It’s hard. So fucking hard not to pull her back in and keep her right where I want her, where I need her. But one more second and I’m going to fucking shift. I’ve reached the brink of self-control.
Noah leans after me, her subconscious telling me that she hates the distance I just put between us. I hate it too, but it’s necessary. I’ve pushed her enough for now. She needs to decide what she wants and bridge the gap between us when she’s ready. And I’ll be right here waiting when she does.
20
NOAH
Perth, Karen, and I crowd into the hotel elevator, my arms weighed down by bags that Astrid and Trista insisted are essentials for my new life. I insisted that I have clothes and shoes that I’ll hopefully recover when we find my car, but the witches weren’t hearing it. Which is why Perth’s carrying a stack of boxes with shoes and boots, and Karen has several garment bags slung over her shoulder.
Meanwhile, I’m wearing a black long-sleeved thermal top and charcoal-colored jeans. It’s a Trista-inspired outfit completed by a pair of burgundy combat boots that Astrid contributed.
My hands tingle, and I try to convince myself that it’s from carrying the overstuffed bags, but it’s not. The memory of Perth’s touch still whispers across my senses. Our dance flickers through my head in an endless loop. And his words…I know I’ll be holding those words close for the rest of my life.
I’ve always been a loner, a wanderer. A free spirit. Maybe I didn’t start that way, but it’s how I’ve defined myself for years—it was my best line of defense against the constant rejection and moving. If you can’t beat ’em, make it your whole personality.
Or so I thought, until I tumbled into this world where instincts hold a mirror in front of your face and force you to take a long hard look at everything you’ve been avoiding.
What do they want?
Deep down, what do I want?
I close my eyes as the elevator starts to rise, leaning back against the wall, and just feel the steady thud of my pulse.
Emotion streaks through me like a meteor shower. The first flash of feelings are quick pulses, too quick for me to catch what they mean. They warm my chest and are gone a split-second later. But then more appear. Bright, golden slashes dash behind my eyelids, strobing with desire and leaving sparkling trails of hope lingering behind them.
Shit.
He’s got me hoping again, craving the taste of something I thought I’d gotten over.
Startled, my eyes pop open, and I look down at my chest incredulously. I thought we had an understanding, and yet here my heart goes beating a little faster, scrambling my butterflies until they’re a fluttering frenzy, and making me feel all light and buoyant.
I think I want these men.
Part of me would like to keep pretending that’s not true, but what’s the point?
It would be so easy to fall into this den and let them catch me.
Maybe, just this once, I could try.
Swept up in my thoughts, I’m caught off guard by the ding of the elevator. I follow Karen and Perth out into the hall and then slam into a hard back. I open my mouth to apologize, but I quickly register that both Perth and Karen have become tense statues in the hallway, and instantly an alarm starts blaring in my head.
“What is it?” Karen asks in a low tone. She must have stopped because Perth did, and her eyes scan the hallway as though she expects something to come charging down it at any moment.
“It smells wrong,” he mutters so quietly I’m not sure Karen can hear him.
But then she nods and the two of them exchange a look before slowly putting their bags and boxes on the ground and straightening.
I inhale and I’m shocked when I can smell what he’s talking about too. It’s not a particular aroma that gives it away, but a strange lack of odor that raises the hair on my arms. The hallway typically smells like wood polish and the powder they put on the carpets before they vacuum them. Since I’ve taken up residence, I can always catch a hint of Ruger, Ellery, Perth, and even Gannon lingering in the corridor, but now it’s all gone. The air smells stale, old, and wrong.
Karen turns back to me, her heavily lined eyes more serious than I’ve ever seen them. Expression tight, she whispers, “Stay here. I don’t want you going down the elevator in case it’s a trap to get you alone.”
Fear drapes over me like a spiderweb, and I shiver under its gauzy veil. I nod.
Karen moves her gaze over to Perth. “Stay with her,” she orders. Then, she pulls a crystal from an inside pocket on her vest. The thin purple stone glows, lighting her face eerily. That’s when I glance at the window and realize that the world outside has gotten darker. Storm clouds have rolled in and shadows are pouring across the rooftops, coating the town in dusky gray tones.
Fuck you, universe. This doesn’t need to be scarier.
Karen holds out a hand, and it takes me a full second to realize she’s waiting for me to hand her the key card. My heartbeat is thudding so loudly in my ears that it makes it hard to think. When I hand it to her, she turns and moves stealthily down the hall, crystal poised just like a human officer would point a gun.
Perth presses a hand to the small of my back and pulls me closer. Worry rushes through me like river rapids, and my heart shudders inside my chest. My fingers curl into my palms, clutching the bags in my hands tighter as Karen stalks closer to the unknown.
“Ellery’s on his way,” Perth reassures me in my mind.
But the mindspeak thing is still so new to me that I startle where I stand and then immediately curse myself, wondering if I made a noise or gave us away somehow.
Karen reaches my door and I hold my breath.
Fuck, is the key card sliding into the lock going to give her away? Is she in danger? My tension and fear ramp up, but right alongside them is a burning hot surge of anger. It’s something I never would have felt as a human, but the heat of it quickly overtakes the other more frigid, more fragile feelings.
On my next exhale, a low sound erupts from my lips, the shadow of a growl.
Perth wraps his arm around my shoulders just as Karen pushes the door open. She freezes, for a second, glancing around the opening, and then she disappears inside.
The seconds tick by with agonizing slowness. Perth and I seem to breathe in unison as we hold silent vigil, tense, waiting, ready for anything. Nightmare visions dance in my head as I wonder what the fuck could be lurking in my room.
“All clear,” Karen calls out.
I startle again before heaving a massive sigh of relief that I can feel all the way down to my kneecaps.
Thank fuck.
“This shit is too damn stressful,” I mindspeak.
“You’re telling me,” Perth replies.
“You can come in,” Karen’s voice instructs from inside my room. Perth bends and gathers up the abandoned boxes and garment bags and then leads the way. But he stops mid-step in the doorway.
This time I avoid crashing into him, and I lean to the side to try and see what’s going on.
“Shit, what is it?” I ask, when all I see is Karen running her crystal around the windows in the room.
Perth steps to the side and lets me pass, and I instantly know what the problem is. Just like the hallway, the entire room is absent of any fragrance. It’s like it’s all been erased somehow. Nothing has a smell to it. Not the couch, not the sheets, not the curtains billowing in front of a window that’s been left cracked open.