Chapter 8
Chapter eight
When I wake up, I’m not exactly sure where I am, but I know I feel safe. Thinking back, all I remember from last night was the hunter lying me down on a bed and undressing me before I passed out. Where the hell is she now?
I lie there for a minute, but my bladder screams at me to use the bathroom, so I hurry in and out because I’m still naked as the day I was born.
After coming out, I try to find some clothes, which is useless because the hunter doesn’t have many clothes, and the ones I can find don’t really look like they’ll fit me.
A few minutes in, I just give up, grabbing the sheet from the bed and wrapping it around me.
The smell of pancakes hits my nostrils the moment I open the bedroom door, and my stomach grumbles—I’m not even sure of the last time I ate right now. I plod down the hallway toward the smell without thought. As much as I want to look around, I’m curious to see what the hunter is up to.
At the end of the hall, I come to an open archway, which leads to a barren living room. I don’t even remember us going through it last night, but since there wasn’t anything in it, the fact that it’s not familiar doesn’t surprise me.
To my right is a half-wall that looks into the kitchen.
On the other side of that wall stands the hunter with her back to me, and I’m hypnotized by the sight of her.
Her ethereally pale skin is a stark contrast to her wavy, black hair, which she has wound into a bun at the crown of her head.
The sunlight peeking through the window to her left shines off her silky hair, revealing crimson streaks throughout.
My hands itch to take her hair down, to run my fingers through the strands, and see just how soft it is.
When she shifts her stance, my gaze is drawn down to her powerful shoulders and back.
She’s only wearing a spaghetti strap shirt, so I can see all the muscles flex as she flips the pancakes that drew me out here.
A tattoo that resembles a snake winds from the nape of her neck over her right shoulder and disappears out of my sight.
The outline is all in black, but the scales appear to be emerald green, similar to the color of my snakes in my gorgon form. I’m curious to see the rest of it.
“Good morning, my little relic. Are you enjoying the view?” she asks, catching me off guard.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean—”
She shakes her head. “There’s no need to apologize. I’m making breakfast, but I’m sure you already knew that—these pancakes do smell pretty amazing. I’ve tried not to eat too many of them. Although it took every ounce of my control not to eat you for breakfast this morning, too.”
I blush and stumble over my words. “Thanks for making breakfast. Where, uh, are my clothes?”
She turns toward me with a pan in hand and drops it directly into the sink that’s positioned under the half-wall opening.
“I’m washing them. You’re welcome to borrow some of mine.
They’re all still packed up, so they can be tricky to find, but I’m not sure how well my bottoms will fit.
You were definitely blessed in the ass department far more than I was.
Or… you could wear nothing at all. I’m quite fine with that, too. ”
With a nervous laugh, I begin my walk back down the hall, and she calls out, “Breakfast will be ready when you get back out here.”
Thankfully, I’m able to find clothes relatively quickly once I’ve figured out where things are.
I go through three pairs of shorts before I can find ones I’m able to squeeze into, and I curse her for being right about my ass.
When I’m done, I head back out to the living room.
The hunter is standing with her back to me again in the kitchen, but she turns toward me rather quickly this time.
She looks me up and down as she waves me in. “I see you were able to find something. Your breakfast is here on the table. Come, sit.”
My stomach grumbles, reminding me just how hungry I am, and I internally scold it as I make my way into the kitchen. To the left, under another window, is a small, round table with one chair and a plate of food.
“Where’s yours?” I ask.
She waves me off, and I sit. “I ate a little bit while I was waiting for you, but being what I am, I don’t require much in the way of ‘normal food’.”
My brows furrow. “And what exactly are you?”
She sighs. “I walked right into that. My kind are called a lot of things; I think doppelg?nger and mimic are the ones I prefer most.”
I choke on the food I was just about to swallow. When she moves to help me, I hold out my hand and take a sip of the milk she’d given me. After clearing my throat a few times, I look up at her. “You’re a skinwalker?”
A growl rumbles in her chest. “I fucking hate that term.”
My heart sinks into my stomach. “I’m sorry. That’s the way I’ve always heard your kind referred to.”
“It’s not your fault,” she says, pausing for a deep breath. “I apologize for that visceral reaction. The term brings up a lot of bad memories.”
I take a bite of my food and nod. “So, being a doppelg?nger must be useful in your line of work, I assume.”
“It’s helpful for sure and also likely how I’ve lived so long.”
Clearing my throat, I wipe any excess crumbs from my face. “May I ask how old you are?”
She laughs. “Let’s just say I’m a hell of a lot older than I look, Roxanna.”
I cringe. “Please just call me Roxi. Roxanna is so formal and makes me feel like I’m in trouble or something.”
A beautiful smile lights up her face. “Roxi suits you.”
I blush and take another bite of my food. “How do you know my name? I know you’re a hunter, but you said you weren’t after me.”
She sighs and rubs her hand over her face.
“One of my assignments was for one of your father’s guards.
That’s when I first saw you. I abandoned my assignment and watched you for several days before I almost lost control of myself and had to…
feed. When I went back to check on you, everything and everyone were gone.
After that, I did everything in my power to find out who you were. ”
“Do you remember who you were hunting?”
She takes a moment to think. “I’m pretty sure his name was Calen.” My heart skips a beat, and my face must show my shock because her brows furrow. “I’m going to guess you’re familiar with him.”
Placing my fork on my plate, I stumble over my words. “Y-yeah, I was.”
Her jaw ticks. “How familiar with him were you?”
I bite my lip. “He’s the one who took my virginity. My father killed him as a warning of what would happen if the guards touched me again and as a punishment for my putting his guards in danger.”
Skin rippling, she growls, “Apparently, you have a habit of attracting disgusting men.”
My mouth pops open. “Excuse me?”
She takes a step toward me, and my glamour drops, but that doesn’t stop her from crowding my space.
“Both of the men you’ve allowed to touch you have been rapists and murderers.
Hell, most of the men your father employed to guard you over the years were shitty people—although your father was a questionable man himself, so it doesn’t surprise me with the company he kept.
I just wish he had done better to keep his daughter safe. ”
Her bringing up my choice in the men I let touch me feels like a punch to the gut. I can’t deny that Merric was a bad guy, but I suppose I didn’t know enough about Calen, or any of the other guards my father employed, well enough to say what kind of men they were.
Who my father was is a whole other story.
I never knew what he did outside our home, but I knew exactly the man he was around me.
He’d told me numerous times while I was growing up that I was a disappointment and that I’d destroyed his life when I was born.
He blamed me for my mother’s death, even though it wasn’t truly my fault.
Her labor with me was hard on her body. Back then, things were very different from what they are now.
There were no ultrasound machines or heart rate monitors for the baby in the mother’s womb.
My mother spent three days laboring at home with a midwife checking on her periodically before she began to bleed profusely.
My father rushed her to the hospital, insisting there was something wrong.
They took her back quickly and were about to do a cesarean section when my mother felt me coming out.
The doctor positioned himself between her legs just in time to catch me, but then his eyes met mine, and he turned to stone.
My father was the first to notice something was wrong. For whatever reason, the nurses weren’t around, so my father called out for help because my mom was still bleeding. It took too long for another doctor to arrive, but there wasn’t much they could’ve done—she’d already lost far too much blood.
When my father finally got to hold me, he refused to look into my eyes, knowing the curse placed on his family nearly a millennium before had finally presented itself.
My father never did tell me about the curse before he passed.
The staff in the houses we occupied over the years explained that the curse was the reason he hid me away from the world.
Everyone knows gorgons are dangerous, and as much as I was a disappointment to him, I was his daughter, so I took solace in knowing he tried to protect me. Or who knows, maybe he was protecting everyone else by keeping me from going out and inadvertently turning others to stone.
I settle back in my chair and cross my arms over my chest. “I can’t help that I crave attention—I never got any growing up because of what I am. So, forgive me for getting attention from the men who would give it to me. Instead, blame my father for never giving me what I deserved.”
She takes a deep breath, and the rippling of her skin slows until it stops altogether. Then, she takes a step away from me. “I can understand that. I’m sorry.”
I shrug my shoulders. “What do you really want, doppelg?nger?”
Her nose scrunches. “I don’t like your calling me that. My name is Avyanna.”
Rolling my eyes, I say, “Fine, Avyanna. What do you want with me?”
“We’ve already established this,” she says with an exasperated sigh.
“Because I make you feel… different? That doesn’t make sense to me in the least.”
“When you’ve lived as long as I have, seen as much as I have, and experienced as much as I have, you become desensitized.
Only one other person has made me feel something over the last few centuries besides pain and hatred toward the world that robbed me of so much of my life.
One look at you, and I was obsessed. I can’t explain it, and I’m not completely sure why yet, but I have to know what’s different about you. ”
My brows slam down. “Okay, but what if that’s not what I want? What if I just want to go home?”
A dark laugh leaves her lips. “You don’t want to go back to being caged. You made that very clear last night when I told you I was bringing you here.”
“My family has several places I can stay,” I counter.
“Your father’s men will find you at any of his homes, and you know that.”
I shake my head. “There’s no way I can stay with you. I don’t even know you.”
“You know my name, and you know what I am. There aren’t many others who can say they do.”
“What little I know about your kind isn’t anything good, hence why I only know of you all as skinwalkers. Your kind are the things of nightmares to most supes.”
Her lip curls. “My kind is nearly extinct, all thanks to the fear surrounding what we can do.”
I raise my hands in defense. “I’m just telling you what I know, which, like I said, isn’t much. It does little to ease my fear of you.”
A wicked smile lifts the corner of her lips. “You weren’t so scared of me last night when I undressed you and lay beside you while we were both naked.”
My face flushes. “I was exhausted and could barely keep my eyes open! Plus, I didn’t even know you climbed into the bed with me.”
She raises an eyebrow. “I could also smell your arousal this morning while I was making breakfast, right before I turned around to greet you. You weren’t so scared then.”
My mouth drops to the floor. “I was, uh, admiring the view. And I didn’t know what you were then.”
“Tell yourself whatever you’d like so you can sleep at night.”
I clench my jaw. “I still don’t know you.”
“We have all the time in the world, my little relic. We’re both immortal after all.”