Chapter 7

Rosemary

Heat scaled my cheeks as I backed out of the kitchen. I couldn’t believe he’d just done that, and he was clearly not in the least embarrassed about the erection that started to tent that flimsy little towel. The urge to slap my cheek and rush upstairs to take a freaking cold shower was strong. I didn’t want to desperately beg that stupid little towel to slip from his hips, but I was very close to doing so.

“Now that I am fed, it is time to patrol the land. Come, I will show you how I shift to my true form,” Chardum said in a deep bass. His golden eyes pierced me with this intense look. So, he was ignoring the elephant in the room for now to drag me with him into his strange delusion.

I shook my head, “You do hear that torrential downpour outside? I’m not leaving the house, thank you very much. It’s night, we should sleep.” I eyed him suspiciously, I didn’t have a spare mattress, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to invite him upstairs with me. I was crazy to think I’d get any sleep when I had such a weird stranger parading practically naked through my house.

He shrugged, “I still need to shift to complete healing.” His eyes took on a haunted cast as he angled his head up toward the ceiling. “I haven’t flown in twenty-six years. I must fly.” I shrugged and tried to pretend that his eyes weren’t tugging on my heartstrings. When I just wordlessly pointed at the door, he nodded and started walking.

How was that possible? I tried to make sense of his back when he passed me, which was smooth, tawny, and completely devoid of the massive bruising from before. When my eyes darted down his body to check on the cuts and gashes along his lower legs, I noticed that those seemed much less severe than before.

“Are you coming?” he asked when he paused in front of the large front door, one hand gently pressed against the deep walnut of the panel. I shook my head; heck no! There was no way I was following that lunatic outside. I needed to back away and clear my head and I needed to get rid of all these feelings of attraction for my incredibly bizarre house guest.

“Definitely not, I’m going to bed. I’ll toss down a sleeping bag and air mattress, you can use those. And I better not catch you sneaking up the stairs, got it?” I was crazy for even giving him this much trust but he had already had ample opportunity to harm me, and he hadn’t. That counted for something, didn’t it? It also felt really wrong to just kick him out without even a shirt on his back, after he’d appeared so injured. Though I was starting to think that I’d imagined that, nobody healed that fast.

For a moment, he seemed completely frozen. Oddly enough, it made me feel like I was the one caught in some predator’s gaze, my skin breaking out in goosebumps, my belly tingling with nerves. “I see.” His gaze dropped from mine to gaze around the entry hall with a more thoughtful expression.

“I will rig up a bell, an alarm that should wake you if anyone does try to come up the stairs. Though I swear that I will not. I only go where I am invited,” he drawled the last words seductively, his golden gaze heating like fire as his eyes caressed my body. It felt almost like hands brushed along my skin wherever that gaze went. My nipples tightened to hard peaks, my belly fluttered for very different reasons, and my skin heated along my breasts and hips.

“That’s acceptable,” I said with a dry mouth. I didn’t wait to see what else he’d say or do, I just spun on my heels and took the stairs two steps at a time. At the top, I turned to see what he was doing and discovered he was dismantling this brass wall ornament with a bell in it. Already, he was holding a ball of twine in one palm.

I raced for my room to retrieve the sleeping bag and the folded canvas of the air mattress. It was a small one, and I didn’t think it was going to be comfortable for his big body but surely it was better than the hardwood floors. When I brought them halfway down the stairs, Chardum met me halfway. “Thank you, sleep well,” he said. And then he stuck both items under one arm and started stringing the rope up from the banister to the wall, the bell dangling merrily from it.

I wasn’t entirely sure that it would deter him if he did decide to locate me in my bedroom, but I appreciated the gesture. It wasn’t a bad idea to rig up some alarms like that when I lived out here all by myself. By the time I snuggled back into my bed, I was exhausted and chilled, and this time I really hoped I wouldn’t dream of that seductive voice. I couldn’t be entirely sure, because my memory could have adjusted after I’d heard him speak, but that dream voice had sounded suspiciously like him.

The rain was starting to slow down, turning from a massive downpour to a soft pitter-patter more suited to falling asleep to. I tossed and turned, my body feeling strange and warm as soon as I got under the blankets. My mind kept straying to the stranger in my living room while I wondered if he really went outside again, naked, in this weather.

What did he mean by shift? How could he possibly speak the truth when he said he was friends with my father, with Zachary? He looked to be a little older than me, but that still meant he’d just been a kid when my father last lived at this farm. From what little we’d talked about, I got the sense that Chardum had been here all this time. If I were to believe him, he had been trapped beneath the rockslide.

No, he hadn’t actually said that, had he? I wasn’t sure, maybe I’d just assumed that because of the injuries and the mud. But how else could he have gotten hurt? Then I recalled how the bruises and cuts had been gone or barely there by the time he’d finished eating, had I just imagined them?