He didn’t take the hint, which was the usual for Michael. While he was no longer in full cop-mode, speculation was still clear on his face. “What are you busy with?”
Why couldn’t her family be the type that avoided each other except the holidays? “Michael, quit treating me like a kid. I’m allowed to have a life and I don’t have to run every decision by you.”
“Who gave you that wrong information?” His eyes narrowed. “What are you hiding from me?”
A noise brought both of their gazes to the door of her bedroom.
Terak appeared in the doorway, the towel around his waist the only covering over his naked body.
Chapter Thirteen
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Warm honeysuckle drifted around him, tease and temptation. Just like her, sweet and comforting and sensual, she was able to ease his tension with a touch of her hand or have him hard and wanting with a glance of those eyes.
She had been delectable, her long legs bare and the sunlight exposing the multiple hues of blond in her hair.
A coppery tang worked its way past the honeysuckle. No, this should never touch her. It was his duty to protect her from necromancers, and from orcs…
Late afternoon sunlight filtered through his eyelids as he cracked them. Slow and steady, he forced his eyes open.
He was on a bed. Blue walls surrounded him, and on top of the furniture were feminine bottles and potions.
Larissa’s bedroom.
Images were creeping back, the fuzziness of sleep giving way to the clarity of memory. Orcs were often allies of the necromancers but they were not slaves. If they were there on behalf of the same masters as the zombies, the necromancers must have agreed to a very high price.
Also, they were able to pass the wards, a situation that was very different from the zombies getting into the city. Zombies were once human. It would take powerful magic to confuse the wards enough to let the zombies through, but it was not outside the abilities of a master necromancer.
Orcs, though – orcs should have been impossible.
If the wards were completely useless, Larissa was in greater danger than ever, and a new plan for her protection needed to be drawn up.
But what? She would not agree to stay at the keep until the danger had passed. Indeed, he used that very suggestion to sway her away from the Guild.
And that was if she was still willing to let him guard her, now that she knew…
She knew!
He jerked from the bed, his half-healed injuries tearing anew at the sudden movement.
She knew. No.
No.
Had any of his Clan appeared? No, no one was to be here until the middle of the night. None would have come and seen him… human.
On unsteady legs he went to the bathroom. In the mirror was undeniable evidence, the face that of a human male. Larissa knew that he could shift into a human form.
From their earliest history, there was only one absolute rule held by his race – if any outsider discovered that gargoyles could shift, the outsider was to be executed at once.
His clawless hands fisted against the white tile of the sink. He would be dead if she had not entered the battle. Instead of running for safety she had appeared to aid him in battle, as fierce as any goddess of war. She had taken him home, cared for him, nursed him. And he was to repay that with death?
No, no harm would ever come to his little human. She would never be hurt, even if he had to battle his own Clan for her life.
But the Clan’s secrets must be protected. How could he ensure that?
Rubbing his hand over his face, he pushed back from the mirror.
There was nothing to be done now. It was time for more practical considerations, and later, he would reflect more upon how to contain the situation.
He took off the bandages and stepped into the shower, the hot water getting the last of the blood from this day’s battle. There was very little that had been missed. Larissa had done well bathing him and tending to his wounds.
His hand stilled in washing his hair. He had been naked in that bed.
Larissa had stripped away his clothes. She had caressed his body with those soft little hands.
Did she like what she saw? What she felt?
His cock hardened, becoming as heavy and as stiff as the stone statues his kind resembled.
She would have been above him, leaning over him to tend to his wounds. She would have nibbled on her lower lip, as she often did when she concentrated, leaving it pink and swollen and glistening.
He palmed his cock, rubbing it with slow movements. Her little tongue would have come out to swipe over her lower lip after she had finished nibbling it, the way he wanted it to swipe over his body. He wanted her to peel the clothing from his body not because of injuries, but because she needed to know the taste and feel of him. She would get on her knees in front of him–
Voices.