"Reasons like you've been hiding from everyone and refusing to join us for meals?"
Rowan paused, looking blandly at Gabriel's amused expression, then sniffed, "I'm never very hungry after such a long trip."
He laughed then, a throaty chuckle that had Rowan's lips quirking despite her best intentions. "You're about as good at lying as you are at sitting in trees."
"As though you had nothing to do with that."
"Nope," he grinned, relaxing once again behind the wheel. "It's all gravity."
They drove on in silence for a while after that, but it didn't seem as fraught. Rowan was thankful for that. Her nerves were on edge enough without the added stress of an uncomfortable car trip with Gabriel. It was as though a weight had been lifted from him upon the telling of what had happened this past December. It was odd, Rowan thought. As though he'd needed to tell someone who hadn't been there, someone who would see things more as they were. Someone who would tell him if she thought he could have done more.
Rowan sighed, shoving back the sudden desire to relate what had happened the night Lucien and Mordred had come for her. It didn't matter anymore. Not really. Now all she could do was try her best to avenge it, or accept a bleaker fate if that failed and try to go on from there. There was no need to strengthen the bond between them with a sharing of such personal things. Even if she had a strange, unwanted feeling that he might actually understand how she felt.
He'd never been happier to see the scatter of brightly colored buildings rounding Tobermory Bay, painted charms against the gloomy day.
Just as he'd never been more nervous to have a woman over to his apartment. He could only hope he hadn't left anything in the sink that might be growing something. But as housekeeping wasn't really one of his main concerns, he wouldn't know until they got in there and he saw it. Or more likely, he thought with a wince, smelled it.
Gabriel pulled his car into a surprisingly decent parking space just down from the bright blue façade of Wolf at the Door, his beloved pub. Rowan had been craning her neck around curiously ever since they'd arrived, all pretense of cool beauty gone in the presence of the bright pops of blue and pink, yellow and red that was Main Street. She was wearing a simple tank in a different shade than yesterday and the same shorts, as well as a pair of flip-flops that looked as though they needed to be put out of their misery.
Damn. It looked like there was a shopping trip in the offing, whether he liked it or not. And he most definitely did not, he thought, looking down at his own stylish ensemble of a faded Muse T-shirt and a battered pair of cargo shorts. In fact, the idea of shopping with Rowan frightened him. The woman looked like she should be draped in expensive silks and jewels. Had been, actually, from the memories he'd seen. She just looked ... decidedly high-maintenance. And while his family had money, he himself lived rather modestly, preferring to live off his own earnings rather than mooch.
He thought about spending a day in and out of stores staring at ridiculously expensive shoes and fought back a shudder. There had to be a better, less painful way.
"It must be really disgusting in there if the look on your face is any indication," Rowan said, distracting him from visions of being asked the question Do I look fat in this? several hundred times in rapid succession. The last woman he'd dated for any length of time had been strangely obsessed with the perceived size of her rear end from all angles in any outfit she happened to be covering it with.
It had been, he had to say, a very nice ass. But that opinion had never seemed to be quite satisfactory.
He was never going to understand women.
He turned to look at Rowan, who was regarding him with a sort of amused interest that suggested she found him just as puzzling as he found her. And now she thought he was dallying because his apartment was akin to a landfill. Not a very flattering opinion, even if she might possibly be right.
Hell. He might as well get it over with.
"It's not disgusting. It's just a bit... cluttered."
Her eyebrows, every bit as red as her hair in the patchy sunlight filtering into the car, shot upward. "Mmmhmm," was all she said.
Gabriel heaved an exaggerated sigh and opened the door. There was nothing for it now. "Come on, then."
They crossed the street, dodging the heavier lunchtime traffic, and headed through the side door that led to the upstairs of the small two-story building that housed both his pub and his apartment. He saw Rowan cast a curious glance through the large windows on either side of the front door, but he hurried her past. He was proud of what he'd built, and would be happy to squire her around ... when the place was empty. Over the course of the last couple of days, he'd discovered he was a great deal less proud of the lady-killer reputation he'd so eagerly cultivated. He hated to be tethered to a cell phone when he was visiting home, so he'd done as he always had and instructed his partner, Jerry, to call the main house if anything important came up. But a quick glance at the cell, or more specifically the number of messages waiting in his voicemail, had him nervous.
The woman he wanted as his future wife might be at his side, but his past was laying in wait for him as surely as those vampires had been stalking him through the woods last night. And though he was quite sure that Rowan had seen enough during that strange and intimate exchange of memories when they'd made love, having to deal with the living, breathing (and often annoyingly giggly) reality of his romantic proclivities was another thing entirely.
He thought of Rowan hurling indiscriminate fireballs at his ex-girlfriends and wasn't sure whether to laugh or go into hiding.
They made their way up the narrow stairs to the small landing, Gabriel leading the way. He pulled out his keys and began to pick through them, finding the right one all too soon.
"Now just to warn you," he began, turning to Rowan. Her startled eyes shot upward at his movement, and a guilty flush flooded her fair cheeks. A slow, Wolfish grin spread across his face. He felt as though he'd cornered a particularly delectable rabbit.
"Enjoying the view?"
It pleased him that he wasn't the only one who was having a hard time keeping his mind off of last night. Especially when he wasn't exactly dressed to seduce, and she still had that hungry glint in her eyes. They turned even more vibrantly green when she was possessed by some strong feeling, Gabriel thought. For once it didn't bother him at all to be the cause of it.
Rowan took a breath, then thought better of it, stopped, and had a look at the ceiling. She started again, got no further than "I," and then found something very interesting on the worn carpet to study while he waited. Finally she just threw up her hands.
"I give up," Rowan said. "Anything I say to that is just going to sound stupid. Just open the door, okay?"
"With pleasure." Hopefully, anyway. He had a bed and a couch, and last night had given him cause to hope that one of them was going to remain unoccupied while they were here. He turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open, bracing himself for commentary on the semi-imploded state of his living area.
Instead, he found the hackles on the back of his neck rising as a familiar, pungent odor rolled out to greet the both of them. Rich, overpowering, an overripeness on the verge of decay. He'd smelled it twice in as many days, and that was twice too many as far as he was concerned.
Vampires.
Gabriel growled, his gut churning, and stepped inside. If there were any of the damned bloodsuckers here, he was going to rip them limb from limb. In all of his life he had never had his path intentionally crossed by a vampire, and he had certainly never heard of one of his Pack having their home desecrated by one's presence. Still, it was obvious to him, from the strength of the god-awful stench, that there had been more than one vampire in his territory.
Any lingering doubt evaporated. Lucien Andrakkar had found himself a new set of minions. And he and Rowan were going to have to be very, very careful. He gritted his teeth, felt them sharpen into fangs. The Wolf within him snapped and snarled at the end of the thin tether that kept him in check. The beast wanted to take revenge for this insult, to tear and bite.
Gabriel was inclined to agree.
"They haven't touched anything, at least," Rowan said softly as she stepped past him, her voice huskier than usual. She moved slowly, like a woman in a dream, touching a lamp, a table, a stack of papers with a light brush of her fingertips. He knew she was blaming herself, wishing she had escaped into the waiting arms of her enemy as she'd tried to do so that no one else would be targeted. The very thought had fur sprouting from his knuckles, had his claws lengthening as though the Andrakkar were standing right there. Taunting him. Threatening him. But he would show her, somehow, that her worry was misplaced. That he was strong enough to protect them both.
He'd been given one task: to keep Rowan safe. He would use everything in his power to do just that.
"Wrong," Gabriel replied, trying to keep his fury in check. "I'm quite sure they touched everything. And if they've made off with anything," he began, thinking of the few small things he had from home that had a great deal of sentimental value, "I'm going to stake every last damn one of them."
Rowan didn't reply. She simply went to the large picture window that looked out onto the street and pulled back the curtains, flooding the small living area with light. As she stared out, Gabriel quickly canvassed the apartment. At first glance nothing was changed, not a thing out of place. A haphazard stack of magazines sat on the coffee table just where he'd left them. The ever-thickening layer of dust on top of the television appeared to be intact. There was, as he'd feared, a stack of semi-cleaned plates in the sink. Everything was just as it had been.
And nothing was.
He knew they'd laid hands on his things, cold, lifeless fingers trailing all across his personal property. Doing it simply because they knew he would know. Warning him.
Gabriel went over the living area, the debris stacked on the small table, and in the kitchen. But nothing was obviously amiss until he opened the door to his bedroom. The stench was so bad it had his gorge rising. He had to back away and take several cleansing breaths of comparatively cleaner air. They had lingered there, in the place where he slept.
