Toxic Game (GhostWalkers #15) - Christine Feehan Page 0,73

that works out.” He liked the idea of the two of them in the kitchen. It seemed intimate to him.

She smiled at him and then washed her hands. He couldn’t help but notice that her weapons were never far from her. “I like that idea. Do you know what you’d like for dinner? They’ve given us fresh produce.”

“Anything but those rations Whitney sent with you. Are you absolutely positive that he isn’t trying to slowly torture and kill you with that stuff? Because it’s nasty.”

She burst out laughing, the sound filling the little cabin. Something in him settled, something he hadn’t known was tense, knotting his gut and leaving him edgy. She had already washed and was deftly slicing two chicken breasts before indicating he wash vegetables.

“Do you have any favorite recipes?”

Her voice slipped over him, soft and mellow, making him even more comfortable. Being with Shylah was soothing in any situation. This one, doubly so. “You’re a miracle, woman.” Draden meant it. He couldn’t imagine most people reacting the way she was in the circumstances.

“So everyone tells me.” There was a note of teasing laughter in her voice.

He felt those intimate notes slipping under his skin settling around the area of his heart. He let her direct him how to cut up the potatoes and then grill the vegetables while she worked with the chicken, stuffing it with thin-sliced cheese and long strips of red pepper. Soon, the room was filled with the aroma of cooking food.

Draden found himself wondering what childhood would have been like for her. “Who cooked for you?”

“We had a series of cooks in the kitchen. Some let us come in, others not so much.” She shot him a mischievous smirk, her dark eyes dancing at him. “The ones who didn’t allow us in the kitchen didn’t last long. We weren’t shy about playing pranks on them. The meaner they were, the worse the pranks.”

He leaned against the counter and watched her hands as she worked. He liked her hands. They looked almost delicate. Every movement was graceful. Looking at her, one would never suspect her lethal training, or the way she could get the job done so efficiently. He liked that. He liked that he was the only one who saw her. Who knew her.

She was so adaptable. She fit into any environment as if it were her home. Draden had seen her moving fast in the forest. He’d come across the men she’d killed. Now, in the kitchen, she was all feminine, soft and graceful, laughing intimately and making him feel as if he had a home for the first time in his life.

“Is that where you learned to cook?”

“I only can make a few special dishes. Zara is the one who really can cook. She excels at it. She really likes it. I wanted to know how it all worked. From there, I learned how to make a few dishes and that sort of satisfied me. I actually don’t mind the rations when I’m out in the field.”

He could understand that now that he’d spent some time with her. She was all about efficiency. The rations Whitney provided were fast, efficient and nutritious. She needed fuel when she was hunting. She needed to concentrate and focus on the hunt. He liked that about her as well.

“Have you ever thought much about the traits you’d want in a man if you were going to settle down and get married?”

She frowned at him as she put chicken on each of two plates. “It never occurred to me I would ever have the chance to find a man. Whitney always plants the capsules in us before we leave for a mission. If we don’t return to him, we’re dead. Luckily I’ve been given several weeks in order to track these men down. In his world, we can go into a breeding program to make him a little supersoldier, but we never thought in terms of settling down and getting married or anything remotely resembling that. What about you?”

He watched her add vegetables and the potatoes to the plates before placing them on the table. He liked having her there. Just her movements were soft, with no hard edges. That graceful, fluid motion she had that resembled a cat was all feminine now, not at all reminding him of that hunter in the forest. The more he was around her, the more the demons in him quieted.

“I’ve never even entertained the idea of having a home