Grievous (Wanted Men #5) - Nancy Haviland Page 0,7
voice sounded as if she’d been asleep for days.
“Would you like me to carry you?”
She fought her body’s need for a good, long stretch. “Uh, no, of course, not.”
He nodded and opened the door to get out. “As you wish.” A cold blast of air swept in but didn’t touch her because of her covering. She could smell it, though. And what the hell? She inhaled a lungful. Was that…Christmas trees? The scent of pine became a weight on her chest, reminding her of the one and only Christmas she’d spent in a home with a couple who’d put up a real tree. Two months later, she’d been shuffled off, replaced by a younger baby. She’d been six or seven at the time.
Working her way out of the blanket, she slipped into her coat and looked around for her handbag. Snagging it, she felt bleary-eyed as she followed after Lucian. She straightened, and froze.
As she took in the spectacular scene before her, her pulse slammed so hard she could have sworn she heard it in the muffled quiet surrounding them. Mountains. Forest. A castle.
She closed her eyes briefly and gave her head an honest-to-God shake. When she tried again, she was still surrounded by gorgeous mountains, a snowy forest, and a motherfucking Bram Stoker type castle. The air was crisp, the sky gray, the clouds low and heavy. She’d never seen any place like this before. Because they were nowhere near New York fucking City.
“Where are we?” She’d never been more disoriented than she was at that moment. “Your driver was bringing me to the gallery.” Her nostrils flared when she caught a whiff of that rustic scent only a wood-burning fireplace could produce. There had to be, oh, around fifty of them in use if that was how they heated the monstrosity before them.
Lucian smoothed a ripple in her collar and pulled the two halves tighter under her chin, just as he’d done before she’d left him what felt like five minutes ago but had clearly been much longer than that.
“Following my instructions, Isaac took you to the airport after you left me. Sorin drove us here. To one of my homes.”
Sorin and an airport sounded vaguely familiar. “Which home? Are we in Connecticut?” she asked on a hopeful note.
The way his dark brow arched made her feel gauche. “Does this look like Connecticut, Yasmeen?”
She shrugged defensively. “I couldn’t say. I’ve never been.”
It looked as if he didn’t believe her. “We are in Rasnov, Romania.”
She clenched her fists and sunk her nails into her palms in an attempt to wake herself up and understand what the hell was going on. The fact that she was so foggy and clueless was beginning to rattle the shit out of her. “Sorry? Would you translate that? I don’t speak alien.”
A tic started in his jaw. She wasn’t amusing him. And she gave not two shits.
“We are two and a half hours north of Bucharest.”
She stared at him in shock.
And continued to do so when he put his hand out. “Come.”
She pictured a world map in her head. “We’re in…Transylvania?”
He gave her an even look and flapped his fingers once.
She slowly shook her head.
He dropped his arm. “You wish to stay out here?”
“I wish to wake up and find myself in my bed at home, wondering who put something into my drink and how much I embarrassed myself.”
His expression went chillingly blank. “You will wake in my bed come morning after perhaps a glass or two of wine. There will be no embarrassment.”
Her breath jammed in her throat, and her stomach landed somewhere around her ankles. Okay, that sounded incredibly insane. So insane her stupid pussy spasmed. She remembered all too well how she’d felt waking in his bed the last time. Boneless, in a word.
She laughed in a nervous burst, and then laughed some more when he gave her a lazy but thorough once over. He wasn’t laughing.
She went to him and tried not to get distracted by the gorgeous amber color of his eyes in the daylight. “Can you please be serious? What are we doing here? How did this happen? Why can’t I remember anything after I left the service? Where are we? For real.”
“I drugged you when we shared that final toast. The sedative took effect as Sorin walked you out to my car. My driver brought you directly to the airport. I was not far behind you. We