Page 59 of Stitched Up in You
It dawns that every person I noticed back in the village is super pretty, and that’s probably not a coincidence.
But why did that woman call him that when he admitted to me himself that he wasn't? I’d take Frank Stein for a lot of things. Asshole definitely. A kidnapper most assuredly, and a grade-A fuck as well, but I’d never have taken him for a liar. So why?
“She called you Frankenstein,” I blurt, letting go of all the tension I’ve been holding for what feels like hours and huddling back in his arms, uncaring that he’s just as damp as I am. My muscles ease as I get the words off my chest. “I heard her say it.”
“My name is Frank Nathanial Stein,” he says, his tone colder than the wind picking up around us.
“I know that too. I’m not saying you’rethedoctor, I’m just asking why she would call you that?”
A streak of lightning flashes, and I can’t help but jump at how close it is, way too close for comfort with the way my wet hair raises all over my body at once. I scramble back into Frank’s chest seeking shelter under his big body.
“Never mind,” I mumble, when a rather dark and gloomy cloud moves closer and the rain thickens.
“This would’ve never happened if you’d just done as I asked and stayed inside the house,” he grumbles and nudges me away.
“True, but here we are. And if it weren’t so cold, I’d almost be able to mark our adventure off my bucket list,” I tell him.
“Bucket list?”
“Yeah. I’ve got a bucket list of items to do before I die, one item being rode around on horseback by a gentleman like something out of Jane Austen. You’re not that gentle, but you’ll do.”
He doesn’t respond, not that I expected him to.
A big, dark rain cloud suddenly goes overhead, taking with it what little overcast light we’ve been using to make our wayback to the house, and I shiver with the cold. “That doesn’t look good,” I say, just as the wind picks up.
“It looks fine,” he bites out.
The rain picks up in intensity and starts pelting down in larger droplets, icy cold on my already freezing skin, and starts coming down in sheets.
“This is not fine!”
Another crack of lightning and the thunder booms, deafening with its intensity.
“Where are we?” I rub at my glasses knowing it won’t make a difference and sit up as tall as I can on Brom’s back in front of Frank, unable to even make out the mansion’s silhouette in this downpour.
I turn to glare up at the big bastard behind me, but he doesn’t so much as twitch under my death glare.
A strike of lightning shatters the dark cloud and comes down in a blinding display nearby, and I scream, my body shaking like the bolt shed ten years from my life.
Through the heavy downpour, I make out a building in the distance. “What’s that over there?” I ask, pointing in the direction of the brick and wood-beamed house several yards away.
“That’s the hunting lodge. We must have gotten turned around,” he shouts from behind me.
I glance down and my brows come together.
He’s shaking.
I reach out to touch him, but he rears back, and I feel him tighten his thighs on Brom’s sides as he urges him toward the lodge.
The building comes into view, a small house in comparison to the size of the mansion.
He turns back to me and pulls me from Brom, his hands tensing ever so slightly as he yells over the storm. “Go get inside!”
I’m immediately mired in mud as soon as he sets me to my feet, my shoes sinking from the downpour. Gingerly moving through the mud, I make my way for the door, feeling like a half-drowned cat and shivering.
The moment I reach it, Brom lets out an ear-piercing shriek that has my heart galloping half as fast as he can. I turn and see Frank just as shocked as I am, staring up at the horse beside him who decides to choose the moment to burst into flame, smoke sifting from his nostrils before he runs off, hopefully toward his stables.
“He’ll find his way back, right?” I ask when Frank joins me under the eaves of the house. I wrap my drenched sweater tighter around me, even though I know there’s no warmth to be had in it as I try the door.
