Page 64 of Lost Touch

I went and switched out the light. The faintest pearly-gray gleam of the coming dawn turned the room’s one window into a ghostly rectangle in the darkness.

The bathroom was clean enough if I squinted, so I took a five-minute shower, slightly shocked to find a pristine folded towel on a rack. Carefully listening to make sure no one was in the hallway first, I cracked the door open and grabbed everything Nate had left outside the door…which turned out to be some ham sandwiches on a chipped plate, several water bottles—and a tube of lube.

I shut the door so fast I nearly took my nose off. A sticky note on the lube read, “This is on the house.”

Would I be able to look Nate in the eye tomorrow? Or Arik, for that matter, after the healing I’d had to request? Or Calder, who had better hearing than the average alpha.

Jesus fucking Christ. I couldn’t think about it. I had a drink, made a face at the sandwiches, put the lube on the nightstand because a good idea was a good idea even if it made me want to run away and change my name, and crawled into bed next to Drew.

After a moment’s hesitation, I curled up against him and put my head on his shoulder, wrapping my arm firmly around his middle.

There. His even breaths moved my head up and down gently, and I could hear his heartbeat.

After a minute, I lifted my hand and examined my fingers, rubbing them together as if strange colors might manifest out of them at any moment. Would I ever be able to do what Nate and Arik did? Would I want to? Had I known I had magic in my blood and my being, or had it been too insignificant an ability to ever come to light before now?

Maybe tomorrow I’d be able to ask some of those questions. Maybe I’d get some answers if we ever made it to Southern California and found out what my life had been like before I’d been abducted.

Would Drew’s family be furious with him right now? Would he have a life to go back to himself?

Too many questions, and none of them had available answers. I might not like any of the answers even if I could get them.

I stared at the slowly lightening window and waited for Drew to wake up.

Chapter 19

Bent to His Will

Dawn had fully broken before Drew started to stir. I lifted my head and watched him wake, the flutter of his eyelids and the tensing of his muscles as he came out of it.

When his eyes opened, they glowed.

Well, shit.

Drew blinked up at me.

I waited, rigid with suspense.

“Ash,” he said, still low and growly, but a lot saner than before. He moved so quickly I couldn’t react, wrapping his arms around me and flipping me under him, looming over me. “Where the fuck are we? And why are we—” His eyes went wide. “Fuck, I mated you, I mated you when—”

“No, you didn’t, you didn’t do anything to me, calm down!” Drew subsided, breathing hard, and I reached up and put my hands against his chest, half petting and half holding him off—not that I’d be able to, of course. “I found a shaman,” I said, choosing to omit Nate for the moment. Drew’s reaction to the word “warlock” might be explosive, and I didn’t blame him. “He put a spell on you. On us, actually. It fakes a mating bond. It was the only way they could think of to negate the effects of whatever the hell was happening to you.”

“They,” he said thickly. “Who’sthey?”

Dammit. “The shaman, Arik. He has a colleague who helped out. But look, there’s—God, there’s so much more to tell you, but long story short. The guys we escaped with?”

Drew nodded.

“They’re here. They live with—I guess it’s a werewolf pack. But Calder and Jared are here.” I hoped he didn’t ask me for more details about that, because I still didn’t have a full picture of how all the people I’d met tonight were related or mated to each other.

“They’re—fuck,” Drew rasped. He’d been looking me in the eyes, but his attention had drifted down to my lips. He shifted his weight. His cock pressed insistently between my legs. “I can’t. I need.” He swallowed hard. “Ash, I hurt you, but I don’t know if I can—”

“I’m all healed up. The shaman knows his stuff.” I slid a hand up his chest, cupping the back of his neck, gently trying to draw him down for a kiss. It was like pulling on bricks for all the good it did me. “Come on, Drew. It’s okay. I want you. Remember? I want you to use me?”

That was dirty pool, because I knew the effect talking like that had on him.

But as long as it worked, all was fair in love and war, right?

The glow in his eyes intensified, a low rumble starting in his chest.

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