there was just enough for me to have a bowl. That was fine. All I needed, really. Breakfast of champions: pizza and spaghetti. The carbohydrates would do me good, I figured.
I nuked the pizza, but ate the spaghetti cold, guzzling two cups of coffee while I waited for him to finish up his phone call.
By the time he had finished, I was done eating, had my socks on and was lacing my boots. “We should have ordered another pizza,” I said.
“We’ll get something from one of those fast-food joints you love so much,” he said, watching as I started slipping my weapons into place.
“Don’t bother on my account. I got enough.”
He prowled across the room and settled on the bed just a foot away from me. Too close. Too close—
Trying to ignore him, I pulled on my vest, wrinkling my nose a little. It was stiff with sweat but it had too many places to hide weapons for me to not wear it. “If we’re here past tomorrow, we have to stop long enough for me to wash my clothes.” I settled it into place and reached for my garrote, working it into the collar.
“Do you always carry that many weapons on a job?”
I shrugged. “Depends on the job. If I’d figured yesterday’s hike would turn out like it did, I would have brought more.”
He stood up, laughing a little as he reached out and hooked his hands in the front of my vest. “Kitten, just how many more weapons can you carry?”
“My bow.” Bitterness twisted my gut as I thought about the sleek, pretty carved piece I’d left at home because I hadn’t planned on needing it. Plus, I still had to abide by U.S. laws and if I was caught carrying something as conspicuous as a bow and arrow in a national park, I’d be in major trouble. The sword, I could easily convince the authorities was part of my job, and the other weapons I carried weren’t hunting weapons, but anybody who looked at the bow and arrow would think I’d gone into the ′glades to hunt—
Hunting—
“Hunting,” I murmured.
Memory flashed through my mind. The boy. The wolf who’d been found. They had him trapped somewhere…He tried to climb out. For a long, long while.
“Hunting games…”
Would they?
“What are you mumbling about?”
I turned away from him, my mind whirling. In a rush, I finished with my weapons. I didn’t strap my sword on yet. It wasn’t easy to drive with her in place and it wasn’t like I had to carry her for her to be handy. “We need to go,” I said, shoving my hands through my damp hair. “Whatever we need to talk about, we’ll do it on the road. But we have to go by the witches’ house. I need to talk to the girl.”
“She wasn’t exactly in talking shape,” Damon said, still studying my face.
“Maybe the mother and her healers worked wonders.”
Chapter Fifteen
“It’s you again.”
I smiled at Kori, although I suspected it fell something short of charming.
The other day, her brows had been…well. Normal, I thought. Today, they were intersected with bare patches, like she’d decided to either wax or shave parts of the brows, but not others.
And instead of pink and blue in her hair, it was green and orange. She really, really made my eyes hurt.
“Hi, Kori.”
She just grunted and then looked past me. “I guess I have to let your boy in, too.”
“He’s not mine,” I said, trying not to think about the way his hand rested on the small of my back. Trying not to think about the way he’d had his tongue halfway down my throat earlier.
“He’s not, huh?” Kori started to laugh. “Anybody told him that? Or you, for that matter?” She stepped aside and gestured down the hall. “Healing hall down at the end, through the mirror, on your right.”
I blinked at her. “Did you say through the mirror?”
With a blinding smile, she said, “You heard right. It’s always good to make sure we keep our weak and sick well hidden. In case somebody was lucky enough to take me out.” Then she winked. “But trust me…nobody is that lucky.”
“Okay.” I wasn’t going to challenge her in any way on that. Hell, I still had the memory of my cooked hand dancing large in my mind. Tate had done me some serious damage. Yes, it had been for a purpose, but still, damage was damage and Kori could wipe the floor with Tate.