With Jessie in his arms, the alpha turned without a word, heading toward Agnes’s house and a forgetting potion.
Seventeen
As early afternoon set in, I looked across the well-organized attic, with its dressers, trunks, and boxes. All the random silver spikes that had littered the floor in my youth were gone, the floor bare and swept. The medieval arsenal was still around, though. The silver-tipped spears, crossbows, mace, and war hammer had been hung on the wall in neat rows, easy for grabbing. They even had names stenciled above them. “Jake,” the battle axe, was in great shape, but “Ron,” the bludgeon, had seen some trauma in the past based on the marks scarring its wood.
Mr. Tom had done this, I knew. No one else would skip labeling an item in favor of naming it like a friend. The guy was well and truly cracked.
This morning I’d woken up to him looming over me again, but this time his expression had seemed particularly anxious.
“How’d you sleep, miss?” he’d asked, leaning forward to peer into my eyes.
I’d tried to wave him away, disoriented from waking up, and he’d jerked back with a screech, clapping his hands over his face as if I’d attempted to gouge out his eyes.
Delicate orbs intact, he’d then commenced chattering about the evening, how excellent my running must’ve been because of how tired I’d been upon returning home. How I’d drowsed through a late supper…
Scrunching my nose, I walked across the attic to the dresser, something that looked like a wooden tool chest.
Truth be told, the second half of running was mostly a blur. I remembered walking past the hotel and looking in, but after that everything was a big black hole until dinner. I’d obviously walked home in some kind of an exhausted daze, but it was hard to forget dinner.
It had been some sort of soup with way too many herbs and spices. It had tasted almost medicinal. But it had also cleared away some of the fatigue, and Mr. Tom had been staring at me like he really wanted me to finish it all, so I’d sucked it down. I definitely needed to start cooking for myself.
The small drawer at the top of the dresser contained a collection of pins. Long and thin, short and fat—some were polished to a high shine, and some looked like they had lived in the ground for years. None of them had a loop at the top for thread, so they couldn’t be sewing needles, though I had no idea what they might be used for. Darts? Voodoo pins?
“Weird,” I said, opening the next drawer. “Ah. Here they are.”
The silver garden spikes looked exactly like I remembered. None of them were remotely tarnished. In fact, they reflected more light than should have been possible from the bare bulb above my head and the small round window at the end of the room.
I scratched one, feeling the softness of the metal. Then frowned. They certainly seemed like silver, though why someone would have purchased silver garden spikes, I had no idea. The expense must have been ludicrous. And while Mr. Tom certainly would’ve done something weird like polish up a bunch of garden spikes, they’d looked just like this—bright and shiny—thirty years ago. At that point, the house had been shut up for a long time. No one would’ve been polishing them then.
A strange pressure settled over me, interrupting my thoughts. Cocking my head, I tried to analyze the feeling. It felt like a presence had entered my space. Someone I knew, but not overly well. Was I okay with this person being in my house?
I looked around in confusion. What the hell was going on here?
My house? A presence entering? Either my sixth sense had gone into overdrive in this place or I was cracking up and would end up like Mr. Tom.
Oh God, I hoped I wasn’t cracking up. I didn’t really want to end up like Mr. Tom. Or any of them, for that matter.
Either way, the pressure increased and tingles worked up my spine. A warning, of sorts. The not-quite-a-stranger was coming. His or her level of welcome was, as of yet, undecided.
I took out a spike on impulse. Just in case I wasn’t cracking up, I wanted to be prepared.
Austin’s big frame grew in the doorway as he climbed the steps, his expression curious and his eyes wary. Once he filled the frame, he stopped, seeing me. His gaze dipped to the spike in my hand. Fear, rage, and an indescribable emotion sparkled in those cobalt blue eyes.
He tensed, his muscles popping out like a surprise party. His shoulders drew my attention, wide and powerful and nearly spanning the door frame. His stare, vicious and primal, froze my blood. I wasn’t usually the type of person who’d freeze in a flight-or-fight moment. Typically, I would run. Or fight.
But I’d never encountered a look like that. A man like that, oozing ferocious power and strength and sporting a crap-load of working muscle. He’d catch me if I ran, and then he’d snap me in half. He’d pound me into dust.
I could barely swallow from fear.
Without warning, the door swung shut in his face.
I jumped, and the spike in my hand clattered to the floor.
My heart pounded in my ears and I took a deep breath in the ensuing silence. Holy crap, Austin Steele was scary when he wanted to be.
The question was, why had he wanted to be?
Had he wanted to be?
A soft knock sounded at the door.
“Who is it?” I asked lamely.
“It’s Austin. Still. Why were you holding a silver spike?”
The breath gushed out of my lungs and I shook my head, wondering at my reaction. Wondering how he’d managed to so thoroughly freak me out when he hadn’t even taken a step toward me. Hadn’t uttered a word. All he’d done was look at me.
And now he was knocking and politely asking about the psycho holding a polished garden spike in a room displaying weapons marked with friendly names.
Maybe I was the scary one in this equation, not him. He probably thought I was like the others who lived around this place.
I crossed the distance and opened the door. His eyes still wary, he checked my empty hands for the weapon.
“I was holding it because I was trying to figure out if it was actually silver,” I said. Because I didn’t really want to look at him, I glanced behind the door and put up a hand, feeling for a breeze. “Why’d that door shut, I wonder?”
“That’s not what it looked like you were doing.”
When I moved on, he inspected the area around the door as well. Then tested its swinging ability.
“What did it look like?” I picked up the spike, poking it with a fingernail.
“You had warrior eyes.”
I crinkled my nose at him. “Warrior eyes?”
He scanned the wall of weapons, his hands clasped behind his back. His mood had shifted. Darkened, like it had fallen down a well, and was now worried about a basket of lotion and a hose. This room was apparently playing hell on his nerves.
“Yes. Warrior eyes. Like you were about to take that spike and charge into battle.”
“Ah.” I watched his broad back as he worked his way across the wall of friends, as Mr. Tom probably thought of them. “And that made you nervous?”
“Yes, actually. Very.”
“Because someone of my age and size and inexperience could take someone like you?”
“Age is only a number, Jess. Don’t let it define you. You are only as old as you feel.”
“So somedays eighty, and somedays eighteen.”
When he glanced back, his smile was faint. “Exactly. Size can be worked around, too. With training, even the smallest of us can be potent warriors.”
“Like Jet Li.”
“Exactly. Or Cynthia Rothrock, who could probably still ring my bell in her golden years. The point is, our only limitations are those we set for ourselves.”
“Ah, but you haven’t commented on whether someone like me could take someone like you.” I lifted my eyebrows at him, returning the spike to its drawer and opening the drawer under it.
“I didn’t want to ruin your day,” he replied and laughed. “Listen, I was wondering if you wanted to go wine tasting with me? I need an expert palate.”
What he’d said to Mr. Tom yesterday floated into my memory. He wanted me to fail. He wanted to sidetrack me.
My mood fell down the well with his.
“I don’t have one of those,” I replied, staying civil. “You can just ask the pourers. They are all too happy to talk about their wines. It’s their job.”
“Yes, but I was…” The words drifted away from him as he got closer, catching sight of the organized daggers in the large middle drawer. Jewels of all colors and sizes adorned the golden hilts. The blades looked like serrated steel or silver.
“This is why I was checking out that spike. I mean…” I picked up one of the weapons that looked like it had a silver blade, perfectly polished. “This really does look like silver.”
“May I?” Austin put out his hand, his eyes tight again, as though this were a trust exercise.
“What do you think, I would randomly stab someone just because I have a knife in my hand?” I handed it to him, hilt first. “I live here now, yes, but I’m not unhinged like a couple of the other inhabitants.” I picked up another dagger with a darker metal blade. “In fact, I don’t even know where Edgar stays. I assume on the grounds somewhere because I have been in, or looked in, every room in this house and he is not in any of them. All but two—Mr. Tom’s and mine—are unoccupied.”