“I wouldn’t even know where to throw you out of,” she rasped. “So no, lucky for you, I think that portion of our program is over with.”
Gideon’s smile deepened slightly. Probably, Carly reflected, because she at least still had strength enough to banter, even if she wasn’t at all sure if her legs would hold her if she tried to stand.
“That’s a relief, then. I’d hate to be thrown out of my own house.”
Though she wouldn’t have thought it possible, the heat licking at her bones suddenly became secondary to utter confusion. Carly frowned.
“Your house?” When he said nothing, a gnawing, unpleasant suspicion began to work on her. It wasn’t possible. Was it? “Please tell me you own a place somewhere in the continental United States.”
His eyes crinkled up at the corners. “No.”
“So … I’m at your house in …”
“Scotland.”
“Ah.” Carly paused, looking expectantly at him, waiting for more information. When none seemed immediately forthcoming, she prodded him. Did he not realize that her nerves were worn so thin at this point that she would just as soon black out again to escape? “I feel like death warmed over, Gideon,” she began, trying (and failing, she was fairly sure) to keep her testiness out of her voice. “I’m not really in the mood for a guessing game right now, so probably you should just tell me how I got here. After last night …”
Gideon abruptly silenced her then, when he leaned over to take her hand, rubbing a soothing circular pattern against her palm with his thumb. What was this, she thought, confused, distracted by the tenderness in Gideon’s eyes, his actions. Hadn’t he been the one who was walking away from her? The one who’d insisted it would be better for them both if they never saw one another again? It came out of pity, maybe, or guilt, Carly decided. She was probably owed both. She wanted neither.
“It wasn’t last night, Carly,” Gideon said, interrupting her stewing. “It was two days ago.” When she just looked at him, stunned into silence, he nodded. “After the … well, after, I must have passed out. I was holding you. Do you remember any of this?”
“No.” Except there was something, Carly thought, searching for any shred of memory past that horrifying face. Something about his words that rang true, some vague and lingering impression of sudden warmth and security in a once-terrifying darkness, allowing her to slip deeply into comforting oblivion. “That creature. Is he…dead?”
Gideon nodded, his voice grim. “He was strong, like nothing I’ve ever seen. But he’s been sent back to whatever dark pit he came from.” He shook his head slightly, eyes closing briefly, as though trying to clear his mind of unwanted and disturbing memories. “When I awoke, it was some hours later. The … your shoulder,” he said, obviously not wanting to call her wound what it was, as though not naming it might somehow change the nature of it, “was beginning to fester, and you were feverish, unconscious.”
Carly raised an eyebrow, uncomfortable now with Gideon’s obvious concern for her. She wanted desperately to lighten the dark, oppressive sensation that seemed to surround them, pressing in on them from all sides. Though most of all, she wanted this to just not be happening.
“So, you thought you could cure me with the miracle of transatlantic flight?” she quipped. And the humor might have gotten through, she thought ruefully, if her body hadn’t suddenly decided to do a complete one-eighty and shoot straight from burning heat to ice-cold chills. Concern darkened Gideon’s eyes anew as he tucked her covers more firmly around her shivering form. The gentle way he was handling her had Carly struggling again with her own raw nerves and emotions. Tears, frustration, possibly even a good, loud screaming fit, were all worryingly close to the surface, and she wasn’t at all sure how either one of them would handle it if anything broke through. It seemed like their footing had fundamentally changed since Gideon had saved her life. But until she figured out how, Carly was going to have to stay bottled up.
She was no drama queen, but she didn’t relish the prospect of restraining herself right now. Every girl had her limits, emotionally, and she was right about at hers.
“I carried you,” he said softly. “I cleaned your wound as best I could, locked up your little house, and carried you. To the car, into the airport, on the plane.”
A thought struck her then, and the worry it caused nearly took her breath away. She was in Scotland. And she’d been here for two days, leaving behind a crime scene of a house, and her parents …
But before she could speak, Gideon headed her off, immediately seeking to assuage the fears he must have seen written plainly across her face. “Don’t worry, love. You’ve a fine friend in your Regan. She’s looking after your shop, placating your parents with a tale of how I whisked you away for a weekend trip.”
“That won’t make my parents happy,” Carly sighed morosely. “Or my brothers. They’ll be laying for you.” If they see you again, she added silently, and hated herself for it.
“She even knew where your passport was. Apparently you got them together, planning on going to …”
“London. We were going to go next summer.” Those plans, so innocent, seemed like they were made in another lifetime.
“Well.” He paused awkwardly, as though unsure of whether to address her comment, the diminished possibility of those plans ever happening. Then he continued on smoothly. “I owe Regan a huge debt, Carly. If I hadn’t been able to find your passport, there likely would have been a massacre at the airport.”
She hated the shaky, uncertain sound of her own laugh. “Oh, I doubt they would have shot you.”
“Maybe not. But I would have done quite a bit of damage to anyone who tried to prevent me from getting you on that plane. Because there was no way I was leaving you behind.”
His gaze was so direct and intense that Carly had to look away. She had hoped for, longed for, everything that was in his eyes right now. And now it was there, but for all the wrong reasons.
“I’m so sorry,” she said in a voice she barely recognized as her own. “I know this was the last thing you wanted.” Way to go, Carly, she thought miserably. If she’d only been paying attention, she might have seen what was happening before it was too late, might have been able to call for help, at the very least. Instead, not only did Gideon have to worry about his missing father, but he’d found himself nursing her through the effects of a werewolf bite.
It was one hell of a way to be strong and show him she didn’t need him.
“You’re wrong,” Gideon replied, bringing Carly’s startled gaze back up to his. “You’re exactly what I want, Carly Silver.” He continued to stroke her hand, his touch amazingly gentle, a direct contrast to the intensity with which he looked at her.
“Don’t,” she said softly. “Don’t feel like you have to do this.”
“Carly, I need to do this,” he insisted. “This is my fault. I should have realized walking away from you was never going to work. I should have told you.”
Carly sighed, closed her eyes. She knew there was a pained expression on her face, but she couldn’t help it. He was trying to be kind, and she appreciated it. But instead of comforting her, all he was doing was hurting her worse.
“Look,” she interrupted him. “I know you feel responsible. I know how I must look to you, lying here, and I can appreciate the fact that you feel like you need to take care of me until …” she swallowed hard, not sure how to phrase it, then settling for “ … until whatever happens, happens. But don’t you dare try to tell me how much you care about me now, Gideon. Don’t you dare. Because if I hadn’t been bitten, we would be on different sides of the ocean by now, and that’s the way it would have stayed.”
She was surprised by the heat in her voice when she spoke, surprised by how desperately she did not want to hear him say those words now, where before she would have given almost anything to hear them fall from his lips. Because now, she couldn’t see how they would ever feel like anything but a lie.
No matter what had actually happened, he would have left her. And although it surprised her, understanding her own nature as she did, it turned out that was something she couldn’t forgive. Something she would never be able to forget.
“I would have come back for you.”
She opened her eyes, forced herself to look directly at him. This is better for both of us, she told him silently, not wanting to think about how those words so perfectly echoed the ones that had cut her so deeply when they’d come from Gideon.
“You’ll never be sure, Gideon. Not really.” She shuddered again, feeling as though she were sitting in a vat of ice water instead of beneath a heavy quilt. “And neither will I. So let’s just leave it.”
“I can’t leave it,” he said roughly, his hand tightening on hers until it was almost painful. “I was wrong, Carly. It’s not an easy thing for me to say, so you’ll hear me out when I say it. When I saw you in his arms, bleeding, I thought I’d lost you. I thought you were dead, that I would never see your smile again, or hear you give me hell for kicking around your bloody boxes, or feel you against me. And I wanted to die too.”
“Gideon,” she pleaded, shaking worse now, and not only from the chills. Everything was too raw, too fresh. She wasn’t sure how much more she could handle before she simply shook apart.
He loosened his grip on her, moving his hand up to stroke her cheek. To Carly, trapped in the cold, it was like being touched by the sun. “Have you not wondered why the bond between us was so strong, right from the first? It was because, for my kind, there is only ever one love, one mate. We know it instantly, feel it deeply. And once that connection is made, there is no turning back, no matter how we might wish it. You’re mine, Carly. My only love. My life mate.”
