Chapter 13 #2
Beyond the psychological warfare, Nelle had invaded my personal domain in a way I wasn’t prepared for.
I’d never shared a room with anyone, not even my siblings, and I certainly had no idea what sharing a space with a girl would be like.
In the few days of being awake and healthy, she’d asked Penn for a few extra items that were now scattered throughout the bathroom.
In the recessed shelves in the shower were her favorite strawberry soap, shampoos and conditioners, hair detangler, and hair masques—whatever the hells that was.
Cleansers and serums and moisturizers, along with facial scrubs and deodorants, were all over the vanity, left in random spots as soon as she was done with them.
I couldn’t leave them like that, mocking me.
I gathered the bottles into a tidy row near the back of the dark stone surface where it met the tall, wide mirror.
Then rearranged them in height order. And made sure their front was facing forward.
Re-adjusting them with the tip of my finger to make sure they were all aligned.
Her pink toothbrush sat next to mine in the glass canister on a shelf.
Reaching out, I plucked my toothbrush from beside hers, applied toothpaste to the bristles, wet it, and began brushing my teeth. I wasn’t going to sleep, but I was going to get ready as if I were and change into more comfortable clothes.
Minty white toothpaste frothed in my mouth as I brushed away.
The bathroom door creaked open, and Nelle padded into the room barefoot, dressed in a nightie and an ivory silk dressing gown, the belt loosely tied around her waist. Her thick, wavy hair cascaded down her back like wild, savage water tumbling off a cliff.
I tensed, my gaze snapping to hers, reflected in the large bathroom mirror as she casually sidled up.
What the hells is she doing in here?
I shuffled over, giving her room to stand in front of the mirrored vanity beside me, close but not touching.
Show no fear.
Show no fear.
The noise of running water and my panicked heartbeat picking up, then settling at a slower pace to match hers, was a deafening pounding in my ears.
I swallowed thickly. One more thing I hadn’t anticipated when bringing Nelle to the safety of my room was her trademark scent.
It made perfect sense now, after learning what we were to each other—a pull meant to scramble my senses and draw us closer.
Yet, she and I weren’t a typical wyrm and tamer, so I wasn’t sure if it was instinct born of what she was, or an exclusive trait that marked us as a unique pairing.
Nelle’s fragrance, touched by elderflower warmth, drifted through the room, seeping into my pores. Standing so close to her had that thing that existed only between us, whispering pure electric desire across my bare skin and making my heartbeat falter, then race to match hers.
I blew out a low, slow breath, trying to be inconspicuous and dampen down my yearning.
Nelle’s gaze flicked to the bottles I’d rearranged, and she made a disparaging sound that was half-hmm and half-snort. A swift flash of cold amusement gleamed sharply across her features.
My heated need for her cooled as an unsettling sensation crawled down my spine.
Somehow, I had amused her. But I had no fucking idea how, or what I’d walked into. As I ran the bristles of my toothbrush across the back of my bottom teeth, I quickly ran through the last couple of minutes. What I’d touched. And where I’d been.
What could it be?
Shit. I wasn’t only paranoid, I was terrified of this tiny little thing.
Nelle sighed lightly as she ran the hot tap, wet the cloth, and used it to dampen her face, dumping it on the side of the sink afterward.
She picked up a cleanser, pumped a thick, oozy lotion into her palm, and rubbed it onto her cheeks, making them shine.
“I helped Penn with her chores today,” she said in a conversational tone.
I spat toothpaste into the sink and replied cautiously. “The room is pretty tidy,”—apart from all the fucking shoes your wraith-wolf decimated—“thanks.”
“Yeah, there wasn’t much else to do.” She picked up the washcloth to wipe the lotion from her face, then tossed it onto the vanity with a wet slap, almost as if she was taunting me to retaliate.
I eyed the washcloth where it lay seeping water all over the dark surface. Why couldn’t she have folded it up neatly? Put the fucking thing on the shallow recess of the sink that had been carved for that very purpose?
Nelle scrunched her nose and said, “So I figured, while I still had these,” raising both hands to wiggle her fingers, “I’d help tidy.”
My gut twisted painfully, and that ever-present guilt sank its claws into me at the reminder that, in a few months’ time, she’d be standing on an auction block at the Witches Ball.
I glanced away to spit froth into the sink, watching it get caught up with the running water and swirl down the drain. Shoving the guilt deep down into the dark, festering pit of my black soul, I went back to cleaning my teeth, the molars in particular.
“I cleaned the bathroom for her.” Nelle picked up a smaller bottle, closing her eyes as she sprayed mist onto her face.
There was no way I could resist staring at her in the mirror as those lashes lowered, fanning the curve of her upper cheeks and her plump lips parted, dusted in a glittering sheen of moisture.
Beautiful.
Her hair had swung over a shoulder to her chest, and it drew my gaze downward to where the robe gaped above the swell of her cleavage. I swallowed once more. She opened her eyes, and I snapped my traitorous gaze away before she could catch me blatantly leering.
This time, her slender fingers curled around the smallest bottle. She followed up with two tiny drops of an amber oil that smelled of roses, and gently rubbed them onto her skin.
I squinted. What the hells was she doing now? And how many layers of oils and misty shit and lotions was she going to coat her face in?
She turned to face me, casually pumping another lotion into her palm and leaning her hip against the vanity. “It’s a little hard to get it super clean, you know…the bottom of the toilet bowl and all…”
I started getting this horrible feeling, and the scrubbing of my teeth slowed down as I stared suspiciously.
“Penn has some really good tips for cleaning,” she continued airily, rubbing the sweet-smelling lotion onto her face with the tips of her fingers, which made her honeyed complexion and the smattering of freckles glow.
“And that toothbrush of yours was a perfect fit for the small area down the bottom and back of the toilet bowl, where I could scrub away into the curve of the bowl, really get in there,” she said, making a furious motion with her hand as if she was busily scrubbing at the bowl with an invisible toothbrush.
My toothbrush…
I blinked. “You used my toothbrush to clean the toilet?”
She wouldn’t…
She fucking would.
“Well, yeah,” she said, frowning, pulling a duh face. She flipped up a hand, pointing to the toothbrush currently in my mouth. “It was there after all, and the perfect fit.”
Oh my fucking gods!
I hurled my toothbrush across the bathroom, minty froth spinning away to splatter upon the stone floor as the plastic thing clattered and bounced along and struck the opposite wall.
I gagged.
My stomach dry-heaved in cruel convulsions.
I was going to throw up.
I scrambled for the mouthwash, fumbling with the lid, and poured it into my mouth, gargling and spitting it into the sink before taking another hit, suffering through the fiery burning mint.
“You are most welcome,” the sassy-mouthed assassin added, as she smiled at me with one of her crooked grins and drifted from the bathroom. “Goodnight, dickface.”
Throwing back my head, I gargled mouthwash again and again, spitting the green liquid into the sink before grabbing a new toothbrush from the drawer and coating it with a generous dose of toothpaste.
I scrubbed my teeth, my tongue, the roof of my mouth, the soft inside cheeks, gagging every so often thinking of what she’d done with my toothbrush.
Holy hells, that girl was spiteful.
Finally, I finished up. Changing out of my jeans and the t-shirt she’d scrawled her message all over, I slipped into new comfy clothes and left the bathroom. I hid my one and only pair of remaining boots in the linen cupboard, on a top shelf behind the blankets.
Filling a glass of water, I sat down at my work desk, intending to use the rest of the night for more research.
A plan had formed a few nights back, and there were things to do and uncover on Nelle’s behalf.
I also needed to find out what my mother had been up to in Ascendria.
There was an elusive puzzle piece missing from the jigsaw, and I had to unearth it somehow.
There were passwords on my cell phone and laptop, so I wasn’t worried about Nelle getting past them.
I’d disconnected the room’s phone yesterday after discovering Nelle was using it to prank call our staff.
She’d been annoyed to Nine Hells that the phone only connected to the house and not the outside world.
Instead, she randomly called rooms and deep-breathed to whoever answered, or hurled abuse at them.
I frowned as my fingers curled around the mouse. It didn’t move. In fact, it didn’t budge from the desk’s surface.
What the…?
I tapped my keyboard…a couple more times…a couple more keys, when I realized nothing was happening on the screen.
A hiss of annoyance gritted out between clenched teeth. I should have fucking known. Nelle had obviously found my arts and crafts box to write the message on my t-shirt.
And in the box were other crafty things.
Like super glue.
Little Miss Annoying had super-glued my mouse to the desk, as well as all the keys on my laptop too. Fuuuck!