuck in between forms. We’re talking days here, not weeks.” She shoved the grimoire away from her body hard enough to send it almost off the other side of the wide table. “If I could only give him an email or phone number this could all be over, but the board isn’t secure.”
Gideon reached over and massaged her right shoulder, his large hand folding around the joint, brown fingers finding the tender upper chest muscles, palm rubbing the blade. “You’ll get to him in time.”
Too anxious to take comfort in his touch, she buried her head in her hands. “I wish I was as confident. I didn’t become the Witches’ Champion to be an executioner. I’d like to avoid having to put him down.”
Chapter 14
“Wow! I still can’t believe how good that looks.” Lu traced the air over his wound with her finger and wagged her head from her location near Roan’s bed.
Exhausted from a long night, mostly spent staring at the ceiling when his peace wasn’t torn with more heated dreams and wild nightmares, Roan yawned and glared at Lu. Her demand to check his injury had woken him.
She flipped the sheet back to cover his wound, which was now little more than a white scar. “If I could sell whatever it is that made you heal so fast, I’d be rich.”
He raised his eyebrows. “That’s probably what the asshole who did this”—he circled his finger in front of his face—“to me was thinking.”
Lu groaned. “All right, all right. Sorry.”
He waved away her apology. “How much longer do I have to pretend to be injured? I haven’t gone out for a run in two days. Without exercise, I can’t sleep and I’ve binged every show on Webpix.”
She shook her head. “I know you’re going stir crazy, but it’s only been two days. Tomorrow, you can fake a slow hobble to the mess tent, but for today, you’re still in lockdown. Ordinary people don’t go running after being stabbed. You should’ve been in the hospital.”
Roan rubbed the back of his head and encountered a mat. “Can I at least shower?”
She lifted a brow. “I don’t know, can you?”
“Don’t be a smartass.”
“Of course, you can shower. You could probably bench press a car.”
“The question is would a person who’d just been stabbed two days ago be able to shower?”
Lu clicked her tongue. “If they kept the bandage dry, yes.”
Roan let his head roll back and swung his feet off the mattress.
“Whoa!” She held her inked hands up. The eye of Horus stared at him from each palm. “Wait until I’m gone.”
She had reached his bedroom door when a knock thudded from the outside door. She wagged her eyebrows. “I wonder who that is?”
Sofia he hoped. She was the only person who made sense. His pulse rushed in his ears. He listened past the noise and heard the sound of her breathing through the aluminum and plastic of the wall.
He lapsed back onto his pillows and swallowed the
lump in his throat. She’d come back. He hadn’t scared her away.
His limbs and torso felt buoyant at the thought.
Lu grimaced and chucked a brush his way. “At least comb that rat’s nest, lover boy.”
He quickly ran the bristles through his long hair, wincing as knots were torn free and stashed the brush on his bed table.
Lu greeted Sofia as the fire eater opened the door, and her feet crunched on the gravel seconds after his mate appeared in the doorway.
Air turned greasy all of a sudden and refused to let his lungs fill. “Hi.” Damn, he sounded like a ten-year-old boy meeting a supermodel.
Her movements had been tentative, as if a harsh word would send her flitting away, but she smiled at his reception, dimples forming in both cheeks. “I thought you might like to hear some more of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.”
Charm her, he could almost hear Lu urge. He groped for something witty to say, but came up empty. “Yeah. That would be great.”
She disappeared and returned with his folding kitchen stool. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine.” He scowled at himself. You’re supposed to be injured, idiot. “I mean pretty good considering, you know, being stabbed.”
She frowned. Damn, she thought she’d caused his anger.
He stretched out a hand, though he couldn’t reach her from the bed. “I’m sure hearing your voice will make me feel better.”
A fleeting half smile twisted her lips.
Great. Now, he was overdoing it. Smarmy, much? Anything he scrambled to add would come off weird or desperate, so he gestured to the stool. “Um, please.”
She swept a hand under her bottom to keep her light brown cotton skirt from bunching as she sat. The movement tipped her body forward and her pretty pink blouse showed a hint of the graceful valley between her breasts. The silky rounded tops pressed into the opening for a second and receded when she settled onto the stool.
His cock stirred. He tore his gaze away. God, he was pathetic. He hurriedly lifted his knees to hide the evidence.
She opened the page to a tasseled bookmark and her rich, husky voice picked up the story where they’d left off.
Since his sleep had been shitty, her voice soon lulled him into a sort of stupor. He could hardly follow the exploits of the four Pevensie children in snowy Narnia.
She didn’t attempt voices, but she read dramatically, grinning, her eyes sparkling when something good happened and her face clouding when events took a turn for the worse.
His heart twisted.
Damn, this was useless. Her presence was an addictive drug. He would only fall harder the longer he was exposed.
Whereas, for her, extended exposure would only lay bare his awkward, surly nature. It was all good and well for a stranger on a message board to tell him Sofia could save him, it was another thing altogether to make it happen. Further, did he even deserve her?
He had nothing to offer. All he had to his name were a trailer and a truck that didn’t even really belong to him, and with no papers, no path to advance beyond this barebones life.
Lost in his despair, he blinked when Sofia closed the book and cleared her throat. He glanced at his phone on the side table. Two hours had passed.
She must be dying of thirst. Without thinking, he slid to the edge of the bed.
“What are you doing?”
Her voice rang with alarm and he whipped his head up to stare at her. “You sound parched. I was going to get you a drink.”
She stood and gripped his bare shoulders to guide him to his former position. “Don’t be silly. I can get my own drink.” Her touch sparked like wet skin on a battery and the sensation zinged straight to his cock again. This time was even worse because she was near enough to surround him with her body heat and heady scent.
She flinched, yanking her fingers away as if burned. Had she felt what he did? Or was she disgusted from touching something as bizarre looking as he?
Her hands curled. She dropped them to her sides. “Uh, wait here.”
She wasn’t leaving? The knot in his stomach untangled. If contact with him had disgusted her, she would leave. Right?
He blew out a sigh and re-adjusted himself on the bed.
The tap ran and a moment later, Sofia came back. She had glasses in both hands. “I thought you might be thirsty too.”
She handed him his glass and perched on the stool to sip hers. “I guess I should get going.”
“Stay.” The word seemed to form in the air on its own. He glanced away and rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean, if you have time.”
~ ~ ~
Sofia chugged her water to give herself a second to think. Her palms still tingled from their contact with his bare shoulders. If she concentrated, the firm curve of his muscles and velvety feel of his skin lingered in her senses.
Shit. She had to restrain the urge to fan herself. She should go, if only because of how much she wanted to stay. Feeding her crush was stupid, especially since he’d never given her any indication he returned her feelings.
How many times had he very obviously avoided her?
But this time he asked you to stay, a little voice reminded her. Because he’s been holed up in here mostly alone for almost three days. He’s got cabin fever. He’d probably be happy to see Sven.
Well, maybe not Sven.
Roan placed his glass on the bedside table. She’d gotten them both the same size container, but God it seemed so much smaller in his big hand.
How would his fingers feel on her?
She watched his hand retract. The drawn scales on his long fingers gleamed gold, red, green, teal, blue, purple in the light. Oops, she’d been silent for an unusual length of time.
She took another gulp of water. “I should probably check on the three stooges who caused all this,” she said, but her feet didn’t act on the statement.
Roan shook his head. “Don’t blame them. Some of these people live in fear and pain, and anger is the only way they can express it.
His words were extremely perceptive. She screwed up her brows. “Wow. I can’t believe you can be so empathetic and insightful after what they did. Are you sure you belong in a carnival?”
Roan made a noise she couldn’t interpret. “Where else can I go looking like this?”
Sofia knew part of Roan’s story from Tia. “You don’t know who did it or why?”
Roan swallowed and glanced out the high, wide window, his irises glowing in the reflected light as if lit from within. “No. I just woke up like this with no memory.”
Fury boiled suddenly in her chest. To have your appearance modified without your consent was akin to a rape.
He seemed to sense her anger. “I’ve gotten used to it.”
A lie, some inner voice insisted, but he clearly wanted to change the subject.
She should leave. He needed his rest to recover, but still she couldn’t make herself stand.
Silence edged into the space between them, not a particularly uncomfortable one, but still a gap she felt compelled to fill.
“Ah.” She tugged at a curl on her shoulder and released it, allowing it to spring back into a ring. “I don’t think I ever thanked you for what you did.”
He opened and closed his mouth, then cleared his throat. “I assumed you thought I should have let you handle it yourself, like with Sven.”
A dry, humorless chuckle escaped her. “I should have been firmer with Sven. Everyone was having such a good time. I didn’t want to be a killjoy. I’m not usually shy about making a scene when guys get out of control. Not that it’s an everyday problem. I’m more used to men running away.” That had been a joke, but Did you seriously think I’d date a fat girl? buzzed through her head.
Roan’s gaze latched
onto hers. “If that’s true, there’s a lot of stupid assholes out there.”
The tone of his voice and expression in his eyes said he was sincere, and she found that curl again, threading it through her fingers. Her cheeks warmed. Am I blushing? “Thanks.”
He’d propped himself on his elbows as if to emphasize his words, and he relaxed against the pillows. The light from the window caressed his cheekbones and gilded the peaks it landed on. The black strands of his hair gleamed against the white of the pillowcase.
It was hard to imagine that only a few weeks ago he’d appeared so alien to her eyes that she’d been afraid. She ducked her head. Could you stare more, idiot?
She finally found the will to move her feet. “I guess I’d better let you rest.”
It took her a moment to identify the rusty noise he made as a laugh. “I’m sick to death of resting. Believe me I’d much rather chat with a beautiful woman than sleep.”
Normally she’d brush off praise like that, assuming it only flattery, but the anti-social Roan wasn’t practiced like Guy. If he said it, he probably meant it.
A bud of pleasure unfurled in her chest. “If you’re sure?”
Chapter 15
“. . . thing. Having to spend time with that ugly bastard.”
Sofia overheard the words while meandering on the path to the pair of inexpensive white canopies they were using as a mess tent since they’d left the bigger, sturdier one with the carnival side.
Her gaze had been fixed on the glorious pink and purple sunset over the trees, but her thoughts were on her afternoon with Roan. They’d talked about everything from current events to politics and though he had no formal education past high school, she felt as if the conversation had both challenged and nourished her.
The harsh words drifting to her from the two canopies wiped the smile from her face.
