Darkness & Lies: A Brotherhood Novel (#1) (10 page)

Struggling to maintain his sanity, he flipped onto his stomach only to realize quickly how bad an idea that was. Sure he had inflicted lasting damage on Little
E; Erias
leapt from the
bed,
and before he could think twice, he found himself standing under the bright
fluorescent
lights
of the bathroom,
staring at the skewed imagine of the woman’s delectable
frame.

Little E pulsed against his palm as if to say ever
y
thing was cool, then promptly throbbed his demand to be sated.

Cheyenne felt a breath of cool air across her back that came as quickly as it went. Shrugging it off
,
she co
n
tinued to catch the heated water in her open mouth and spill back out again. She was right; this was the perfect way to relax. Turning around again, she tipped her head back and let the length of her hair flow in a smooth column down her back.

She smiled briefly
,
considering how tomorrow she was going to gather
her
team and trudge back up that mountain. No one was going to keep her from reaching her goal, especially some mountain lurking freak with a po
s
sessive streak. No way.

Rubbing the water from her eyes, she looked up and found herself staring into a heated pair of
blue
ones that were currently sizing up what part of her
anatomy
they wanted to consume first.

Her heart lurching into her throat, Cheyenne let out a
blood-curdling scream
before she was spun around and a large hand
was
clamped over her mouth
,
muffling her
cries.

Chapter 7

Squeezing her eyes shut against the onslaught of warm water spraying relentlessly in her face, Cheyenne tried to
breathe
steadily and not overreact. She had to get her head about her and remember her
training,
so she could get out of
this.

“It’s okay,” Erias
said low in her ear.
He pulled her closer to his body, her back pressed against his chest. “I won’t hurt you. I’m sorry if I scared you.”

And truly, he was. Erias couldn’t explain what had brought him in there in the first place. One minute he was listening to the spray of the shower, the next he was in the shower staring at the most shapely figure he had laid eyes on in centuries.

He really hadn’t meant to frighten her, but then the
unexpected appearance of a six-foot-
eight, two–hundred and
eighty-pound 
man standing naked in your shower with you had a way of doing just
that.

“I’m going to release you now. Just…don’t freak out, okay?” She nodded her
head,
and the moment he r
e
leased her mouth she bit down on his fingers and nailed him in the foot with her
heel.

Cheyenne moved quickly. Spinning on her
heel,
she shoved him aside so hard he slipped against the slick tile and fell to the floor of the
stall,
narrowly missing her as she leapt out of the
way.

Grabbing a towel, she ignored his grunts of pain and dashed toward the safety of the room. She wasn’t sure she would get any help using the phone after her last exper
i
ence, but she had to try.

Dialing frantically, Cheyenne had to hang up and try again several times before she was able to stab the right button. She didn’t know the number for 911 in
Iceland,
but she figured the alternative would be just as good.

A groggy, sleep filled voice answered. “Oh God, Kris! You have to get over here. There’s a crazy man in my
room,
and he’s trying to rape me!”
s
he cried into the
r
e
ceiver.

That seemed to wake him up. “What!”

“There’s a lunatic in my room
—”

“No, I heard that part. How’d that happen? Wait, never
mind.
I’m coming. Just hang tight.”

He hung up so fast she didn’t have time to think b
e
yond the relief that flooded her. Help was on
the way. She
just had to be patient. Which was easier said than done when she realized that the shower was no longer running and the deafening silence that now pervaded the small room set her already frayed nerves
raw.

In a panic, Cheyenne slowly turned around to face the whole of the room. Nothing. Wearily, she inched past the foot of the bed, determined to reach the door before he emerged to attack her again. Just as she reached her goal, the door flew open revealing Kris.

“Where is he?” he demanded.

Cheyenne looked into his baby blues that
was
cu
r
rently fuming with rage and determination. Taking note of the iron fireplace poker in his left hand, she stepped to the side and motioned to the bathroom. “He’s in there.”

While he stormed off with grim determination, Cheyenne closed the door and waited for the tell–tale sounds of a fight breaking out. As the seconds ticked by in complete
silence,
she couldn’t decide whether to check it out or to stay put. In the end, she didn’t have to do
an
y
thing.

Kris emerged a moment later, the poker hanging limply at his side and a puzzled look playing on his face. “There’s no one in there,” he stated.

“What?” Cheyenne n
early screamed. Racing past
him, she
peered into the bathroom herself
,
positive that there was no way he had gotten past her. Sure enough
,
though, it was
empty,
just as he said. “That’s
impossible.”

Turning to Kris, she looked up into his
troubled
eyes
,
scrambling for an explanation. “
I’m not crazy, Kris.
Maybe he ran out when I called you.
He even had things here. I tripped over his boots…
”
Her voice trailed off as she looked around the room. All of
his
things, the
boots and
the tote were gone, even the bed was
made.

Sighing,
Kris led her to her bed and pulled her down beside him. He stared at the floor and pursed his lips as if trying to decide what he was going to say next. “Why don’t you tell me how this all started.”

Cheyenne ran through the whole scenario, starting from the moment she stepped from the bathroom to disco
v
er the man’s intrusion to the moment she had called him to come help her.

“Let me get this
straight. You
find some strange guy in your room and instead of kicking him out on his ass or coming to me or one of the others to stay with us, you chose to sleep here anyway?” Kris asked incredulously. “I mean, not to sound harsh
,
Cheyenne, but what the hell did you think was going to happen?”

Cheyenne was aghast at his reasoning of the situ
a
tion. Scrunching her face in disgust, Cheyenne ros
e to her feet,
her hands balled at her sides
,
and looked down on him. “How dare you,” she spat.

Kris, seeing the fire blazing in her brown eyes, rea
l
ized his mistake and tried to smooth it over before she lit into him. “Now just wait
a
minute, Chy,
I—”

“How dare you judge me!” she shrieked. Kris stood up and tried to pull her into him. Jerking away, Cheyenne gave him an indignant glare. “I could have been raped t
o
night,” she ground out, “and you have the gall to stand here and tell me it was my fault.”

“Chy, if you’ll just listen for one second. That’s not how I meant it to sound,” Kris pleaded.

“Just get out.” Dodging his effort to reach for her again, Cheyenne opened the door and waited for him to leave.

It took several moments for Kris to get his feet to move. He’d only realized how much he loved her after they’d given their friendship a go in the romance depar
t
ment last summer during their trip to Greece, and failed miserably.

Of
course,
it was his fault. Wasn’t it always the man
who
fucked everything up? Just like his father, he never tr
u
ly
saw
what was in front of his face until it was gone. If only he
hadn't
taken that woman back to her hotel room and had gone back to his alone that night, maybe they would still be together
now.

Then again,
Kris didn’t fully believe that either. Truth be told, he wasn’t really into her like that at the time. Yeah he could see how gorgeous she was. Hell, she was a total knockout. With
shapely legs
, creamy, flawlessly pale skin, big brown eyes and long flowing hair, she was any man’s
dream.

And he had let her slip through his fingers.

Stopping in front of her, he took one long look at Cheyenne and felt a gnawing pain in his stomach when she stared pointedly at the floor as if he wasn’t even there.

Reaching up, he brushed back a lock of hair still wet from her recent shower and tucked it behind a delicate ear, allowing his fingers to linger a little longer than nece
s
sary.

“If you need me, call. It doesn’t matter the time or the reason.” She nodded sullenly. “I’ll always be here for you, Chy. I hope you know that.”

Kris stepped into the hall and when the door closed behind
him, it
felt like all the air had escaped from his lungs. His chest
tightened,
and it was all he could do not to turn around and bang down the door. All he wanted
to do
was to show her that he had changed, that he could be more than a friend. That she could trust
him.

He knew that she had forgiven him and had accep
t
ed that they were better off friends, but he couldn’t let it go at that. His heart was back there in that room, bound and held captive by a woman
who
was determined not to love him
in return.
At least not the way he
wanted.

It really dug in his craw that he had had the oppo
r
tunity that most men would dream of, had held her in his arms, kissed her perfect lips, and never once appreciated the gift. In one fail swoop, he had destroyed it
all,
and now he was desperate to get her
back.

“I’ll win you back, Cheyenne,” he whispered to himself. “I swear it.”

Cheyenne pressed her back to the headboard and stared into the brightly lit room, waiting. In one
hand,
she gripped the blankets to her chest to stave off the chilly night air that seeped through the ancient walls. In the other she held the iron poker Kris had left behind. She didn’t know where that man had
gone,
and she wasn’t about to be attacked in her sleep. She would stay up all night if she had
to.

She had been running through the night’s events over and over again, combing through every detail, trying to pinpoint when and where the man could have slipped past her without her noticing.

After four hours… she had nothing.

There was only one small window in the
room,
and it wasn’t likely he could have slipped out of it. Even more unlikely was not seeing him go. The gust of cold air alone should have caught her attention had he opened the wi
n
dow. No, he had to still be
here.

Determined to find him, Cheyenne slipped from the bed
,
poker in hand
,
and started her search
,
beginning with the closet.

Whipping open the door, she peered inside, shoving clothing and luggage out of the way. When she couldn’t find any sign of him there
,
she looked under the beds. He couldn’t have gone far.

When he didn’t turn up, Cheyenne slumped down on the corner of her bed and looked around the empty space. She wasn’t crazy. He had been here. It hadn’t been a dream either
,
of that she was certain. There was no way she could have imagined a man like that. She just wasn’t that creative!