So long as he hated, he had a reason to live.
"Why do you want to live here in this cabin alone?"
She shrugged. "I like having my own place. My family visits me often, but I'd rather be alone."
"Why?"
"Because I hate to be babied. My mother and sisters act as if I'm helpless. They want to do everything for me."
Astrid waited for him to say something more.
He didn't.
"Would you like to take a bath?" she asked after a brief wait.
"Do I bother you?"
She shook her head. "Not at all. It's entirely up to you."
Zarek had never really had to be concerned with things such as bathing. When he was a slave, no one cared whether or not he was clean, and in truth he'd stayed dirty so that no one would want to approach him any more than was necessary.
As a Dark-Hunter, he'd been completely alone even before his banishment to Alaska. And once here it had been so difficult to do anything as simple as bathe that he had all but forsaken it.
It had only been after Fairbanks had started being settled that he had bought a large tub that he used only when he knew he was going into town.
His brief stay in New Orleans had been a treasured delight of running hot and cold water and showers that could last for an entire hour before the water turned cold on him.
Had Astrid ordered him to bathe, he wouldn't have considered it. Because she had offered him a choice, he headed for the bathroom.
"The towels are in the hall closet."
Zarek paused at the closet right outside the bathroom and opened the door. Like everything in the house, it was well kept. All the towels were folded up neatly. Hell, they were even color coordinated to match the rest of the house.
He grabbed a large fluffy green one and went to bathe.
Astrid heard the water come on. She took a deep, fortifying breath.
Strange, until Sasha had mentioned it, she hadn't realized Zarek hadn't had a bath. He hadn't smelled or anything and he washed his hands so much that she just assumed the rest of him was clean, too.
She returned to the kitchen to find Sasha eating Zarek's pancakes.
"What are you doing?"
"He didn't want them. They were getting cold."
"Sasha!"
"What? It's not nice to waste food."
She shook her head at the wolf as she moved to make another batch for Zarek. Maybe he would be more sociable when he left the shower.
He wasn't. If anything he was even surlier as he gulped down the pancakes.
"He's disgusting," Sasha said to her. "He eats like an animal. Be thankful you're blind."
"Sasha, lay off the man."
"Lay off, my ass. He uses his fork like a shovel and I swear he shoved one entire pancake in his mouth at once."