Steam (Legends Saga Book 3) (10 page)

Chapter 10

Ireland

For the first time in weeks Ireland was
awake
. Not conscious and stumbling through the purgatory of her existence, seeking solace in nightly rides in search of mayhem, but truly awake in a world where darkness no longer reigned. Pushing herself up on one elbow, her body was jostled rhythmically from side to side, a low, steady rumble emanating from beneath her.

“You’re angelic when you sleep.” Rip’s shimmering form sat across from her, one ankle crossed over the opposite knee. His elbow
would
have been resting on the arm of the sable leather chair beneath him, if he wasn’t hovering three inches over it. “However, you drool like a Saint Bernard. There were actual bubbles. I found myself both repulsed and impressed that you didn’t drown.”

A smile spread across Ireland’s face that felt foreign, yet incredibly welcome. Her index finger traced small circles in the lacy fabric of the cuff making this impossibility real. “I missed you, you crotchety old goat.”

“I never left you, you obstinate, hard-headed child.” Rip’s face glowed with paternal love—and paranormal ectoplasm.

The moment was interrupted by the
shush
of a pocket door sliding open. Noah stepped into the quaint room, closing the door behind him. “Look who’s awake.”

Rubbing a vigorous hand over her face, Ireland scanned her surroundings. The room was no wider than the double bed she was laying on, its ivory bedding offset by the cherry-stained woodwork that paneled the walls. The only other furniture in the room were two matching chairs—one of which Rip sat above—and a small polished oak table. “Are we on a train or did you have me committed?”

Squatting beside the bed, Noah finger-combed her unruly hair. “Both good guesses, but train is the right answer. The
privately owned
train of HG Wells, I might add. How are you feeling?”

Ireland contemplated the question before answering. “I don’t want to kill or maim anyone, so that’s an improvement.”

Noah’s hand stilled, giving one strand a gentle tug before he cradled her face in his palm. “Actually being able to see
you
again is an improvement.”

Sitting up, Ireland curled her legs under her.

“I got lost for a little while,” she admitted to the stained cuffs of her filthy jeans. “Those men that I hurt …” Biting her lower lip, she let the looming question trail off.

“Wells took each back in time and got them out of the way before you could strike. Which, from the way he explains it, means the battered versions just vanished. As far as they know, you never laid a hand on them.” His eyes flicking to her shifting uncomfortably at the mention of her rampage, Noah rerouted the conversation. “We
did
call the cops for all those poor dogs. Rescue organizations swarmed the place. I don’t know what will happen to the pups from there, but they’re at least in safe hands.”

Ireland rubbed her hands up and down her arms, fighting off a chill from overwhelming guilt. “If even one of them can be saved, then at least
something
good came of this.”

“Oh,
one
was saved,” Noah and Rip chorused with matching mischievous tones, although only one of them was aware of it.

Lips pursed, Ireland glanced from Noah to Rip and back again. “I’m missing a crucial piece of this puzzle and it fills me with blind terror.”

“Remember that dog that Regen saved? The injured pit?” A smile tugged at the corners of Noah’s mouth, as if he was desperately trying not to laugh. “Well, we needed to get Regen out of there before the police arrived. He refused to leave without the dog. So …”

“Your undead stallion has a pet pit bull,” Rip picked up where Noah left off.

Ireland stared at the plush forest green carpet with its tiny white diamond print in hopes of find further explanation in its thick weave. “I … can’t even begin to fathom how that works.”

Rip’s jaw worked, chewing on the quandary. “I think the basic premise—”

Raising one hand, Ireland halted him. “Don’t, it makes my head hurt.”

“What does?” Noah asked. Brow furrowing, he scanned the room for what he was missing. “Is Rip here now?”

Slapping his hands to his transparent knees, Rip pushed himself to standing. “As fun as it would be to haunt your beau into a sniveling mess, I think I shall give the two of you a moment.”

Eyes snapping open wide, Ireland stifled a threatening whimper.

“What’s happening?” Noah rocketed to his feet. Arms tense and akimbo, he spun in a circle anticipating impending doom. “Are weapons about to come bursting through the walls? Because you have
got
to start warning me of that!”

“
Rip’s leaving
!” she erupted in a plaintive whine that made her judge herself horribly.

Noah’s lips clamped in a thin line. Glancing around the room, his shoulders rose and fell in a confused shrug.

“A momentary excursion to grant the two of you a bit of privacy!” her spectral friend clarified, hands raised to calm her hissy fit. “I
will
return and you have that handy piece of jewelry to know the moment that I do. I also feel I should remind you that I have no solid form. If you try to latch onto my ankle to prevent me from leaving, you’ll fall right through.”

Leave it to a bit of snarky humor to ease her back from the brink. “Don’t flatter yourself. It takes more than a grumpy, old ghoul to make me go stage five clinger.”

“Yes, quite. You were the picture of cool aloofness during my absence,” Rip countered. Punctuating the sentiment with a curt bow, he took a step forward and sank through the floor like a lead anchor in open water.

Instinct lunged Ireland off the bed to catch him—nothing but air whistling between her fingers.

“I have no idea what’s happening right now,” Noah ran one hand over the rough stubble of his chin, “but this will be a fun new facet of your character to adjust to.”

Before Ireland could fill him in, Rip’s head popped up from the floor looking stunned and disheveled. An unfeminine bark of laughter choked from her lips as he floated up to full height.

“I did
not
intend to do that.” In a blink the ruffled wisps of his scraggly hair and beard tidied themselves. His unsettled expression, on the other hand, seemed stuck. “It was
most
disturbing.”

“How about if you exit the old-fashioned way?” Ireland suggested, jabbing a thumb in the direction of the door.

“Me?” Noah swiveled from her to the door and back again.

Ireland corrected him with a slight shake of her head.

“I see you date primarily for physical appeal and not intelligence,” Rip chuckled to himself. Instead of ducking around him to get to the door, Rip passed right through the bewildered Van Tassel—who shivered at the contact.

“He just violated me, didn’t he?” Noah nodded even as he asked the question, already confident in the answer. “Walked right through me.”

“If it helps, he mentioned you were attractive beforehand.”

“Not really. But as we suddenly find ourselves
truly
alone, I couldn’t care less.” Noah closed the distance between them in one resolute stride. The tips of his fingers slid around her neck, brushing over the sensitive spot where her pulse had begun to pound. His gaze focused on her lips, he traced his thumb over their gentle curve. “Come with me,” he murmured, the fingers of his free hand lacing with hers.

Ireland let him tug her along, fitting her feet into each of his boot prints left in the thick weave carpeting. Focusing on such an insignificant detail distracted from the gaping hole of anguish pulsating in her heart caused by that open display of vulnerability. It was pure torture to the darker side of her nature, which cowered somewhere in the far recesses of her mind, but she was feeling
something
and that alone was bliss.

The bathroom was pint-sized, two people could fit if one was willing to stand in the square foot shower stall.

“Relationships are made or broken in conditions like this,” Ireland remarked, gliding one fingertip over the postage-stamp sized black granite counter with its shimmering flecks of gold.

At her feet, Noah dropped to his knees to unlace her boots and slide them off. “Step into the shower,” he suggested, his voice a husky whisper.

Hitching one eyebrow, she obliged. The flush in her cheeks hinted at her rising interest to discover his agenda. His skillful fingers peeled off each layer of her clothing, brushing over her curves but not lingering there.

“Mr. Van Tassel, are you trying to seduce me?” Ireland murmured, adopting her best sexy-vixen drawl.

Noah glanced up at her from under his lashes, his hands hovering over the snap of her jeans. The glow from the overhead light fixture warming his hazel eyes to a deep amber. “If I was, your toes would already be curling. For right now, shut up and let me take care of you.”

His eyebrows rose, daring her to argue.

Ireland pointedly clamped her mouth shut …
after
she made a show of dragging her tongue over her “parched” lips.

Shaking his head with a wry smile, Noah countered her act by unsnapping her pants and easing down her zipper. Ireland let her head fall back, enjoying the sensuality of the moment … until she caught a glimpse of herself in the narrow mirror across from her. Her breath caught, tears welling in her eyes. Every inch of her exposed flesh was marred by bruises and scrapes. And she couldn’t recall the origins of
any
of them. Whatever the Hessian had done—no, whatever
she
had done—if it had battered her this badly, she could only imagine what became of the poor saps that found themselves her play-things of the moment. Dropping her chin to her chest, she peered down at Noah, one tear streaking down her cheek and dripping into his golden strands. He had to have seen the markings, yet silence was his only response. A more delicate touch acted as the only indicator he’d noticed anything at all was amiss.

Shimmying her jeans over her thighs, he cast them aside and pushed himself off the floor to snag the detachable shower head from its clasp. Ireland stood before him—naked and exposed in every conceivable way. Her arms curled in self-consciously, yet her physical state of undress was not to blame. Each plum-purple mark or angry red slash burned into her, as if each represented one of her plethora of sins. Turning the faucet on, Noah checked the temperature on his hand before holding the nozzle up to let the cleansing warmth wash over her.

Ireland stepped into it, her face crumbling under the tidal wave of emotion that dragged her down to the depths of despair. “I was trapped. I couldn’t break free. I don’t remember what I did or who I hurt.
Look at me
!” She held up her arm in front of him, only to have him rub a soapy loofah over it and then continue on down the length of her frame. “If the monster has marks like this, what are the chances the victim is still breathing?”

Still, Noah said nothing—his face a white-washed wall for her to bounce whatever nagging thoughts she needed to off of. Popping open a bottle of shampoo, he eased her head back to work the lilac scented suds into her scalp.

“I thought I could keep it in check. I thought I had it handled. Instead, I became what I feared most, and I’m not sure there’s any coming back from that.” Ireland closed her eyes as Noah raised the faucet to rinse her off. The tears that poured down her face in torrents were washed away by the cascading water.

When the last of the soap bubbled over the drain at Ireland’s feet and her tears slowed, Noah gently turned her away from him to work conditioner into her hair.

“After all of that, all the people I hurt, fate gave me Rip back,” Ireland said in a barely audible whisper to the white tile wall in front of her. “For one deluded moment I thought just because I broke free and could see Rip again that everything would go back to the way it was.”

Guiding her head back, Noah ran the water over her hair, a satin streak from conditioner remnants flowing down her spine. The last of it gone, he shut the water off, leaving Ireland Crane purged of the filth that had tainted her inside and out.