Dreamwalker (Stormwalker #5) - Allyson James Page 0,14

confused and shaken. “What?”

“You were crying out in your sleep, thrashing around.”

Mick brushed my cheek, and I immediately calmed. I knew that the tingle I felt was his magic, soothing me, trying to heal my hurts.

“I don’t blame me,” I said. “It was a hell of a fight, which we obviously survived. But why did you bring me to South Dakota? Did we fly up here? I need to get back to my hotel.”

Again, I tried to rise, and again, Mick caught me. He framed my face in his hands and looked deep into my eyes.

More magic? Mick couldn’t read minds, but he could sense when something was wrong with a person—for example, if his girlfriend had been smacked with a serious spell.

“No airports nearby,” he said. “Easier to ride. And this motel is better than the last one.”

I’d meant fly as in him scooping me up and carrying me off in his dragon talon. Plus, what did he mean this motel is better than the last one? I opened my mouth to question, but closed it again. Mick was contemplating me not only in worry but with suspicion, as though he thought maybe I wasn’t really me.

Something was very wrong.

I tried to relax, be neutral, look back at him without tension as he scrutinized me. I don’t know whether he was satisfied, but Mick at last released me and straightened up.

“I guess the sleep did you good,” he concluded. “Come on, let’s go to breakfast. The sign says they have a hundred different kinds of omelets. I have to check that out.”

He flashed me a smile, good-natured, holding a hint of sin. And yet, holding back at the same time.

Mick hadn’t held back much lately, with all we’d been through, but I saw in his eyes a layer of his old evasiveness. Back when he hadn’t wanted me to realize what he was, he’d been very good at not letting me see past his facade. I needed to pin him down and ask him what was up.

For now, I was hungry, and the thought of omelets made my stomach growl. I scrambled out of bed, not shy around Mick, and found my clothes, neatly folded over the back of the room’s one chair.

Mick must have undressed me. Whenever I went to bed in exhaustion I threw my clothes every which way before I dove between the sheets. Mick was far more tidy.

“Why did you bring these?” I asked. The jeans were old, the shirt one I hadn’t worn in years. “I thought I gave these to Gabrielle. Or, rather, she helped herself.”

Mick’s eyes narrowed again, his grave suspicion returning.

As much as I loved Mick, I was not blind to how dangerous he was. If he thought I was acting weird, maybe a doppelgänger Janet or a spelled Janet, he would stop at nothing to save me, fix me—or kill me. My only defense at the moment was to act as normal as possible.

“Never mind.” My skin seemed to be clean, so maybe Mick had stuck me under the shower the night before. I pulled on the clothes and smoothed my hair—and then realized I wasn’t wearing my ring.

When Mick had asked me to marry him—in the human way—he’d given me an engagement ring. Not a standard gold and diamond ring, but silver with an intricate pattern of turquoise and onyx. Turquoise for healing, onyx for protection, silver for love.

It wasn’t on my finger, in my pocket, on the nightstand, or in the bathroom. I hated to think I’d lost it in the fight, that some demon had run off with it. But Mick was watching me again, so I said nothing. He might have put it away safe somewhere—I’d ask him once I’d reassured him that I was fine. I gave him a smile and let him lead me from the room.

The motel was a one-story, long wooden building with a row of a dozen identical doors and windows. We were in number five, a lucky number in Asian cultures. Mick would have picked it.

At the end of the row was a wider building with big windows and glass doors. The lit marquee in front said, Travel House, Your Home Away from Home. Comfortable Rooms, Best Breakfast in the County.

We walked into the lobby, which led to the small restaurant, and then it hit me.

I’d been here before.

I remembered the restaurant down to the last detail—the polished wooden walls, the scraggly plant next to the cashier, the glassed-in counter