Read Online Stone Cold Lover by Christine Warren - Free Book Online
Authors: Christine Warren
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Hard.
Wasn’t that a hell of a pill to try to choke down, Fil reflected as she stepped behind the shower curtain and turned her face up to the warm spray. Like she didn’t have enough on her plate in her everyday life without now discovering she might be the target of a mad cult, her old college pal wanted to recruit her to help save the world, and she needed a supernatural, immortal bodyguard to protect her from magical attacks? Now her body had started screaming that she ought to end her long sexual dry spell by climbing said inhuman Guardian like the Swiss Alps and planting her flag right in his tight, bitable backside.
Oh, she so didn’t need this.
Didn’t need and wouldn’t worry about, she decided, sleeking her hair back from her face. She saw no point in getting tied up in knots over things she couldn’t control. She’d be much better off if she just focused on the things she could actually accomplish, like finding out how big a threat this Order of Eternal Darkness cult was actually likely to be.
She had a few ideas about that, beginning with finding out whether the bomber from last night had survived the blast. After all, if the guy never made it out of the abbey, chances were he hadn’t gone blabbing about her to any of his demon-worshipping buddies. That would mean the risk to Fil was relatively small, and she might just be able to get out from under the protection of Spar and back to her life.
Let him and his buddy Kees worry about saving the world. She just wanted to save her own sanity.
Keeping that hope firmly in the forefront of her mind, Fil flipped open the cap to her shampoo bottle and squirted a dollop into her palm. Then she yelped, and the bottle slipped from her suddenly limp fingers and thudded against the fiberglass floor of the tub. What the hell was going on?
A question she repeated when the door burst open and Spar flung the shower curtain aside to glare down at her, wings and stony skin very much in evidence.
“What is wrong?” he demanded, his gaze searching the small room as if he expected crazed cultists to start jumping out of the steam around them. “I heard you cry out. Are you hurt? Was someone here? What happened?”
The unheralded interruption had been bad enough, but when the gargoyle reached for her with a huge, clawed hand, she slapped it hard and backed away, tugging the corner of the shower curtain with her.
“Hey, naked here!” she snapped, trying to cover herself with white fabric that rapidly began to lose its opacity as it soaked the water up off her skin. “What did I tell you about barging in on me in private rooms, huh? Get the hell out of here and go wait in the living room, ž ioplys !”
He ignored her, except to continue glowering. “I heard you scream, and there was a banging noise. I believed you to be in danger. Tell me what disturbed you.”
“You’re disturbing me right now.” But she glanced down at her hand and felt a fresh jolt of shock at what she saw there.
On her left palm, the one she’d instinctively thrown up to block the lunatic’s magical attack the night before, something disturbing had begun to take shape. Last night, the skin had just looked a little red, like she’d incurred a mild burn, so she’d figured whatever the jerk had tried to do to her had failed. It hadn’t pained her, after all, so how serious could it be?
Now she began to wonder.
Spar followed her gaze to the source of her distraction and gently seized her hand, lifting and angling it into the light from the bathroom window. He studied the faint pink pattern for a moment, then cursed. From the sound of it, Fil was willing to bet it beat the Lithuanian version of “fucker” she’d called him a few seconds ago by a nautical mile.
“What is it?” she asked. Anxiety clawed at her belly, but she needed to know. How much more trouble did this mean she was in?
“I am not certain, because it appears not to have fully formed,” he told her, “but it
Wasn’t that a hell of a pill to try to choke down, Fil reflected as she stepped behind the shower curtain and turned her face up to the warm spray. Like she didn’t have enough on her plate in her everyday life without now discovering she might be the target of a mad cult, her old college pal wanted to recruit her to help save the world, and she needed a supernatural, immortal bodyguard to protect her from magical attacks? Now her body had started screaming that she ought to end her long sexual dry spell by climbing said inhuman Guardian like the Swiss Alps and planting her flag right in his tight, bitable backside.
Oh, she so didn’t need this.
Didn’t need and wouldn’t worry about, she decided, sleeking her hair back from her face. She saw no point in getting tied up in knots over things she couldn’t control. She’d be much better off if she just focused on the things she could actually accomplish, like finding out how big a threat this Order of Eternal Darkness cult was actually likely to be.
She had a few ideas about that, beginning with finding out whether the bomber from last night had survived the blast. After all, if the guy never made it out of the abbey, chances were he hadn’t gone blabbing about her to any of his demon-worshipping buddies. That would mean the risk to Fil was relatively small, and she might just be able to get out from under the protection of Spar and back to her life.
Let him and his buddy Kees worry about saving the world. She just wanted to save her own sanity.
Keeping that hope firmly in the forefront of her mind, Fil flipped open the cap to her shampoo bottle and squirted a dollop into her palm. Then she yelped, and the bottle slipped from her suddenly limp fingers and thudded against the fiberglass floor of the tub. What the hell was going on?
A question she repeated when the door burst open and Spar flung the shower curtain aside to glare down at her, wings and stony skin very much in evidence.
“What is wrong?” he demanded, his gaze searching the small room as if he expected crazed cultists to start jumping out of the steam around them. “I heard you cry out. Are you hurt? Was someone here? What happened?”
The unheralded interruption had been bad enough, but when the gargoyle reached for her with a huge, clawed hand, she slapped it hard and backed away, tugging the corner of the shower curtain with her.
“Hey, naked here!” she snapped, trying to cover herself with white fabric that rapidly began to lose its opacity as it soaked the water up off her skin. “What did I tell you about barging in on me in private rooms, huh? Get the hell out of here and go wait in the living room, ž ioplys !”
He ignored her, except to continue glowering. “I heard you scream, and there was a banging noise. I believed you to be in danger. Tell me what disturbed you.”
“You’re disturbing me right now.” But she glanced down at her hand and felt a fresh jolt of shock at what she saw there.
On her left palm, the one she’d instinctively thrown up to block the lunatic’s magical attack the night before, something disturbing had begun to take shape. Last night, the skin had just looked a little red, like she’d incurred a mild burn, so she’d figured whatever the jerk had tried to do to her had failed. It hadn’t pained her, after all, so how serious could it be?
Now she began to wonder.
Spar followed her gaze to the source of her distraction and gently seized her hand, lifting and angling it into the light from the bathroom window. He studied the faint pink pattern for a moment, then cursed. From the sound of it, Fil was willing to bet it beat the Lithuanian version of “fucker” she’d called him a few seconds ago by a nautical mile.
“What is it?” she asked. Anxiety clawed at her belly, but she needed to know. How much more trouble did this mean she was in?
“I am not certain, because it appears not to have fully formed,” he told her, “but it
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