She wasn’t going to be happy.
“To the devil with you!” a voice hollered from behind the door.
To be expected. They had a history.
But the woman in his arms would soon be history if he didn’t hurry. Ry kicked the door again, and the chains on the other side broke, the door slamming inside against the wall. He rushed across the threshold and down the tight, narrow hallway to the healing room where Hestia helped so many of her afflicted species. He laid the woman on the bed of leaves and vines that immediately coiled and twisted to embrace her arms and one exposed shoeless foot.
Ry turned to the fuming faery behind him. Her skin tone was a shade of cotton-candy pink, which she accented with a green slip of a dress. She was tiny, compared to his hulking height, and yet her annoyance hit him like a punch to the gut. If violet eyes could ever burn with the flames of hatred, hers did.
“I know, I don’t deserve your help after the last time,” he began. “Please, Hestia, she’s an innocent. Got caught between me and a collector. See that scratch on her collarbone?”
The healer bent to inspect the woman. She then licked the wound with a snake-long tongue. Shaking her head, she announced, “She will die.”
“No. You can heal her. I know you can. Do this, and I promise I’ll never ask for another healing from you again.”
Hestia looked him up and down. Lately, with his battles against the collectors, he took on a lot of injuries that challenged his innate ability to quickly heal. And she knew it. And the last time they’d spoken? She had nearly died to save him from a fatal wound. And she might have thought he cared for her more than he really had. It had been a fling. Apparently, though, she had thought differently.
“You willing to pay for this?” she asked. “Lots of mortal realm euros?”
Money meant nothing to him. And he had far too much of it. She could ask for untold riches and it would be like handing over a few bills to her.
“One million,” she said.
He nodded eagerly. “I’ll send a courier with the cash as soon as the banks open tomorrow.”
She eyed him cautiously. For as much as she hated him—and had every right to—she had to know he was good on his word. But she tilted her head and asked, “What does this one mean to you?”
“Her? I hadn’t met her until five minutes ago. I don’t want an innocent to die because she got in my way.”
The healer nodded, then pointed over his shoulder. “Very well. Go stand out in the hallway. It will take some time.”
The beautiful man with impossible muscles—he wore an oddly tattered shirt that revealed oh, so many tight, bulging muscles—held a sword and fought weird black creatures that flew in the air about him. In the middle of Paris.
And as Indi was lying there on the ground, watching with her mouth hanging open, she thought, for a moment, the tall, handsome man...changed. When he looked at her, his head was shaped like a wolf’s.
The eerie image made Indi scream, and she pushed herself up abruptly. And hit her head on something above her. Dropping her cheek back onto the hardwood floor, she groaned.
That had been a weirdly detailed dream. Very real. Almost as if she could smell the strange black creatures’ ozone scent and hear the man’s sexy voice as he had bent over her. Prodding her. Asking if she was okay.
Eyelids flashing open, Indi darted her gaze about the room. She was lying on the floor? Not a familiar floor, either. She didn’t have hardwood in her home. And...what had she hit her head on?
Rolling to her side, she realized she still wore the ball gown. The beaded leaves on the bodice crunched as her body turned on the wood floor. Above her stretched a flat piece of wood, supported by a table leg...
“Why am I lying under a table? Oh...”
It hurt her brain to talk. Had someone taken it out, rolled it across the ground like a pétanque ball, then shoved it back in through her ear? Mercy, what a bender. Champagne hangovers were the worst!
But this didn’t look like her friend Janet’s floor. And Janet had moved to New York two months ago.
Where was she? And how had she gotten here?
“When I got up this morning I couldn’t figure why you were under the table,” a male voice suddenly said.
A pair of bare feet, with a slouch of blue jeans hanging over them, stopped but a foot from her face. Indi placed both palms on the floor before her and craned her head up as far as she could manage, but her neck ached, so her line of sight only stretched as far as his crotch. Not a terrible sight to wake up to. Just...unexpected.
She dropped and rolled to her back.
“You insisted on crawling under there after I deposited you on the couch last night,” he said. He bent to display two mugs. “Coffee?”
Heartbeat suddenly racing, Indi inhaled deeply a few times to calm her panic. But really, she should be panicking. “Where am I? Who are you? I, uh...”
“My name’s Ryland James. I don’t know your name. You were buttered when I found you last night.”
Buttered? Hell yes, she’d been so drunk.
“When you found me? What the hell? What did you...?” She winced. No, she was still dressed. Which didn’t mean much. If the man had had his way with her while she was inebriated...
“You stumbled onto a strange scene,” he said, sitting on the black leather sofa and setting one coffee cup on the floor near her shoulder. “I wanted to bring you home, make sure you were safe, but I didn’t know where you lived. And...after a bunch of wild-and-craziness you passed out. For the night.”
She closed her eyes and slapped a palm to her chest. Wild and crazy? Seriously? She’d let that bastard Todd get to her that much? And now she was lying on the floor in a strange man’s home.
The coffee smelled deceptively good. But from experience, she knew if she drank any she’d get sick. Hangovers were never kind to her.
She spoke her fears. “I need to get out of here.”
“I can drive you home if you’ll give me your address.”
“I don’t think I should do that. I can hail a cab.”
“Suit yourself. I’m not going to hurt you. I just wanted to make sure you were okay after...”
Indi skimmed her fingers over her chest and throat. Something hurt. She winced at the slight pain and felt the rough line of skin along her collarbone. Had she been cut?
“It should heal more quickly than you expect,” the man, Ryland, said. “I tried to get you out of there, but you were, well...”
Buttered.
“Sorry.
