Bizarre Life of Sydney Sedrick (24 page)

His demeanor changed in an instant, and he scowled, showing his displeasure at what I’d said.

“Is it me that you don’t want to stay here? We can arrange for someone else, if that would make you more comfortable.” He barely got that out through gritted teeth. His jaw was clenched. The skin over his mouth looked tense and white. His eyes began to change color.

I put my hand on his warm chest. The heat from his body soothed the aches and pains the rogue had caused.

“It’s not that at all, so don’t take it personally. We can take care of ourselves. It’s bad enough my life is changed, and not for the better. My aunt shouldn’t have to deal with someone else staying in her home because of me. We’ll be safe enough. I’ll call you if anything happens, just like I did today.”

He continued to frown, but his jaw started to unclench. “I’ll have to talk it over with my father. He said someone had to watch over you at all times until we find the rogues. It’s not going to be easy telling him you told me no.”

Blake was in a hard position. He wanted to do what his father, the pack leader, said to do. But he wanted to be with me, protect me, and do it while not being too pushy. He had my sympathy, but there was no way my being the Selected was going to affect my home life any more than it already did.

“You and your father can talk about it all you want. I’m not going to change my mind. Blake, this is our home, our safe haven. No one is going to bother us here, just trust me on this, okay?”

“Fine, I’ll figure something out with my father. But you can expect to see members of our pack checking out the area on a regular basis. If a rogue shows up one more time, there won’t be any discussion. You will have me as your houseguest until we find them. Understand?” Disbelief and frustration laced his words.

From the consternation I heard in his tone, I knew it would be completely futile to argue. We didn’t need him to force the issue, insisting that he stay with us right now. I gave him my ‘I’m so not going to let you win this, ever’ eyes.

“We’ll see what happens. Even if rogues do show up here, they can’t get into the house. And if they’re vampires, it’s not like we’re just going to invite them in and say ‘yes, vile fiends, please come in and suck us dry.’”

“Yeah, well, just be careful. Call me later tonight.” He grabbed my hand from his chest and held it, warming my fingers with his. “You gave me a pretty good scare, seeing you lying there like that, unconscious. I thought you’d been attacked. I wasn’t sure if you were alive. Sydney, my heart stopped beating when I saw your body lying on the floor. You were so still.”

Blake kindly didn’t mention the fact that when he found me, my hair was taking a bath in vomit. I’m sure the smell was pretty raunchy, too, especially to a werewolf with a super sensitive sniffer. Blake’s seeing me at my worst didn’t seem to affect him, or nullify his determination to get me to go out on another non-date with him.

Was Blake telling the truth? Did his father really say that he wanted to have someone stay with me and Aunt Judith? Of course, the obvious choice would be Blake. If it came to that, I’d definitely have to figure out an alternative solution.

Being around Blake wasn’t safe during regular circumstances. Having him live with me, and being at my side constantly, would be torture. We’d have to share the same bathroom. He’d have to stay in the bedroom Brianna used when she came to visit, which was next to mine. We might bump into each other with only our towels on. A vision raced in my mind’s eye of Blake, wet from his shower, bulging muscles glistening from the early morning sunshine. Realistically, a girl can only resist a man for so long, especially when said girl found him undeniably irresistible. Constant thoughts of him pressing his hot, hard body against mine didn’t help matters.

“I’ll call,” I said, trying to erase the images of a naked Blake from my mind. “You don’t have to worry. None of the rogues have tried to enter the house, and they haven’t tried anything more than scare tactics at the store.”

He raked his hands through his hair and said, “Sydney, you have to take this serious! Rogues are worse than any wild animal you’ll ever encounter or see on TV. They can act like a member of the werewolf packs or vampire covens. They want something from you. Until we find out what that is, you’d be wise to be a little worried about yourself and your family’s safety.”

I didn’t care for his tone. He spoke as if he were talking to a child who wouldn’t listen to the older, wiser adult.

Blake couldn’t have forgotten my Selected abilities made me a human rogue detector. There was truth in his words about my not being able to protect myself once the rogue was detected, but I planned on working on that. Eventually, I hoped to be in the same room with a rogue, and not bat an eye. There had to be something in Grandma’s journal with clues how to start training and building some type of tolerance to their effect on me. A rogue could do whatever they wanted if I kept on being incapacitated when they were close. Someday, the rogues would see me as a force to be reckoned with. I couldn’t just depend on Blake and how fast he got to me when I was danger. I had to learn how to deal with them on my own.

I grabbed a pillow from my bed, and put it over my chest to cover what the tank top did not. I got out of bed, stomped over to my dresser, and grabbed a bra and T-shirt.

“Wait here.”

After dressing in the bathroom down the hallway, I went back to the bedroom. Blake had returned to the chair he’d pulled up to the bed to watch me sleep. I couldn’t properly chastise him if he was busy staring at my nipples calling out to him through the soft white cotton. I hoped he wasn’t the one who put me in bed. If he was, he already saw way too much of me for my liking.

“Listen, Blake. It’s possible one of these freaks of nature is going to hurt someone important to get to me. Yes, it’s a possibility. I refuse to let them make me walk around in total fear. No, I’m not going to try and scare my aunt into doing it, either. What you did earlier, not telling Aunt Judith about the rogue on the property, well, that was great. She knows they’re out there. She probably knows more about what’s going on than we think. Heck, my drunken mother probably knows more at this point. But I’m the Selected now, and I’m going to handle things in my own way. The time has come for me to buck up and make decisions of my own.”

Blake sat back down on my bed and looked up to see me with my arms crossed over my chest standing in front of him. I stuck my chin out a bit, silently challenging him to further his ridiculous speech about me not knowing what was good for my safety. Rogues couldn’t breach my home, so he didn’t need to worry. I didn’t want to break Aunt Judith’s trust and tell him what she was capable of with the wards. So he’d just have to take me for my word.

He put his hands on his knees, but his shoulder muscles remained tense, despite the relaxed pose he was trying to accomplish.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll stop pushing. You get it. You get what threats and dangers are out there. But you can’t blame me. I’m just worried.” He got off the bed and strode over to me. His hands were resting at his sides, then they were on my arms before I could bat an eye.

Freaky.

Blake’s werewolf speed was still a bit disconcerting. He rubbed his warm palms up and down my arms. And so help me, the feel of his skin created tingly sensations up my arms, over my chest, and down to the hot center of my being. He was temptation to the max, and his heat soothed the aches throughout my body. The problem was, he was creating other parts of my body to ache and swell.

I hoped my body’s reaction to being near the rogues would decrease in intensity, pain, and length. Having to endure such torture on a regular basis would literally drive me insane. Blake may not always be around to make me feel better.

“You’re still running a bit of a fever. You should rest for a while.” He leaned over and kissed me on the forehead.

We could be just friends, right? Yeah, from my body’s reaction to his slightest touch, that might not be possible.

“Just make sure you call me later tonight,” he added.

“Yeah, fine.” I swatted his hands away and headed out of my room. I needed to distance us from my bed.

After Blake left, I went and found Aunt Judith in the kitchen, leaning over the stove, and stirring a batch of homemade chicken soup.

“Hello, dear. I’ll get you a bowl. This will make you feel much better.” She ladled soup into one of the handmade blue-clay bowls Meredith, Aunt Judith’s best friend, had made. The aroma of the broth made my mouth water. Aunt Judith’s cooking had mystical healing powers. They say if you cook with love, anything you make will turn out right. That was true with everything she made.

Now that werewolves and vampires had been revealed to me, my curiosity and suspicions turned to my aunt. She was knowledgeable about growing and using herbs in her teas and food. She was also very good at creating protective boundaries around the house with wards and charms. I suspected she might be a witch, with special abilities. I wanted to ask, but she always veered away from such discussions. Which got me to thinking. Did my mother also have abilities of her own?