“Your head was hit pretty badly.”
“I’m sure you rubbed whatever super-mushroom you used on my head as well.”
“Okay. Fine.” She pressed her hands against his chest. “If you can push against me and get up, I’ll let you use the toilet.”
He smiled grimly. It was clear that he was none too pleased that she was requiring the test, but he needed to stay prone for another day, at the very least.
If she could supply energy to heal, she could take it away without it adversely affecting her.Let’s see if you still remember how to do this.
Of course, he’d know for sure after this that she wasn’t normal. However, it was far better if he viewed her gifts negatively instead of positively. If her reputation as the creepy witch of the woods suffered, she’d have no protection.
Her hand heated, recapturing the little boost she’d offered him earlier.
When he pushed up against her, she had no trouble pressing back. Apparently, she’d given him even more than she realized. His body flinched and he collapsed against the mattress. Tiny beads of sweat popped out on his brow. He grimaced in pain. “What the fuck?”
She kept her hands on his chest and opened the door in her mind, pouring the fission of energy back into his body. The pain receded from his expression. Despite the way her head spun from the back and forth, it couldn’t have happened fast enough for her. There had been no joy in delivering that hurt to him.
It took her a couple of minutes to compose herself before she could look him in the eye. The anger was expected, a strong man’s response to having his pride compromised, but the shadow of fear just about punched her soul. “What are you?”
Her body stilled. Each beat of her heart sounded like cymbals crashing in her head. What, not who. Damn him to hell.
She was what they had made her. Him and his cronies.
Not him,reason interjected.Anyway, you should be happy. This is what you wanted.
Whatever. She allowed a mask of indifference to slip over her features. “I’m the little girl who just pinned a big bad cop to the bed. Looks like you’ll be using a bedpan.”
“Genevieve…”
She didn’t want to hear him. If it wouldn’t have looked childish, she would have pressed her hands over her ears and hummed.
Instead, she went through the back door to the room that had been added on to her home. The large closet in there held the nursing supplies her mother had been forced to use at the end of her life. She fetched what she needed and returned to Alex. “Look at that, it’s pink too. Bet you’ll love that.” She placed the pan next to him and did her best to walk casually to the front door. “Have fun.”
“Wait, where are you going?”
She jammed her feet into a pair of boots and swung her coat off the coatrack. “Sorry. I’ve got other bodies depending on me too. See you later.”
“Genevieve! Genevieve, damn it, get back—”
The snick of her door cut off his tirade. A grim smile crossed her face as she envisioned him swearing at the door and then struggling to use the bedpan on his own.
What, indeed.
5
Genevieve expectedto return to a barrage of insults and a bed full of angry male. Instead, Alex was dead asleep. He didn’t even stir when she crept close to take care of his bedpan. Nursing her mother for as long as she had, the chore was just that to her, a chore.
She was still irritated with the guy, but her outrage had burned off as she stomped in the snow outside. To be fair, she had wanted him to look at her like that—she’d deliberately done something which would take his pride away and instill fear. He’d be wary of her now, keep his distance. No more of that bantering and flirtation.
Alex needed his rest so badly. She slipped out to the back room. It had been fashioned as a sunroom with a large closet on one end and a small bathroom at the other. A huge bag filled with her crafts took up one end of the beaten-up couch. She settled into the cushions and removed a half-finished blanket. She entered her crafting Zen mode. The silence in the small cabin was broken only by the sounds of the house settling, the wind rustling and the click of her needles. From her position, she watched the afternoon slip away, the darkness of night overtaking the darkness of a snowy afternoon. She snapped on the small lamp next to her.
When the sky had become pitch black, the falling snowflakes only visible thanks to the light from inside, Genevieve heard a slight stirring coming from within the main cabin. She laid down the thick blanket and made her way inside.
Sure enough, Alex was struggling to sit up. Just as she was about to help him, he managed to haul himself up on the pile of pillows. When he noticed her, his gaze was still a bit blurry. With the short strands of his hair sticking up and the stubble on his jaw, he should have looked crazy, not sexy. She waited for him to stare at her in horror, or call for her to be burned at the stake. Instead, he rubbed his hand over his face. “Did I fall asleep?”
“For most of the day.” She waited. Now. Now he would start looking for a pitchfork.
He shook his head. “I didn’t mean to. Is it still snowing?”
