The juice in the jar sloshed around as it joined the others on the counter. Six in all. But none of the new additions to her shopping list were anything of great nutritional value. She realized he would have been forced to resort to it because she didn’t have very much in the way of fresh food in her fridge. She was content with frozen meals and bowls of cereal. Although cereal appeared to be off the menu since he’d drunk down just about all of her milk.

“No worries. I have powdered. Not the same,” she chattered to her rude and thoughtless guest, “but good enough. And I have duplicates of everything in the garage pantries. Be prepared, that’s my motto. And a good one, too, when you tend to get snowed in a lot in these parts.”

Of course it had more to do with her OCD than it did with genuine preparedness, but she wasn’t going to needle herself with that detail.

After about five minutes of trying to wedge him out from between the counter and the refrigerator, enough to close the refrigerator door, she gave up and realized she was never going to move him unless he woke up to help her. And if all her jostling, shoving, and grunting hadn’t stirred him, then she wasn’t sure she knew what would. She had smelling salts, but she was afraid if she put ammonia under his nose he would wake up and swat her away, sending her crashing into a wall or something equally as painful. She eyed the fridge and her houseguest alternately for a moment when a brilliant idea came to mind.

CHAPTER SIX

Ahnvil felt as though he were on fire. He was trapped, locked down in this horrifying fire that couldn’t kill him, but burned him straight to the bone over and over again. But something was creeping into his agony, something faint at first, then stronger and stronger, enough to distract him even from his eternal torment.

Then he realized what it was.

Food. Cooking food. Suddenly the fire abated and he realized just how hungry he was. Starving even. Had those who had put him in the fire also been starving him? He couldn’t seem to remember. Was this yet another torture he was going to suffer?

No! He would not let them win. He would not let them trap him and hold him anymore! Never again! And he would kill anything that got in his way!

The big beast in Kat’s kitchen came to with a bloodcurdling roar of what could only be taken as rage. It frightened her so much that she dropped her cooking fork in the heavy cast-iron skillet she was using and ran out of immediate reach. For good measure she leapt up on a countertop, as if he were a mouse or something she could avoid by removing herself from contact with the floor.

He roared again and rolled to his hands and knees, lashing out at the nearest object, her refrigerator door, and nearly ripping it from its hinges. Hey, she thought that’s stainless steel. Don’t hurt it. She certainly didn’t have the nerve to say it out loud. She didn’t even have the nerve to think it with volume.

After a few seconds he seemed to orient himself and he was able to stagger to his feet.

Ta-da! Her idea had worked! Score one for Team Kat! Again, she was proud of herself, but not enough to say so with, like, spoken words or visible emotions. She was trying too hard not to be noticeable. She was small. Small enough to go unnoticed if she played her cards right. When his back was fully to her she pulled her legs up and balled herself on top of the counter.

Ahnvil was barely aware of where he was. He had no interest in the details. Not really. He wanted the thing they had been tormenting him with. Now that he was free, he would have it even if he had to kill an army to get it.

But there was no army, he realize a moment later. All there was was a skillet on an open flame, a steak of massive proportions sizzling away inside it. Heedless of anything but his goal, he ripped the pan from the fire, with one hand and grabbed the steak with the other. He was eating it a moment later, ripping into it with huge gnawing bites, barely giving himself a moment to taste it before he was swallowing it down. It had to be the most delicious thing he had ever eaten in all of his life. He realized it was probably just perception, but just the same, it tasted like ambrosia.

Once the steak was almost halfway gone, he began to look furtively around himself, prepared every minute to fight off whatever army lay in wait. He was aware the steak was probably just bait to trap him again, but he didn’t care. He would deal with trouble when it came and not a moment before. He’d never been the worrying sort. He’d make a goal and see it through to its end. He saw no sense in worrying about outcomes or anything else for that matter. Life was straightforward. Good or bad. War or peace. Free or slave. Fight or die. Simple. As simple as he was. Flesh or stone. Simple.

It only took him a moment to notice the wee fey lass curled up in an intimidated ball on a counter across the way from him. He looked over his shoulder to see what she was so afraid of, but he saw only the stove and the refrigerator. Items in a kitchen. He was in a kitchen.

That gave him pause. He swept his eyes over the vast room, with its open area on one side that led out into a sprawling living area with tremendous floor-to-ceiling windows all along the central wall of it. And that led him to fixate on the wild white and gray storm swirling on the other side of it. He pulled in a moment, checking his internal clock. Daylight. It ought to be daylight. But it wasn’t. The storm. It was blotting out the sun. It relieved him to know that. It meant he could move about freely without worrying about the touch of the sun turning him.

His attention went back to the little fey thing. It occurred to him then that she must be afraid of him. It almost made him laugh. He was a protector of all things good and innocent, not a beast to be feared. Why would she …?

Then he stopped and looked at himself. Really looked at himself. He was towering over her in her kitchen—he had to assume it was hers—naked and fierce and eating her food—he had to assume it was hers—like an animal. There were no enemies. There was no prison.

Not then. There had been, but he had broken free of that prison. Again, he checked his internal clock. Three days. He’d been three days and nights without his touchstone. Who knew how much longer he had before the unthinkable would happen?

He slowly put the pan down on the nearest surface and flexed his burned hand a bit, feeling it for the first time, only just then realizing he’d burned himself in his haste to obtain her food. He straightened his stance and, though he tried, he couldn’t make himself give up the steak he was gnawing on. It was almost gone in any event. It wasn’t likely she’d want it back. He held out a placating hand.