It took her a moment to digest what he said. “Wha—how dare you! How was I supposed to know I’d meet you?”
“Exactly my point.”
She stared at him, her eyes narrowing, comprehending what he meant. “You mean you were planning on meeting me all this time? All this time? Ten fucking years?” There was something both romantically sweet and totally creepy about that.
“No, Jesus, that’s not what I meant.” He stood and paced, which in the small room meant two strides one direction, turn, and two strides back across to his bed. “That’s not what I meant at all.” He stopped and closed his eyes, as if trying to put his thoughts together.
“Taz, I didn’t deliberately set this up as some sort of diabolical plan to sleep with you. I keep telling you that, and I wish you’d believe me. I knew you would need to be near us for protection and training. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t attracted to you. You are a beautiful woman. And yes, I could probably work on you and take advantage of you and talk you into bed. If I was going to do that, don’t you think I would have done so back at the house, when you were physically and emotionally vulnerable and throwing yourself at me? Not to mention do you think I would get a cabin with two beds?”
She had to admit, it wasn’t the most romantic of arrangements.
“Right. And yes, I did listen to your thoughts that time.” He sat on his bed. “I’m not going to beg you. I won’t grovel. I’ve apologized for the way this has unraveled. When I find out who’s behind it, they will pay, I promise. I know you’re upset and confused. Part of that is stress, part of it is you’re tuning into your powers for the first time and you’re probably having difficulty maintaining some semblance of control over your emotions. But believe me, if you tell me you never want to sleep with me or have a relationship with me, okay, fine, I can deal with it. Like it, no. Accept it, yes. I would never force you to have a relationship with me if you didn’t want to.”
She stared at him. “I’m sorry,” she softly said. “I think I need sleep. Maybe tomorrow we can start over. You’re right, I don’t feel like myself.”
He took a deep breath and let it out before replying. “I think that’s a great idea.”
He found his book, straightened a few bent pages, and didn’t look her direction for the rest of the evening. She took a shower, finding it hard to move in the tiny space. When she turned off the light and tried to go to sleep, she watched his face, illuminated by moonlight streaming through the window over his bed.
His handsome profile looked old and weathered in the shadows.
How does he put up with me? I wouldn’t tolerate this shit from me if I was him.
The corner of his mouth curled at that last thought.
Taz rolled over and closed her eyes, wishing she could read his mind and really see what was going on behind those gorgeous blue eyes.
Matthias had already showered when she got up the next morning. He must have arisen before dawn. The light outside was chilly and grey when she emerged from the bathroom. He wasn’t in the room, and she heard him outside talking in a low voice with the other men.
She grabbed her jacket and joined them and thought she caught the briefest of smiles from Matthias.
“Good, you’re here,” he said. “Let’s get breakfast.”
He led the way with long strides, Albert at his side, not waiting for her. She followed, Robertson beside her.
“Well,” he said in her ear, “at least you’re not screaming at each other.”
“Shut up. I’m still mad at you.”
“No you’re not. You’re mad at the situation.”
She hated when he was right. The more she thought about what she did to the guard, the sicker it made her. She hated to admit it, but Albert did the right thing. If their circumstances were reversed, she would have done the same.
In a heartbeat.
Albert stopped her before anyone got hurt. She never thought about it, that she could hurt or kill someone with her thoughts. It explained why during the demonstration with Mayfield that Matthias stood at her shoulder, carefully controlling the situation.
Breakfast was good. Matthias never looked at her, didn’t speak to her, giving her space. She received the itinerary from Albert and Robertson and was able to watch Old Faithful erupt. The guards flanked her as she sat on the bench next to Albert while Robertson went with Matthias. Apparently their meeting was in one of the nearby buildings because they didn’t take the Rover.
“What did Matthias mean when he said he’d know if someone got in here who didn’t belong?”
Albert looked out over the geyser field. “Just that.”
“How come the Others can’t just hike through the woods to get here?”
“What do you smell, Anastazia?”
She sniffed. “I don’t know. Pine. Place smells like Christmas trees. And whatever the geysers are putting out, rotten egg smell. This whole place is a huge supervolcano. I saw it on the Discovery Channel.”
He nodded. “If you’re a fan of irony, which I am, you’ll be happy to learn a lot of what you’re smelling is sulfur. Another term for which is ‘brimstone.’”
She looked at him, sure he was pulling her leg. Then she realized he was serious. “You’re not kidding?”
He shook his head. “About something like this, I never kid, my dear. We are surrounded, if you will, by fire and brimstone.”
“Fire?”
He smiled. “Well, technically. The Others can’t stand sulfur. The smell. It burns them or something. Which, in this case, is lucky for us. Yellowstone has been a safe haven and meeting spot for our kind, as well as other paranormal breeds, for many, many years.”
“‘Other paranormal breeds?’ Do I even want to ask?”
He arched an eyebrow at her.
“Um, right. We’ll cover that later. Sorry, go ahead.”
“As I was going to say, the Others are most likely watching for us to leave the park, and we can probably expect some sort of trouble on the way out. They could send their hybrids, but they’re not much fonder of brimstone than the Others. And if they try to send humans through the gates, they’ll be spotted.”
“Because they have pointy horns growing out of their heads?”
He looked at her. “It doesn’t matter how they’d be spotted. They would.”
“Need-to-know basis?”
“And you don’t need to know right now. You’ve got enough on your plate. I’ll be happy to explain it all later. For now, you need to work on a few things. Lessons to learn, and all that.”
“Is this where we have the action montage sequence of me doing the kick-ass ninja-slayer training so I can handle evil bad things?”
He looked at her strangely.
“You never watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer on TV, did you?”
“No. But I heard it received quite a bit of critical praise for the writing. Too bad the facts were totally wrong.”
“Well, I got my black belt in karate because of that show. I wanted to be like Buffy.” Taz sighed. “How was I supposed to know it was life imitating art? Sort of.”
He smirked. “Matthias had a fit when Tim reported that. He was afraid you’d get hurt, or hurt someone. Once I convinced him you having those skills could only help, he settled down.”
“Back to the brimstone.”
“Ah, yes. Of course, as you are well aware by now, there is nothing evil or supernatural about what we are. It’s a physical condition, like any other genetic anomaly.”