FOURTEEN
“I don’t believe that worked.” Angela blinked at Zarek, with his heavy boots, walking inside her house.
Aunt Claudine would have a field day knowing her wards kept out the warrior in black leather, bleeding on the front doormat.
And her aunt would demand a better excuse than I found this injured… stray?
Angela moved down the hallway to her bedroom, turning on all the lights, pulling back the covers of her bed, then raced back to the front door.
“You can lie down in the bedroom.” She helped him cross the room, holding him up as they lurched down the corridor to her bed.
“I shouldn’t, I’d—” His hand pressed to his wound, her second scarf seeping now with a dark patch of blood. “I’d dirty your bed.”
Aww, bless him. “It’s okay. I’m sure it’ll just wash out.” Not that she cared when his health mattered more.
She helped him lie down, where he swamped her bed with leather and muscle, black hair, and those teal-blue eyes.
Never did she ever picture someone like Zarek lying on her light linens. She just had to drink in the sight.
Focus.
“I’ll get the first aid kit.” She caught her hand on the doorframe and peered back. “Do you need anything to drink?”
“What liquor do you have?”
She shrugged. “Vodka. Wine.”
“Vodka. Bring the bottle.”
“That I can do.”
In the kitchen, she filled the kettle then put it on the stove to boil.
From the pantry, she dragged out a large glass bowl, the first aid kit, and the box of salt.
From the drawers, she pulled out some clean cloths and the fresh bottle of vodka from the freezer.
All while refusing to let herself think too hard, not even when she poured several heavy handfuls of salt into the bowl.
With a dry, rhythmic hiss, the salt fell as the familiar briny scent of minerals rose. The salt crystals seemed to mock the shadows, scattering shards of light reflecting from the kitchen lamp.
She’d read once that Roman soldiers were partly paid in salt, an ancient preservative that had kept civilizations fed, roads clear, wounds clean, and evil—apparently—very, very dead.
Salt had no additive number, and it had no warning label from some panicked social media groups demanding it be removed from school canteens. Just sodium chloride, the original preservative, sitting quietly in a cardboard cylinder next to the stove.
Not that she’d gone looking for that information.
But living with Claudine had turned food deliveries into heavily vetted events.
Soaps and detergents required every label be read like legal briefs before they went into the shopping cart.
Salt was one of the few things that made the approved list of her childhood.
And Angela had just thrown it at a demon-thing wearing a black cloak like some oversized gremlin that belonged in some D-grade horror movie.
And here she was, about to use salt to tend the wound of a man too stubborn to go to a hospital because, obviously, the full tactical armor of some cosplay outfit would raise questions that no triage nurse was equipped to handle.
She drizzled boiling water over the salt, which dissolved into a cloudy solution that steamed faintly against the edges of the glass bowl. Warm water and salt, a simple solution that had been used to cleanse wounds for thousands of years.
But there was nothing simple about this.
How could ordinary kitchen salt burn a Black Cloak so badly that it wailed in pain?
It just wasn’t possible.
When she returned to the bedroom, that putrid smell was polluting her home.
It was like oil clinging to the air around Zarek’s wound, seeping rot that embedded into the sheets.
A wretched aroma of burned metal and old blood left too long in the heat; it turned her stomach and made her almost retreat from her room.
She’d felt this before.
Never as bad as this, but enough to cross the street when a stranger passed too close. Those times she’d felt uneasy in rooms with certain people she couldn’t explain knowing how, or when someone was innocent in court.
She’d never had a word for it.
Until now…
Evil.
The Black Cloaks were saturated with that stench that had followed her home. It was in her clothes and on her skin.
Worse, the poison was burning through Zarek’s veins.
Evil. Was. Real!
Her heart pounded so hard that she struggled to breathe.
What was wrong with her? She hadn’t had a panic attack since she was a kid.
Well, not until that first night of nearly getting killed by that monster that triggered the nightmares that wouldn’t stop.
Even her hands trembled making the bowl of hot, salty water slosh around inside.
“Angela?” Zarek’s low voice cut through her thoughts. “I’m here. Stay with me. There is no need for panic.”
She exhaled shakily and moved to his side, setting the bowl down.
“I’m…” Anything but okay, but she needed to help him. “Just, please, don’t let it…” Take you. His wound had an unnatural darkness threaded through it, like black webs of poison created for one purpose: to make him suffer. “It’s burning you, isn’t it?”
The smell made her sick, while his presence was the only reason she remained calm and didn’t go screeching down the street in the rain.
Zarek nodded at the bowl. “What are you going to do?”
She dipped a cloth into the water. “I’m going to wash the wound with salt water.”
“Why?”
“It cleanses. Sterilizes.” She pressed the back of her hand to her nose to give her sinuses a fleeting break. “And it gets rid of that smell.”
“And burns Black Cloaks,” he murmured, faintly amused. “You carry salt with you. Why?”
“Not normally. But lately I have.” She scowled. “Ever since that night.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know! Because I could still smell it on my clothes and in my house. And now I can smell it on you, and I don’t like it, so don’t argue with me.” She walked out to grab some towels from her bathroom.
“Right. Take your shirt off,” she ordered as she re-entered the room.
He tried. But failed.
She helped him sit up, her fingers trembling as she reached for the buckles across his chest. The leather was thick beneath her hands, unlike any jacket she’d ever felt before.
It was surprisingly warm, its smooth surface deeply etched with markings.
“What are these?” Her thumb brushed over the etchings.
“Staves.”
“I’ve seen staves. I just finished repairing this Nordic book on them. Some of them looked like snowflakes…” She traced her finger over one of the scored staves that her aunt had called spells. “This doesn’t look decorative.”
“They’re not meant to be. They are there to contain me. Without it…” He swallowed, turning to look down at his armor. “I would burn through clothing or anyone who accidentally brushed against me.”
Angela’s fingers paused on the stave. “Right.” But she didn’t feel any heat or danger, just his pain, and his fear of hurting her.
She went back to easing the leather off his shoulders. The heavy jacket dropped to the floor with a solid thud. Beneath it, he wore a tight black undershirt with silver threads woven on the cuffs into some sort of geometric pattern, different to the staves on his armor.
But the way the fabric clung to him like a second skin, outlining every muscle across his chest and shoulders, the curve of his ribs, the strength in his arms even as they shook from pain.
“Take this off too,” she said, trying to sound normal, but failing.
He tried to move.
Again, she helped him, her fingers sliding beneath the edge of the shirt to peel it up. The heat of his smooth skin hit her palms first, making her want to pause as she lifted the fabric slowly over his head.
And then he was bare.
Angela forgot to breathe as her eyes trailed slowly over his broad shoulders, the hard planes of muscle and a chest that looked carved. There were faint lines across his skin where the staves from his armor had left ghostly impressions, as if his body remembered their shape.
He wasn’t just strong.
Oh, he was beautiful.
But in a way that looked dangerously sexy and utterly out of place in her bedroom.
In this little house, in her quiet suburban street, he’d become the thief stealing snippets of her breath, making unknown music with her heartbeats.
She bit her bottom lip and forced herself to look away.
“So, um, I’ll put this stuff down and clean up that wound. ”
Zarek watched her through half-lidded eyes, as if feeling every flicker of her reaction.
Oh, hell no. If she could feel him, could he feel her too?
The heat in her cheeks flared.
But his eyes never looked away; in fact, no one looked at her the way he did. It was enough to unleash the wild butterflies to tickle her lower belly.
Focus.
She spread a layer of plastic on top of her sheets. “Lie down, please.”
He eased back with a wince, as another spike of pain in his side made her wince with him.
She handed him the vodka. “You’re going to need this.”
“I’ll need to bite down on something, then.”
“Why?”
“So I don’t scream your house down like that Black Cloak did.” He took a deep gulp straight from the bottle.
She poked around in her dresser drawers and spotted her leather belts. Grabbing a few, she held them up to him. “Pick one.”
He pointed with the lidless vodka bottle. “It’ll take the black.”
“Because it so suits the black leather pants.” She giggled. She had to as this was all too much. Even his frown lightened a little as he folded the leather belt, then tested it by biting down, with his hands fisting the ends.
It was her turn with the vodka bottle; taking a deep mouthful, she held it out to him. “You want another hit before I begin?”
He didn’t say anything as he removed the belt and took the bottle. His eyes never left hers as he took deep mouthfuls.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“What for?”
“Because I think this will hurt. We both saw what it did to that Black Cloak.”
“You don’t need to do this.”
“Yeah, I do. I don’t know how or why, but I can smell evil coming from the wound.
” A wound that didn’t just look like a knife cut, but more like black acid burning away at his flesh.
“The stench is giving me a headache.” Hoping she didn’t faint from the sight either, but she needed to do this for him.
“I don’t want that in my house. And I know it’s hurting you too.
So…” Angela dipped the cloth into the salty water, bracing herself for the pain to come. “I’m truly sorry if this hurts.”
“I believe you.” His eyes locked with hers, enough to make her pause at their hypnotic power; he truly was beautiful, like the gods had missed one of their own.
Until a single droplet fell from the cloth and touched his wound, and steam hissed.
Zarek’s body went rigid. A muffled cry tore from him as he bit down on the leather belt.
She quickly wiped it away, only to pull back.
“Keep going,” he forced out through gritted teeth. “It’s working.”
So, she did. She didn’t stop wiping and cleansing, all while sobbing her many sorrys as the blackness sizzled away, the smell lifted, and the poison retreated.
Thankfully, he’d passed out, so Angela kept going until it was clean. She applied the bandage, cleaned the blood from his leathers, then salted and burned the cloths and Zarek’s undershirt in her barbecue until they were ash.
It was late when she finally stumbled into the shower and scrubbed herself clean, allowing the hot water to wash away his blood and the last of that vile scent from her skin.
By the time she turned the tap off, exhaustion sat heavy in her bones. She dried, dressed in one of her soft, loose dresses, and padded back down the hallway with bare feet, too tired to think logically.
In her bedroom, Zarek was asleep on her bed. The harsh lines of pain had eased from his face, his chest rising and falling in a deep, steady rhythm.
Without the armor or weapons that seemed to burden him, he looked younger somehow. Less like a weapon and more like a man.
Careful not to wake him, she removed his heavy boots, easing them off his feet and setting them neatly by the bed where his knife sheaths lay one by one.
She could remove the leather pants…
Instead, she took him in without him disappearing on her.
And for a fleeting, precious moment, the horrors of the day were momentarily forgotten, replaced with the beauty of his powerful face, dark lashes, high cheekbones and how his stern mouth had softened. There was a faint line marking his brow, as if rest didn’t stop his vigilance as a warrior.
And there was no mistaking he was a warrior. Just what kind of warrior, and for whom, she had no clue.
But right now, he looked like a man who’d been threaded into a tapestry of breathtaking magnificence. The entry fee for this private viewing may prove costly, but this one moment seemed like a crime to even exist.
Like a thief reaching for the untouchable, she let her fingertips brush his cheek, to slide gently into his thick dark hair that was softer than she’d imagined.
Allowing herself to linger there for a moment as a sigh slipped free from her lips.
Her fingertips trailed down the slope of his jaw, the coarse stubble on his chin, the solid line of his throat, all of which blended with the quiet strength that existed even as he slept.
Men like this didn’t exist in her world. She dealt mostly with suits, shop owners, and book lovers, not warriors in leather scored with staves, who had hypnotic sea-glass eyes and muscles worthy of a god. He truly was extraordinary. She could stare at him for hours.
But then that would open her to questions of what had made her do what she’d done tonight.
Bringing him here to her house? She’d never reacted like this.
She honestly didn’t know how to explain her actions, so instead, she pulled the blanket up around him, tucking it carefully over his chest. “Sweet dreams, Zarek.”
She then dragged her favorite reading chair closer to the bed. Wrapping herself in a spare blanket, she then reached for his large hand.
It was strong and callused, without room for any gentleness. Still, she held it in both of hers, cradling it in her lap as if it were fragile, and leaned back into the chair.
Sleep claimed her almost instantly. And this time there were no nightmares. Only the steady rhythm of his breathing, and the quiet certainty that, for this one night at least, neither of them were alone.