I forced myself to leave him to shower alone. My ogling his magnificent body was not something I wanted to be caught doing.
Something wasn’t right with him. I’d seem him struggling with his control several times now. He was constantly on the verge of shifting, snarling and growling all the time, and now suddenly my scent wasn’t offensive anymore?
I sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed my hands over my face. This had to mean something, right? Luci said the scent thing was a safety measure to keep us apart. To keep Lothar away from me.
If I didn’t smell bad to him anymore, did that mean…
A vicious snarl came from the bathroom. I jumped up, ran across the room and flew into the bathroom.
Holy fuck.
Lothar was in the throes of a fight, as what looked like the wall attacked him. The hard marble had sprouted arms and a face, and spindly arms were wrapped around Lothar from behind, hanging on desperately, while whatever it was said lewd things about me in a strange, distorted voice. Lothar jerked forward, and more of the face was revealed.
Holy fuck, it was Grimmel.
Drake’s loyal sidekick lashed out his tongue and ran it up the side of Lothar’s neck. “Be a good boy and give her to me,” he said to Lothar. “I’ll take good care of her.”
So focused on Lothar, he hadn’t even seen or heard me enter the room. Lothar reached back, fisted Grimmel’s hair, grabbed one of his arms, and with a vicious snarl tossed him across the room. Grimmel hit the wall, then landed on his back. He lay there panting, his skin still a deep green, the color of the wall. His dark eyes were locked on Lothar. His bony body naked and misshapen. His gaze finally sliced to me, and he hissed like a wild cat.
“What the fuck, Grimmel?”
His creepy gaze burned into me, then sliced back to Lothar. “I want her, you can’t have her,” he chanted in that strange singsong voice. Then he lurched forward a little and hissed again. “You can’t have her. She’s mine.”
“The fuck she is,” Lothar snarled.
With another hiss, we watched in horror as Grimmel’s arms and legs cracked and bent at weird angles, and his skin returned to its original shade of sickly white. He stopped contorting when he resembled a fleshy spider, then scuttled across the room.
Snapping out of my shock, I snatched a blade from the sheath at my hip and tossed it. It was too late, though, and the blade sunk into the wall where Grimmel had run right into, then disappeared.
“Motherfucker,” Lothar snarled and stormed out of the shower. “I’m going to kill him, and fucking Drake as well.”
Lothar was right about one thing. No more waiting. Drake’s time was up. Still, none of what just happened made any sense. Why would Grimmel do that? If he was attracted to me, he had to know what he just did was pointless. There was no way he could overpower Lothar and take me.
“This is some kind of setup,” I said as we strode out into the hall. “You were possessive over me at dinner and they’re counting on you losing it and going after Grimmel.”
“Agreed,” Lothar said reluctantly and obviously still furious. “But if we stay where we are, we’re sitting ducks. This house is messed up, dangerous. We need to get the hell out of here, but then we’ll be walking into their trap.”
He was right about that as well. “We’ll just have to be prepared for anything.” Lothar nodded, and we grabbed our bags and rushed from the room. “Be careful,” I said as we jogged along the hall.
The floor jerked beneath my feet, and I was suddenly standing in front of a wall, the new configuration forcing us to turn a corner.
“How’s Drake doing that?” Lothar bit out.
“He’s powerful. He has to be to rule over his own realm, but I’ve never seen him do anything like this. His powers have to be connected to this house somehow.”
Lothar grunted his agreement.
It happened again, and again, in quick succession, the walls shifting, the house configuration changing.
“He could have us running around in circles for eternity if he wanted. I’m starting to think this house is not just a house, that it’s more a realm?—”
“Within a realm,” I finished.
Shit. He was right.
The ground beneath our feet jerked to the side again, and I almost collided with another wall. I sidestepped it and turned, heading down the next hallway, this one dark, eerie. None of them looked the same—different flooring, wallpaper, furniture, paintings. There were no doors off any of them, just long, shadowed corridors, one after the other, appearing in front of us, the floor shifting beneath our feet as we were sent down yet another, then another.
I glanced at Lothar. “He’s forcing us to go where he wants.”
