Page 68 of Winter Lost

Adam had brought a flashlight, but with two sets of windows, the room was light enough for us to see. A human would have had trouble, though, between the storm and the night.

After the elegance of the reception room and hallways, the room felt distinctly utilitarian. With spare, beautifully made furniture, its tribute to Art Deco style leaned harder on the Great Depression side of 1929 than the flapper era that had preceded it.

A thick, dark green quilt folded on the foot of the bed contrasted with the white chenille bedspread, setting the color scheme in the room. The end tables and the headboard were genuine antiques, while the mattress and the chest of drawers were new. I was not an antiques expert, but anyone with a nose as good as mine could tell the difference between antique and modern. Age carries a much more complex scent.

I dropped my clothes on the floor, stripped off the robe, and dropped it, too. Then rethought that. I kicked the robe off the wet clothes. It took me two kicks. I would have crawled right into bed if Adam hadn’t caught me and dragged me into the bathroom, which was lit by his flashlight on the floor.

“You’ll thank me tomorrow when you, I, and the bed don’t all stink like sulfur,” he assured me, grinning when I growled at him.

“Why aren’t you tired?” I snipped at him as he shoved—I mean, urged—me into the large shower stall.

“I am,” he said, turning the hot water on both of us. “What I don’t have is a killer headache from saving ghosts from mythological spiders.”

I shot him a look. “I haven’t complained.”

He gave me a smile. “That’s how I know it’s bad. Turn around.”

When I turned, the water beat down on my back. It was very hot—only a few degrees cooler than the hot springs had been. It felt wonderful, and warmed up the parts of me that had refrozen in our dash from the hot tub to our room.

I rested my throbbing head on Adam’s shoulder, and he pressed his fingers against the back of my neck, working the knots out.

“I am, at this moment, really, really glad you abandoned all of your duties to come with me,” I announced. “Just so you could— Eep!” I couldn’t stop the yelp as he hit a knot just under my shoulder blade. “Right there.”

The stiffness left my whole body, and I sagged against him in relief. He laughed—a low, soft sound that made me want to purr. Eventually he said, “Can you stand on your own for a minute?”

I did, and he soaped himself up with such brisk efficiency that I found it sacrilegious and told him so. He smiled when I reached out and touched his chest and let my hand drift down his belly.

“Careful,” he cautioned. But he didn’t mean it.

Both of us were too tired for that to lead anywhere. But the feel of his skin under my fingers soothed the restless worry of all the problems I didn’t know how to solve: My brother. Me.

My fingers were less sensitive than usual, wrinkled from all the water exposure. I examined them and said, “That was a bucket list item I never thought I’d satisfy.”

“Which item was that?” Adam asked as he grabbed a small hotel bottle of something and opened it.

A strong mint scent battled with the sulfur of the hot springs and won. He dumped some on his hands, rubbed them together, and then he rubbed them on me. The small bar of soap was sufficient for his skin, but apparently not for mine.

“I think that’s conditioner,” I told him as my skin grew slick but not soapy.

The flashlight yielded plenty of illumination to take a shower with. But it was angled wrong for reading labels.

He grunted. “What bucket list item, Mercy?” His voice was a low growl, but I figured it was because of where my hands were, and not because he was unhappy about my bucket list or impatient with me.

I lost it, pulling my hands away to avoid damaging anything important as I found myself laughing helplessly. “What a day—and a night. Jeez, Adam.”

“Bucket list?” He sounded serious, but I could tell he wanted to laugh, too. He put my hands back where they had been.

“Sitting naked with you and a vampire in a hot tub. Of course, I thought it would be Stefan—or, because our lives have been very strange lately, maybe even Bonarata. But Elyna was an acceptable substitute.”

He released my hair from its braids, working it free with gentle fingers. “Kinky of you. If that bottle is conditioner, this one must be shampoo, right?”

Interlude

Last November

A Desert Somewhere in the American West

There was a whole lot of nothing for miles in all directions. No, that was a little bit of an exaggeration, Tracy LaBella thought, getting out of her bright green Maserati SUV and stepping into sand that immediately tried to swallow her five-inch stiletto heels. Tried.

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