Binding the Shadows (Arcadia Bell) - By Jenn Bennett Page 0,65

like I could move. Like all my energy had been sapped. Lon sat on the grass and pulled me into his lap. He held me close and ran his hands up and down my back as I blubbered and sniffled. And when I was all cried out, I asked, “Is my car here?”

The bass of his voice vibrated through my cheek. “I don’t think so.”

“Oh, God.” What the hell had I done? Slipped through time? Flown here? Beamed myself thirty miles to the coast without the help of the Starship Enterprise?

“I was starting to worry,” Lon said. “You weren’t answering your phone. I stepped outside to smoke, thinking I’d try to reach you one more time, and saw a flash of light on the lawn. You just . . . appeared.”

“How?”

“Dark yard. Flash of light. You were sprawled on the grass,” he summarized efficiently. “I couldn’t make out that it was you at first, but the house ward hadn’t been set off, so I figured it was okay. Then I recognized how you sounded. Inside. Your emotions,” he explained awkwardly before clarifying. “I shifted and heard your thoughts. I knew it was you. Your halo—”

“It’s so bright.”

“It’s . . .” He almost said something more, but seemed to change his mind at the last second. “It’s bright,” he finished simply in agreement.

“I wished myself here,” I whispered. “It’s not possible. Is it? Lon? How the hell is that possible?”

He smoothed a hand down my hair. “Don’t know. But I think you asked your bird-boy guardian the wrong question. If you mother’s alive, she’s on another plane. But whatever’s going on with you is happening here. You should’ve asked Priya to find out exactly what your parents bred into you during your conception.”

A rotting misery nearly pulled me under. He was right, of course. Maybe I could call Priya back, change the plan. But I was tapped out. Was there even a drop of Heka left inside me?

“Summon him later,” Lon said, surprising me. He was reading my thoughts.

He started to push himself off the ground, but I squeezed his arm. “I don’t want Jupe to see me this way,” I pleaded.

“Hush,” he said in a kind voice. “They’re all out at a movie together. We’re alone.”

A small relief. My hands were covered in grass stains. Hair was frazzled, like it got when I released Heka without a caduceus. A dull burning smell wafted from my clothes. “I need a shower.”

Without another word, he lifted me up with him and carried me across the wet grass and inside the house.

When he finally set me down, it was in the master bathroom inside his room. My legs were floppy, but he held me up, propping me against the vanity as he flicked on the lights. He unbuttoned and removed my coat. A large red spot stained the front; the vial had broken inside my breast pocket. So much for that. Not like I had any use for it, but still.

“Doesn’t matter,” he murmured, tossing the jacket in the corner on the dark gray slate bathroom tile. Using his forearm to bolster me across my stomach, he crouched long enough to take off my shoes and socks. Cool porcelain touched my back when he pulled my shirt over my head. I watched his long fingers unhook the front closure of my bra. Kar Yee was right: they were awfully nice hands. Good hands. Lean and muscular, like the rest of him. He made a small noise in response to those thoughts and freed my breasts.

My screwy brain thought of Hajo’s comments.

Lon grunted. “The next time I see that dowser, I’m going to bloody his nose.”

I was pretty sure I’d enjoy seeing that.

My jeans were trashed. I had a million pairs, so it didn’t matter. But as he tossed them in the pile with the rest of my clothes, I once again remembered the surreal feeling of the tail—a goddamn tail!—and felt panic rising again.

“Shh,” he said, reaching over his shoulder to pull off his T-shirt. Then he picked me up around the waist and walked me four steps to the shower.

Lon’s shower. Nothing better. Standing separate from the big tub in the corner, it was a spacious walk-in tiled in unpolished gray and brown stone, open on one end, no door. Hot water sprayed from both sides and above, the pattern and angles changeable into a billion configurations, but Lon kept it on a no-nonsense setting: steady streams from all directions. A low