take a rest, I’ll stay awake in case you dream.” And with that he turned on the television, sank to the couch and started watching a rugby match.
I wandered back into the bedroom that he’d said was mine. It was efficient, with a single window over the bureau, the double bed shoved up against the wall near the door, and the utility bathroom was through a door across from the bed. Nothing like the opulence the hotel provided, the whole thing was trendy and modern. My stomach growled, and I realized I hadn’t eaten in forever. Two bites of steak just didn’t count. I decided I’d grab a shower and change into my own clothes before foraging for something to eat.
The shower was a single-person tiled stall almost claustrophobic in size. It was like standing in a plumbed coffin. I cleaned up as fast as I could and went out to my bedroom to put on some clothes. The TV was turned off, and I wondered where Bahlin had gone. I dug through my sparse bag of clothes and pulled out—hallelujah!—underwear, a pair of jeans and a non-see-through long-sleeved T-shirt. Digging further I found socks and a pair of Nikes. I dressed quickly and went to find Bahlin and see about something to eat. He was stretched out on the sofa, hands crossed over his stomach, the remote on the floor. It looked like he was sleeping until I got closer to him and realized there were dark shadows beneath his eyes and a sallowness to his skin that hadn’t been there before. All I could think of was poison and I literally threw myself at him, terrified. He gasped for air as I landed on him, his arms and legs coming up around me automatically to bind the movement of his attacker. He snugged me down close and hard to his body and I couldn’t breathe and I didn’t care. For a minute, for just a minute, I’d had the sheer terror of irretrievable loss again. I didn’t want to look too closely at the emotions behind the feelings I was experiencing, so I laid my head on his chest, listening to his heart thump in adrenaline-induced double-time.
“Maddy?” he asked. Then, realizing there could be danger, he flipped me over and put himself on top of me, shielding my body with his own. His eyes switched color and he scanned the room, looking for danger. He scented and found nothing, and it was only then that he began to relax. He pushed himself off of me slightly and he asked, “Maddy? What’s happened? Did you dream again? How long was I out?”
Tears were coursing down my cheeks. I shook my head and struggled to get my arms free. He let them loose, and I threw them around his waist and pulled him down to me. As angry as he was with me, his body had still offered a primal response to the threat. His erection pressed against my stomach, and I smiled a little where he couldn’t see me. Men. I hugged him hard, hiccupping a little, ashamed to have fallen apart because, for the love of his goddess, he’d been napping. I didn’t want to tell him the truth, but I couldn’t lie, either.
“Maddy?” he asked again, and this time the impatience was palpable in his voice.
“I came out to speak to you and you were sleeping,” I began. “You looked horrible—dark circles under your eyes, sallow skin, short breaths, no movement, and I thought…” I tilted my chin up to look at him and he looked down, his eyes still dragon blue. Maintaining eye contact was difficult, but I considered it a sort of penance for our fight. “I thought you were sick or dying, and I had a flashback to the terror I felt when I lost my parents and it just gutted me, Bay. I don’t think I could stand to lose you, not now.”
He smiled at me, his eyes flashing back to midnight blue. “You’ve not lost me, mo chrid. I’m angry with you, but you have a right to be angry with me too. I haven’t been totally forthcoming with you about what I knew about your Change. I probably could have influenced you more to try to stop the Change, but I didn’t want to.” He paused, rolling us to our side on the little sofa so that it was cling to each other or fall off. He rubbed his hand up