Raintree Read online

  She hadn’t turned on the vent fan. Unless it came on automatically when the humidity level reached a certain point, he’d come back into the bathroom.

  Hurriedly, she went up the three steps, grabbed one of the fluffy towels and wrapped it around herself, then got another one and twisted it into a turban over her dripping hair. Following the curving wall, she moved until she could see into the main part of the bathroom. The mirrored wall behind the double sinks threw her reflection back at her, but hers was the only reflection. She was alone—now. The thick terry-cloth robe folded over the vanity stool told her that he had been there.

  Lorna stared at the mirror. She looked pale, even to herself. The skin across her cheekbones was drawn tight, giving her a stark, shocked expression.

  That was okay. She felt stark and shocked.

  He’d said not to leave the bathroom. She was so soul-weary that she didn’t even try, so she didn’t know if that had been another suggestion or one of his weird mental orders that she couldn’t disobey. At this point it didn’t matter whether it was a suggestion or command. She was content to simply stay there, where there was nothing more complicated to do than dry her hair.

  Rummaging in the drawers of the vanity, she found scented lotion, as well as a hair dryer and brush, which was all she needed right now. The shampoo had made her skin feel tight, so she rubbed in the lotion everywhere she could reach, then began the task of drying her hair.

  Her motions with the brush became slower, then slower still. Exhaustion made her arms tremble. She was lucky that her hair was mostly straight, and had good body, because any attempt at styling it was beyond her. She just wanted her hair to be dry before she collapsed, that was all.

  With that chore accomplished, she put on the robe, which was evidently his; the sleeves fell several inches past the tips of her fingers and the hem almost reached the floor. Funny, she thought fuzzily, he didn’t seem like the robe-wearing type.

  Then she waited, swaying on her feet, her bare toes clenching on the plush rug. She could have at least opened the door, but she wasn’t in any rush to face him, or to find out that even with the door open, she was imprisoned in this room. Time enough for that. Time enough to engage the enemy again.

  They would talk, he’d said. She didn’t want to talk to him. She had nothing to say to him that didn’t involve a lot of four-letter words. All she wanted was to go…well, not home, exactly, because she didn’t have a home in that sense. She wanted to go back to where she was staying, to where her clothes were. That was close enough to home for her. For now, she just wanted to sleep in the bed she was accustomed to.

  Without warning, the door opened and he stood there, tall and broad-shouldered, as vital as if the night hadn’t been long and traumatic. He’d showered, too; his longish black hair, still damp, was brushed straight back to reveal every strong, faintly exotic line of his face. He’d shaved, too; his face had that freshly scraped look.

  He was wearing a pair of very soft-looking pajama pants…and nothing else. Not even a smile.

  His keen eyes searched her face, noting the white look of utter exhaustion. “We’ll talk in the morning. I doubt you could form a coherent sentence right now. Come on, I’ll show you where your room is.”

  She shrank back, and he looked at her with an unreadable expression. “Your room,” he emphasized. “Not mine. I didn’t make that a command, but I will if necessary. I don’t think you’d be comfortable sleeping in the bathroom.”

  She was awake enough to retort, “You’ll have to make it a command, otherwise I can’t leave the bathroom, anyway.”

  She had decided that his command not to leave the bathroom had been meant to short-circuit her own will, and by his flash of irritation, she saw she’d been right.

  “Come with me,” he said curtly, a command that released her from the bathroom but sentenced her to follow him like a duckling.

  He led her to a spacious bedroom with seven-foot windows that revealed the sparkling neon colors of Reno. “The private bath is through there,” he said, indicating a door. “You’re safe. I won’t bother you. I won’t hurt you. Don’t leave this room.” With that, he closed the door behind him and left her standing in the dimly lit bedroom.

  He would remember to tack on that last sentence, damn him—not that she felt capable of making a run for it. Right now her capability was limited to climbing into the king-size bed, still wearing the oversize robe. She curled under the sheet and duvet, but still felt too exposed, so she pulled the sheet over her head and slept.

  TEN

  Monday

  “Are you okay?”

  Lorna woke, as always, to a lingering sense of dread and fear. It wasn’t the words that alarmed her, though, since she immediately recognized the voice. They were, however, far from welcome. Regardless of where she was, the dread was always there, within her, so much a part of her that it was as if it had been beaten into her very bones.

  She couldn’t see him, because the sheet was still over her head. She seldom moved in her sleep, so she was still in such a tight curl that the oversize robe hadn’t been dislodged or even come untied.

  “Are you okay?” he repeated, more insistently.

  “Peachy keen,” she growled, wishing he would just go away again.

  “You were making a noise.”

  “I was snoring,” she said flatly, keeping a tight grip on the sheet in case he tried to pull it down—like she could stop him if he really wanted to. She had learned the futility of that in the humiliating struggle last night.

  He snorted. “Yeah, right.” He paused. “How do you like your coffee?”

  “I don’t. I’m a tea drinker.”

  Silence greeted that for a moment; then he sighed. “I’ll see what I can do. How do you drink your tea?”

  “With friends.”

  She heard what sounded remarkably like a growl, then the bedroom door closed with more force than necessary. Had she sounded ungrateful? Good! After everything he’d done, if he thought the offer of coffee or tea would make up for it, he was so far off base he wasn’t even in the ballpark.

  Truth to tell, she wasn’t much of a tea drinker, either. For most of her life she’d been able to afford only what was free, which meant she drank a lot of water. In the last few years she’d had the occasional cup of coffee or hot tea, to warm up in very cold weather, but she didn’t really care for either of them.

  She didn’t want to get up. She didn’t want to have that talk he seemed bent on, though what he thought they had to talk about, she couldn’t imagine. He’d treated her horribly last night, and though he’d evidently realized he was wrong, he didn’t seem inclined to go out of his way to make amends. He hadn’t, for instance, taken her home last night. He’d imprisoned her in this room. He hadn’t even fed the prisoner!

  The empty ache in her stomach told her that she had to get out of bed if she wanted food. Getting out of bed didn’t guarantee she would get fed, of course, but staying in bed certainly guaranteed she wouldn’t. Reluctantly, she flipped the sheet back, and the first thing she saw was Dante Raintree, standing just inside the door. The bully hadn’t left at all; he’d just pretended to.

  He lifted one eyebrow in a silent, sardonic question.

  Annoyed, she narrowed her eyes at him. “That’s inhuman.”

  “What is?”

  “Lifting just one eyebrow. Real people can’t do that. Just demons.”

  “I can do it.”

  “Which proves my point.”

  He grinned—which annoyed her even more, because she didn’t want to amuse him. “If you want to get up, this demon has washed your clothes—”

  “What you didn’t shred,” she interjected sourly, to hide her alarm. Had he emptied her pockets first? She didn’t ask, because if he hadn’t, maybe her money and license were still there.

  “—and loaned you one of his demon shirts. You’ll probably have to throw your pants away, because the stains won’t come out, but at least they’re