I put a pillow over my head.
I woke to the light gone orange-gray through the curtains and the sound of voices outside. I lay still and listened. There were male voices, two of them.
“—wrong count, I’m telling you, there should be?—”
“Will you shut up, he said after nine?—”
“—going to notice when it’s short?—”
A door opened and closed somewhere down the walkway and the voices cut off.
I sighed, still staring at the ceiling. There must be some drug deal going on. This wasn’t the classiest of joints, after all. Part of me wondered if I should seek the dealer guy out and buy something to take the edge off of… whatever bullshit this last week had been.
Reaching for my phone on the nightstand, I checked the time and noticed the battery was at twelve percent. I plugged it into the wall with a cable and charger I found in Dana’s bag, the only useful thing I’d thought to grab on my way out, and then laid my head back on the pillow.
As I drifted off, I found myself wondering how long it would be until Silas found me and fucked me into shameful surrender again.
* * *
The knock woke me out of a dead sleep.
I surfaced from slumber all at once. No groggy transition, just one moment I was under and the next I was sitting up in the dark with my heart already running ahead of my thoughts.
I sat still for a moment and listened.
The knock came again, three times, urgent.
I got off the bed and crossed to the door and looked through the peephole.
Silas stood in the orange wash of the parking lot security light. He was dressed the way I’d left him, jeans and flannel, his dark hair loose around his jaw. His hands were in his pockets. He looked perfectly calm, which was somehow more disarming than it should be.
Shit. He was surely pissed.
I leaned my forehead against the door and watched him through the peephole for a long moment. He didn’t knock again. He just stood there with his hands in his pockets and waited.
Reluctantly, I unlocked the deadbolt, undid the chain, and opened the door.
He stood in the parking lot light and looked at me, and I looked back, and for one full second neither of us said anything. Then I stepped aside and let him in.
“I know,” I said, before he could open his mouth. “I know, I know, I know. It’s been a day, okay.”
He walked past me into the room and then stopped as if to survey his surroundings. I watched his shoulders move with each slow, deep breath.
Then I felt it.
Not a thought. A chill that started at the base of my skull and ran all the way down my spine. My stomach didn’t clench, it tumbled, as if the floor had been yanked from under it.
The smell hit me half a second after the feeling. Charred sage. I’d almost missed it under the room’s existing odor of dusty carpet and cigarette smoke.
I was still standing by the open door.
Don’t move. Don’t let it know. If you run it will catch you.
Closing the door softly, I turned to face the monster wearing the face of my mate. Did this mean Silas was dead? That thought hurt far more deeply than I would have expected, but somehow in a way that I couldn’t explain I knew he still lived and I just had to survive until he rescued me.
Or kick this thing’s ass myself and then see if the overgrown mutt dared spank me again…
“You came for me,” I said, keeping my voice soft, almost shy.
