(Un)wise (6 page)

“Fine.”

His easy agreement didn’t help settle my nerves, but I still followed him into the office.  He paid cash for the room and led the way back outside.  A sidewalk, protected by the eves, ran along the building.  We didn’t follow it far.  He stopped at the door marked with a two.  Too close to the office for my comfort.

“I got kicked out of one hotel already.  He’s going to hear me for sure.”

“Maybe you won’t have bad dreams,” Luke said as he unlocked the door and stepped aside so I could enter.

I snorted but didn’t bother disagreeing with him.  I entered the room then turned to look at him with an arched brow.  He still stood there with his hand on the doorknob.

“I’ll sit on the bench outside and wake you in a few hours.” He started to close the door.

“The key?” Seriously.  Did he really think I would be okay with him keeping it?

He smiled.  “I’ll hold onto it.  Better I wake you when you start getting too loud than the owner.”

I scowled and opened my mouth to argue, but he closed the door too fast.  I started at it for a moment.  Could I do this?  Could I fall asleep with one of them close by?  What could he do to me while I was sleeping that he couldn’t do while awake?  Nothing, really.  It just made me feel so vulnerable.

Behind me, the mattress sang its siren song luring me enough to turn toward it.  It didn’t matter that Luke had a key.  He could easily break through the door without it.  After all, he’d snuck into one hotel room already.

Kicking off my shoes, I did my usual belly dive into the quilt and closed my eyes with my feet still hanging off the end of the bed.  This wouldn’t last more than a few...

The dream that claimed me had a new twist. It split into four views of the same thing.  I was my current self, yet at the same time, I was all three of other girls in the dream.  Disoriented by all four viewpoints, I struggled, trying to focus on just one.

I crouched in my pen with three other girls.  Branches, thicker than any of our arms, jabbed into the ground to make the walls of our pen.  Trees towered around us.  Sunlight occasionally speckled the ground as the canopy above shifted.

The stench of our feces and unwashed bodies clogged my nose.  We’d been kept in the pen for seven days.  The youngest girl, with the strawberry blonde hair, had been first.  She placed the earthen floor as she glared at our captors who lounged languidly beyond our pen wall.  Her tiny stature and youth didn’t make her very menacing, yet.  But when she hit puberty, she would be a force to reckon with.

The most recent captive sobbed softly.  Still in her teens but older than all of us, she’d been made to Claim then mate with someone.  She kept her eyes fixed on the ground.  I sat next to her with an arm around her shoulders.  And, like the youngest, I watched our captors.

The fourth member of the party slept and twitched as she did so.

I felt the pain and anguish of the one crying, the rage of the one pacing, the determination of the one holding her sister, and the pure terror of the one dreaming.  We were all the same yet different.  Sisters of the same womb.  Daughters of the Taupe Lady.  Pieces in a game we never wanted to play.

The branch door of our pen drifted open in the breeze.  None of us moved to run, but it still caught the attention of the men watching us.

“If she is old enough to look at us with hate, she is old enough to mate,” one said as he stood.  He towered over all of us.  A scrap of leather covered his loins.  The rest of him remained dusty and bare.

The sister who paced stopped moving and stared at him, her chin tucked close to her chest so she watched him from under her brow.  He strode purposely toward her.

The dream narrowed so I no longer felt the other three.  Just her.  Just her anger.  Her fear.  She knew what he wanted.  What he intended to do.  She would die.

He gripped my arm tightly and pulled me from the pen.  The sobbing one flew forward like a wildcat and tried fighting him. It did no good.  She sailed back and hit the branches with a hollow thump.  The girl next to her tried pulling my arm back.  It didn’t matter; he swatted her away, too.  His big hand reached for me.  I bit him hard and felt my teeth hit bone.  He hit me; the flat of his palm connected with a crack.  I saw stars.  My heart beat wildly.  I struggled as he lifted me.

The dream faded and restful oblivion cocooned me.  I barely registered the gentle kiss pressed against my forehead.  I slept.

*    *    *    *

Stretching my arms wide, my hand lightly smacked into a face.  I stilled and opened my eyes.  The white ceiling above greeted me.  Cautiously turning my head, I met Luke’s amused gaze peeking through the fingers of the hand that still covered his face.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I sat up with a scowl.  We both laid on top the covers; a line of pillows separated us.  I felt rested, but waking with him next to me unsettled me.

“You were having a bad dream.  I came in to wake you, but you quieted.  So I decided to use my time wisely and sleep, too.”  I narrowed my eyes at him and he quickly added, “I kept it proper.  See?”  He gestured to the pillows.

“I don’t care if you put a —”

“I’m starving.  Let’s eat.” He rose from the bed with a stretch and moved toward the door.  I continued to glare at him.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re trying to do.  I won’t let my guard down.  A few moments of kindness will not make me fall into your arms.”

He stopped by the door and turned to look at me, his face carefully blank.  “I don’t want you in my arms.”

“Liar.” I swung my legs off the bed and stood.  Did he think me stupid? I yanked my bag up off the nearby chair.

Luke scratched his jawline as he hesitated by the door.  “I don’t understand why you’re so angry.”  Frustration laced his words despite his relaxed pose.

I barely understood myself.  I didn’t really think he wanted to wear me down, but getting angry seemed a better way to keep some distance between us.  The idea of someone watching over me just to watch over me...well, that swayed me more than it should have.  It also made me miss my mom.  She used to do that before my world broke.  Before I discovered there were some things she couldn’t protect me from.  My teeth clenched against my resentment.  I hated knowing.  I hated the dreams, and at the moment, I hated him, too.

“What’s to understand?” I practically screamed at him, angry that he was making me say it.  “I’m not safe.  I’ll never be safe again.  I’m so tired, I have no idea how to help myself, and I don’t know if I can trust you.”

His eyes soften, and he lifted a hand as if he wanted to move toward me.  But, he stopped himself, dropped his hand, and sighed softly.  “We can stay here longer so you can rest,” he offered.

I threw my arms up in the air.  “It won’t do any good.”  At his blank look, I said, “I’m reliving all our past lives, mine and my sisters.  I’ve been cut, beaten, starved, raped, drowned, and even blinded.”

His eyes hardened at each method of torture I listed, but I barely paid his reaction any attention.  Listing the things that I had experienced brought the memories too close to the surface, and there were so many more ways his kind had hurt me that I left unsaid.

“Every time I close my eyes, I see more, and there’s no rest when that’s what I see.  When I wake I’m just as tired as I was when I went to sleep.  And I don’t just see the past, I feel it.  Every injury.  Every forced intimate moment.  If I let myself dwell on it, I won’t ever feel whole again.”  I gave a pained snort.  “I’m not really sure I do now.  If I’ve ever had a happy past life, I don’t remember it.  Instead, I remember the pain, and death.  Always death...” I said, starting to cry in anger and in fear.  “I don’t want to die again,” I whispered brokenly.  “But if you’re here to try to get me to choose you, you can’t have me.”  I said the words to help remind me, too.  He was so...nice.  It made the Taupe Lady’s warning hard to remember.  “Even if it means I have to die again.”

He growled, and I saw how what I said had affected him.  Jaw clenched, he fought the skin-rippling change trying to consume him.  He turned and forcefully yanked open the door.  The trim splintered near the latch.  When he slammed it shut behind him, a piece fell to the floor.

Stunned, I flopped back down on the bed with a slow sigh.  I’d baited him—what?  Twice now?  Three times?—and I was still unharmed, breathing.  A crazy half-sob, half-laugh bubbled from my chest.

The roar of his motorcycle reached me.  I hopped off the bed and raced to the door, opening it just in time to see him speed away.

Stupefied, I stood in the doorway for several long moments before my brain kicked in.  What an idiot for clarifying who I was when I knew I couldn’t trust him. Who knew what he was up to?  They always appeared in packs.  Maybe he was getting the rest of his pack.  Then, I thought of Baen.  He’d been alone the first time; but he’d made me bite him before he ran off.  So, this was different.  And I wasn’t a clueless, stupid kid this time. Yet, I still made tired mistakes.  I needed to move.

Closing the door, I quickly circled the bed looking for my shoes.  They weren’t there.  I checked the bathroom, using it quickly in the process, and didn’t see anything there either.  My chest started to tighten.  I didn’t have time to waste but couldn’t just leave without them.  My feet were tough, but the temperature was dropping.  I wouldn’t make it far.

Growling in frustration, I grabbed my bag and dug for as many pair of socks as I could find.  Two.  I sat on the bed to pull them on over the ones I wore, but didn’t get the chance.

I fell into a dream.  Hard.

*    *    *    *

A sprinkling of water on my face woke me before I died.  Still caught up in the dream, I looked up at Luke and blinked in confusion at his disgruntled expression.

“You already slept ten hours.  How can you still be this tired?”

“I’m not,” I said sitting up quickly.

He stood before me with a white paper bag and a large thick paper cup in one hand.  The other hand shone wetly.

“The dreams take me over sometimes, no matter how rested I am,” I mumbled feeling the need to explain.  He held out the cup to me.  I didn’t move to take it as I remembered how he’d taken off.  “I thought you left to get the rest of your men.”

He huffed a martyr style sigh and sat beside me on the bed.  Too close in my opinion.

“What men?”

Instead of answering, I looked down at my hands while trying to ignore the quick erratic heartbeat his close proximity caused.  He misunderstood my move and made a small noise of annoyance.

“Never mind,” I mumbled.

“Bethi, I really am here to help you.  No strings.  I just don’t know how,” he said softly.

He thought I just didn’t trust him.  He was right.  I didn’t.  But that wasn’t the reason for my hesitancy.  I didn’t like feeling so dependent on him. Especially since my insides kept going crazy when he was close or I when looked at him or when I smelled him.  It was getting ridiculous.

“You are helping me,” I said trying for brusque detachment.  “If not for you, I’d be walking.”

He studied my profile for a moment before handing me the cup.  “I thought coffee might help.”

My throat dried at the quiet concern laced in with his words, so I accepted the cup and took a hasty swig.  It scalded my tongue and I almost spit it back into the cup.  Instead, I swallowed, burning a layer from my throat.  Ignoring his concerned frown, I suggested we hit the road.  It was uncomfortable just sitting there.

“I brought you something to eat, too,” he said opening the bag and pulling out a plastic carton.

He sat there patiently holding out the food, waiting for me to decide.

My mouth watered as a hint of bacony goodness drifted my way.  He quirked a slight smile at me as I reached for it, but he willingly handed it over.  A stacked breakfast sandwich lay inside.  My stomach rumbled as I looked at it.  I sat next to him and devoured the offering.  He smiled as he watched me.  I ignored him.

When I threw the carton in the garbage, he stood, picked up my bag, reached inside his jacket, and pulled out my shoes.

“Gee, thanks,” I drawled, reclaiming my missing shoes.

Luke grinned in response and handed me the jacket as well before he shouldered my bag and walked out the door to check us out of the room.  I set my almost empty coffee to the side, sat and peeled off the extra socks.

He’d done it again, helped me without demanding anything in return.  Was he just waiting for a moment of weakness before he pounded, or had my dream about Baen pointed me toward help?  I wanted to believe Luke was the help I was meant to find.  Yet he also did things to make sure I didn’t run from him.  I mean, come on!  He stole my shoes.  And did he think I didn’t notice him leaving with my bag?  I wondered why he did any of it.  Was it because he thought I wouldn’t be safe if I struck out on my own again or something else?  I really wanted the answer to be because he was worried about me.  Yet, at the same time, I knew I was being irrational.  How many lifetimes had the werewolves shown me that they couldn’t be trusted.  It far outnumbered the two lifetimes—so far, anyway—that they had tried to keep me safe.  Still...I wanted to believe.  The thought that he was keeping me captive...well, I needed to believe my life wasn’t hopeless.