She was right. She had to go home.
Isaiah rounded the corner, shifting Adelaide in his arms so he could make his way across a fragment of ledge that served as a path to his home. Made of sticks and dirt and leaves, the lean-to was more lair than home. He ducked under the ledge. Sprinkles of dust and leaves greeted his entrance. He laid Adelaide down on the pelts that served as his bed, wincing as he did. They were none too clean, and none too soft. He didn’t waste a lot of time on creature comforts. But Adelaide did. He was willing to bet her bedroom at home was full of crisp cotton sheets, meticulously sewn quilts, and maybe some touches of lace. He liked the thought of her sleeping amid lace. All the houses he’d seen in his dealings had had at least a touch of lace. The wealthy ones had a lot.
He brushed Adelaide’s hair back from her cheek, being careful not to wake her. A leaf clung to the tendrils of hair at her temple. He removed it. She turned on her side, a slight snore punctuating the move. He envied the innocence that allowed her to sleep fearlessly in his company.
Addy.
He remembered the name Cole had called her, during a visit when he’d been watching her. Less formal than Adelaide. More inviting. It suited the way he thought of her.
His claws lingered against her skin. He trailed them over the flesh of her cheek, over the soft curve of her jaw, down the creamy expanse of her neck. Goose bumps chased over her skin, but she didn’t wake.
He would’ve woken. The beast within him would not have tolerated a touch when he was so vulnerable. Addy shifted again. Her cheek found the curve of his palm. He moved his claw away from her eyes as she let her breath out on a weary sigh. The trust in the gesture stunned him. He jerked his hand away as she started to wake. Closing his eyes, he willed the beast back into submission. Her eyelashes flickered and tension entered her previously supple muscles. He was what he was, and while he didn’t entirely understand what that meant, to her, he wanted to appear human.
Addy came awake with another sigh. Her lashes fluttered. Her breath caught. Isaiah watched as awareness stole the comfort of sleep. Slipping his hand off her shoulder, he tucked his claws into his palms. Her lids lifted, revealing the blue of her eyes. And the fear within.
It was dark in the lean-to. He knew she couldn’t see him, but that didn’t change the lash of guilt when he saw the fear drain the color from her cheeks. He didn’t like the guilt. Even more than that, he didn’t like not liking it. He wanted to remain in that place where he felt nothing, cared about nothing. Shit, he didn’t want to care about her.
Addy smiled uncertainly up at him. He couldn’t smile back. She made him vulnerable, made him aware of things that he didn’t want to know. Mostly emotions. The beast preyed on emotions. Took advantage of the distraction to seize control.
Isaiah had battled long and hard to gain that measure of control within himself during the time
They
had had control of everything else. He’d figured if he could control the beast,
They
couldn’t control him. The best he’d managed was a compromise. He hadn’t managed to control the beast, but he had managed to learn to rein in his emotions under most circumstances. He’d gone from fighting at the drop of a hat to the cool customer in the corner that no one could read.
They
had not been happy with the transformation. That had just made him more determined to broaden that void inside. To control more and more of his anger, to keep it away from
Their
manipulation. To piss
Them
off.
He smiled at the memory.
They
had not been happy.
They
couldn’t have their wild card back. He touched the faint thread of scars on his neck. All that was left of the slicing
They
’d done to change his mind. The beast couldn’t heal all the damage, but he’d healed most. Isaiah hadn’t cared because, by learning to control his emotions, he’d learned that control could go both ways.
Addy misinterpreted that smile. “Hi.”
The softness that replaced the fear in her eyes found an answering softness within him. He squashed it immediately. He couldn’t afford weakness.
After the War was over for him, it had been even easier to keep his emotions locked up tight. For a blessed year he’d felt nothing, roaming the country, looking for a place he could make his home. For a year he’d known peace. For another year he’d protected it. And then he’d met Addy. A woman whose scent haunted his dreams. A woman who drew him back to civilization time and time again. A woman who stole his peace. A woman who didn’t belong here in the wilds of his mountain. A woman he couldn’t resist.
He pulled his hand away from Addy’s cheek, straightened, and looked around.
He’d found peace up here on his mountain so high above the valley. Humans rarely intruded. It was a good place. Maybe too high for most. But there were some advantages to what had been done to him, for someone who had been given a beast. He had more stamina, more speed, more strength. The mile trip down the mountainside to where the game fed was accomplished in the blink of an eye. The cold nights didn’t affect him and the loneliness was a blessing. There was no one here he could hurt.
He looked at Addy lying on his bed, eyeing him so warily. And reconsidered. There hadn’t been anyone he could hurt before, but now she was here. The one who kept the madness at bay. The one who reminded him of a time he couldn’t remember. The one who provoked that vague sense of “should know.” The one who reminded him of what he’d dreamed of for all those years
They
had held him against his will. The one who made him feel human.
They
had stolen a lot from him in the dark place, and what
They
’d given hadn’t replaced it, but he was going to get it back. He was determined to get it back. He might not ever be normal again, but he would know his past and he would own his future. And he would make a place for himself in the world that had never been kind but had once been his. The human world.
Adelaide licked her lips and propped herself up on her elbows. Her hand furtively snuck into her pocket, reaching for her worry stone, no doubt, a sure sign she wasn’t as calm as she would like him to believe as she asked, “Where am I?”
“My home.”
Her body didn’t move but her eyes looked left and then right. Her lashes fluttered as she absorbed the interior. Just twigs and mud and leaves mashed together to provide shelter of a sort. His kind didn’t need much in the way of shelter, but she did. He was going to have to take her home.
Inside the beast howled,
No
. The beast was lonely. The beast wanted her here. He ignored the protest. The beast could just waste away. Adelaide wasn’t built to survive up here, and her clothes wouldn’t keep out the bitter cold. Damn, he should have shifted one of the pelts aside to cover her.
“You live here?”
He couldn’t blame her for the skepticism. She thought of him as human.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
The unfamiliar urge to smile twitched his lips. It was just like her to ask why. “It suits me.”
She shifted and looked around again.
“This doesn’t suit anybody.”
He shrugged. “I think it does.”
He could tell she wanted to say more, but a belated sense of discretion kept her mouth shut. At least he hoped it was discretion. He was too tired to deal with more scheming.
Through the material of her skirt, he could see her working the worry stone. He was tired. He was hungry and her being around kept his beast on edge. If he hoped to keep her in the dark about what he was, he needed balance.
“Are you hungry?”
She looked around again. He could see the “no” on her lips. She was a fastidious woman. No doubt she thought anything cooked here wouldn’t be safe to eat, but she was also a sensible woman and that common sense showed in the next second when she nodded her head.
“Yes.”
“Good answer.”
She raised her brows at him.
“You can’t escape without your strength.”
She blinked. His admiration for her grew as she met his challenge head on.
“I
will
escape, you know.”
“I bet you will.” And it couldn’t happen soon enough for him. He stood and brushed the dirt from the knees of his torn, filthy pants. Her eyes followed the movement. He saw her flinch. She really did have a thing against dirt, even when dirt was the normal result of activity. He would like to know why. He wanted to know everything about her. He knew precious little, but there had been rumors about something in her childhood. A bad time that no one spoke of, just hinted at. She would tell him about it before he let her go.
“I’ll get you something to eat.”
She sat up. “Thank you.”
He headed for the opening.
“I’ll start a fire if you’ve got a sulfur.”
That pulled him up short as he realized how far he’d slipped from civilized. He didn’t have a sulfur. He didn’t have many of the normal conveniences that made life comfortable. He could present her with a dead carcass but he couldn’t provide her with the heat to cook it. Shit. A foreign feeling tightened his muscles.
“I’ll take care of it when I get back.”
She glared at him, clearly offended. She always got offended when she thought someone thought her incapable.
“I can build a fire without burning your house down.”
He was sure she could if she had the proper tools. “I’ll handle it.”
It took a while to recognize the emotion that flowed over him. Shame. He was ashamed.
“I’m cold.”
He turned around and stared at her, the humiliation lashing at him. He was sure there was a time when he would have carried sulfurs, would have lived in a house. Would have had something to put around her. But that was gone, stolen from him. He closed his fingers into a fist.
“Use a pelt.”
She flinched at the anger in his voice and his shame grew. He hadn’t meant to snap, but the truth was, he didn’t have anything to offer her. A blanket, a coat. Nothing.
“I’ll take care of it.”
“How?”
“I said I’ll take care of it.” His claws extended. The beast unfurled, sensing her discomfort, demanding he alleviate it. As if he needed anything else pointing out his shortcomings.
“When you get back,” she finished for him, her chin coming up.
“Yes.” Somehow.
She stood, then bent, grabbed up a pelt, giving it a firm shake before holding it out in front of her for inspection. “Then be sure you come back.”
The pelt was old and none too clean. He wanted to snatch the pelt out of her hands. She deserved better. He refrained. Sometimes a man had to bow to common sense and the woman needed the pelt to survive. “I’ll be back.”
She stood there, hair tangled around her face, a smudge on her cheek, her clothes torn and filthy, yet still looking regal and composed. He admired that.
“When?” she asked.
When I get here
, he wanted to snap, but he didn’t. She was alone and scared and even he could recognize she needed the reassurance. He looked up and pointed. “See that big pine by that boulder?”
She followed his gaze. “Yes.”
“When the sun gets straight above that, start looking for me.”
She frowned. “Start?”
Keeping his lips tight over his teeth to hide the canines that always appeared when he was upset, he answered, “Yes.”
He made it ten feet down the ledge before he heard his name called, a note of uncertainty coloring the syllables.
He turned, his beast growling. She was standing with the pelt around her shoulders. “What?”
“You’ll come back?”
“I already promised I would.”
She shifted. He bet she was rubbing the shine off that worry stone. “Are your promises worth anything?”
She must be really agitated to lower her pride to ask again. And scared. Isaiah put his hand on his knife hilt. It fit solidly in his palm. At least he had this answer.
“The ones I make to you are.”
Her head tilted to the side. No doubt she was tucking the information away in that active brain of hers like a squirrel hoarding nuts for a winter’s day.
“Why?”
He turned on his heel. He wasn’t going there. “Because I said so.”
6
SHE WATCHED HIM GO WITH A SENSE OF ANGER GROWING inside. Who was he to judge her? She looked around at the crude shelter set amid the rock and dirt above the tree line. He didn’t even live in a house. As if chastising her lack of gratitude for her rescue, the wind blew up, biting into her skin. Oh God, what she wouldn’t give for the coat she’d lost earlier. As dirty as it was, it was cleaner than this.
She wrapped the pelt around her shoulders, moaning under her breath as her muscles cramped even tighter, pulling her into the hunch of an old woman. The pelt smelled. She wrinkled her nose and loosened her grip. The wind gusted again. She tightened her grip again, despite her disgust, realizing as she did that she was getting better. A few years ago she would have chosen to freeze rather than have the dirt touch her. The little victory bolstered her faltering confidence. She was winning the war.