Page 23 of Fangs for the Memories
Ican’t seem to get warm, even in the car, even with Ferenc next to me. It’s probably the shock. The fact I’ve ignored the existence of creatures like werewolves, vampires and gargoyles. Mostly because we were told they were harmless.
I have seen nothing so far which would demonstrate any of these monsters are harmless.
“How is Viktor going to get back?” I say through chattering teeth as a way to distract me.
“He has his own transport,” Ferenc says, shifting a little closer to me.
“Where are we going?”
“I’m taking you back to my apartment,” he says, and hearing my intake of breath, continues, “until I can be sure it is safe for you to go back to the Géllert.”
“Why wouldn’t it be safe?”
“I don’t know what those vampires wanted, and if they weren’t under the direction of Dominik, then I need to find out more,” he says, gazing out the window as we move back from the countryside into the town and the buildings get taller.
“Is that what you were talking to Viktor about? Back in the cave?” I ask.
The pair of them had a conversation in rapid Hungarian I had no chance of following.
“Sort of. There has been a truce between my pack and Dominik’s nest for a long time. An uneasy truce, but a truce nonetheless,” Ferenc says, the fingers of one hand drumming on his suit pants.
My mind immediately worries for the fabric if those claws appear again.
“But those vampires in the cave were not under his control,” he adds.
“That’s a bad thing?”
“Not necessarily for me, but for Dominik, perhaps.” Ferenc shrugs.
More shivers cause me to shudder and shake. My head is swimming with all the new information at the same time my body wants to shut down. It’s shock, it has to be. I can’t possibly be cold.
The big car slides through the traffic like a knife until we turn off the main streets and into the narrower ones, similar to the places I’d been walking through to find the Budapest thrift shops. The car takes a swift right turn, throwing me onto Ferenc as it passes through an archway, gates open, and into an inner courtyard.
I want to lever myself off the big…werewolf, but all my strength has deserted me. All I have is a bone deep chill and teeth which will not stop chattering.
Ferenc carefully lifts me onto his lap, and with a sinuous ease, he carries me from the car and swiftly through a large set of heavy double wooden doors into a marble lined atrium.
“I’m fine,” I protest weakly. “I can walk. Put me down.”
Ferenc doesn’t respond. Instead he carries me up a wide spiral staircase to the next floor, through yet more marble halls, and into a large, light filled room with high ceilings.
A bedroom.
From the scent, I know it’shisbedroom.
But he doesn’t pause. Instead he marches straight through another door, and I find we’re in a bathroom.
And what a bathroom. It’s bigger than my living room at home…or at least the living room I used to have. In one corner there is the most enormous bath, in the other a vast open shower area, situated behind a glass panel.
“You need to get warm,” he says, slowly lowering me to my feet.
I can’t stand on my own, despite my earlier protestations. I have to lean against him, my limbs filled with pins and needles.
“I will run you a bath,” he says, gently pushing me into a carved chair.
He sets the water running. I attempt to undo the buttons on the boiler suit I’m wearing, acutely aware of how muddy it is in this super clean bathroom. But my fingers don’t want to work.
Ferenc drops to his knees in front of me, pushing my hands away, he makes easy work of the buttons and helps me off with my filthy outer layer.
