It didn’t. It didn’t scare me one iota. It excited me in ways I probably shouldn’t have admitted.
He stopped pulling when my legs hung off the arm of the couch, and he was bent over in my face. I thought he was going to kiss me, but he didn’t. He smelled me.What the hell?
“I know you went across the hall,” he grumbled.
“Are you angry?” Surely he wasn’t upset about my little trickery.
“Not at all, but I couldn’t smell you in that room.”
“I barely went in,” I said from beneath him as he ran his nose over my hair and jaw, down my neck and back up the other side. “What are you doing?” I whispered, goosebumps and shivers wracking my body.
“I couldn’t smell you in that room!” he said. He wasn’t getting the same sensual feelings from smelling me as I was getting from the feel of his nose grazing my skin. “I can smell you a mile away. I can smell you in a sea of other people. But I couldn’t smell you in that room.”
“Well that’s weird,” I placated. “But, you probably overlooked the scent. But, if I could ask as you tower over me, why could you pick my scent out in a sea of people?”
He stood, pulling me up as he moved. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to overwhelm you. First of all, I’m concerned because I’m very good at tracking. Without being born with the gift, as some are, I was the best tracker we had in camp. Second, I could find you in a crowd by smell because I’m overwhelmingly attracted to you, and your scent is a big part of that.”
“Oh,” I said in a small voice. “Well, good. Because uh… back atcha.”
He laughed. “You’re not good at this are you?”
“Not even a little bit. So what’s the big deal about the scent?”
“I want to test it, but I think you may be a tracker.”
“How does tracking someone and hiding from someone without a smell mean the same thing?”
“A tracker is born, not taught. If you can do it, you can do it. They’re extremely rare. I’ve only ever known one before, and he was very old when I was very young.”
“How would you know if I am one?”
“Go hide somewhere out there. Stay on this floor. Hide as best you can. I’ll try to find you by scent alone. When I enter a room I’ll keep my eyes closed as much as possible, but make sure you aren’t visible.”
“And what am I supposed to do while I hide?”
“I have no idea. Think about hiding, I guess. The books say you’ll just be able to do it.”
I shrugged and left the room. I stepped against the far wall and put my hand against it.Hide, secret, don’t find me.I repeated that and pressed my body against the wall, moving toward the last door on the right. If my scent was masked, he wouldn’t smell me on the wall. If it wasn’t, he’d be able to track me quickly.
The far apartment was the one with three bedrooms. They were tiny, but at least they were there. The apartment hadn’t been furnished yet, so my only option was a closet. I sat down in the bottom of the tiny closet and shut the door. I barely fit.
I waited, and waited, and waited. After a while I counted.One, hide. Two, don’t find me. Three... When I reached five hundred, I gave up and crept out of the apartment. “Hello?”
“In the hall,” Doryu called.
He sat in the middle of the hall, still without a shirt. “You’re a tracker,” he said.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you can hide from anyone. If this world’s rules work like ours did, a spell won’t be able to track you either. We’ll have to test that first thing tomorrow. It’s great for hunting down people that need to be hunted.”
“How’s it going to do me any good if they can still see me? If I’m to have a special skill or power, at least make it a good one,” I said jokingly.
“Actually, as you practice and get better, you might be able to create a sense of illusion to make eyes pass over you. Not invisible, but ignorable.”
We went back into his apartment, but he never did put a shirt on, which was murder on my eyes, because I constantly had to force them tostop looking at his muscles.
“Do you play cards?” he asked. “I’ve learned several games, and I could teach you one from Galdiart.”
