Page 89 of Act of Brotherhood
Chapter Twenty
Nicolette saton the edge of one of the two queen beds in the seedy roadside motel they’d ended up at. She didn’t want to think about what might be crawling on the bed or what a blacklight might reveal if placed over the comforter. A broken alarm clock sat on a table that was attached to the wall. Everything in the room looked to have been from the sixties. The carpet was worn, something close to what probably started as lime green, and smelled like mildew.
Clara was in the shower, though Nicolette had warned her against it when she’d seen the amount of mold in the thing. The entire room was a health-code violation of some sort. Maybe more than one.
It was so far from what either woman was used to that Nicolette still couldn’t figure out why Clara had selected it. When she’d told Nicolette to go in and secure a room for them for the night, Nicolette had thought Clara was joking.
She wasn’t.
She’d thought she’d known everything about her best friend. That there were no secrets between them. They’d been friends forever. The night had shown her that she didn’t know Clara at all.
Not really.
Clara had stayed eerily calm as they’d run from Grid and the other man—the one who had taken a spoon to the eye. Never once while they were leaping and bounding over neighboring fences did Clara look frazzled or worried. She acted like it was something she not only did daily, but had mastered the art of completing in heels and work clothing.
Clara had gone out of her way to avoid exerting herself each time Nicolette dragged her friend along for a walk or run. Seeing Clara turn into a hurdling distance runner had only been the tip of the messed-up iceberg.
Watching as Clara managed to hot-wire a car in less time than it took Nicolette to retie her shoelace had really driven home how much Nicolette did not know her best friend at all.
I’m best friends with someone who can steal a car.
I spooned someone in the eye.
She put her hands on her thighs and tried to wipe away the nervous sweat on her palms. It didn’t work. At least her pulse had stopped racing to the point it had been all she heard.
This was all too much.
The entire week had been far from her normal. Sitting around and crying over a man wasn’t something she usually did. Yet that was the chunk of her week. Go to work, come home, put on comfy clothes, order takeout, and then watch sappy movies that only served to make her cry more.
She was pathetic. She spent a week feeling sorry for herself and trying to make sense of where and why Garth had run off minus his clothes. Clara was right. That was crazy.
Not as crazy as the whole he’s-a-shifter thing, but it was up there. The entire world had gone insane around her. That, or she’d had a nervous breakdown, and none of this was actually happening.
There was no evil twin after her who could turn into an animal. She’d never brought home a Viking hunk who ran off sans clothing. Clara wasn’t an expert car thief and Landros wasn’t a vampire.
Vampire.
The very idea her uncle was a creature of the night was nearly laughable. Until she had concrete proof, she was still holding out hope Clara was wrong, or it was all an elaborate scheme or prank. Maybe there was a hidden camera somewhere, watching her reaction to the ridiculousness that had been presented to her.
“Exciting” wasn’t a word she’d use to describe herself. Things like this simply did not happen to her. The most thrilling thing she’d ever done in her life prior to meeting Garth had been skydiving. Even that seemed tame in comparison to recent events.
Garth.
Her thoughts drifted back to him. Her fingers went to her lips as she remembered the feel of his kiss. Had she really been kissing an animal?
No.
Deep down, she knew he wasn’t an animal. If what Clara told her was true, then Garth could turn into one, but that didn’t mean hewasone. He was a flesh-and-blood man. A man who had given her so much pleasure. A man she’d felt a deep connection to. A man she’d been unable to stop thinking about the entire week.
Strangely enough, within an hour or so of Garth vanishing, she’d seen Wheeler walking down the street. It had been late, very late, but there he’d been, strolling along like he didn’t have a care in the world. She’d been standing at the front window, peeking out between the slats on the blinds for hours, thinking Garth might resurface.
He never did.
She had spotted Wheeler more than once in the evenings throughout the week since Garth had come in and out of her life in the blink of an eye.
As she thought harder on it all, she tensed. When she’d first seen Wheeler in the square, she could have sworn his eyes filled with black.
No way.
