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“Thank you,” I said quietly with a smile. I was still recovering from our efforts, and felt a little orgasm drunk.
Ruse continued to run his fingers down my back, and the gentle touch felt so nice I worried I might fall asleep sitting up.
“You relax here. I’ll go and grab your stuff from your usual shower if you’d like, and a fresh towel?” he suggested.
Nothing sounded better than to enjoy whatever was left of the hot water while I got myself cleaned up.
“That sounds great,” I admitted as I leaned my head on Ruse’s shoulder in exhaustion.
“You’ve got it,” Ruse said as he carefully lifted my head off his shoulder. “I should apologize for the ways I’ve wronged you, but I’m not sure there are words to make the mistakes I’ve made go away.” he said as he stood in the shower doorway.
I looked over at him as he moved to stand in the shower doorway.
“I’m willing to start over if you are,” I said with a stream of water spilling down my nose. “Hi, I’m Logan.”
For the first time, I saw the shifter’s eyes appear the closest to human that they’d ever looked. They were a clear cerulean, like the ocean water on a Hawaiian postcard.
“Hi, Logan,” he said, those gorgeous eyes softening. “I’m Ruse, and I’m going to go get your stuff.”
Chapter16
Logan
Ruse came back with my shampoo, conditioner, and body wash within a few seconds, along with a fluffy white towel.
“So, no rush,” Ruse started. “But the others are sort of drilling me now about the plan… you know, because of Ted and all that. It’s not quite his usual quitting time yet, so we’ve got some time to think, but please tell me you’ve got a plan.”
Shit. In my post-coital high, I had totally forgotten about the actual murder that had been committed just a floor below me on that very same day. I had to consider what our next move should be, and I hoped the others would be willing to brainstorm along with me. With Ted gone, my timeline for following through with the rest of the grand idea was starting to move itself right along.
“You and I were working out a good one downstairs this morning, where you’d use your newfound Ted disguise to our advantage,” I said as I received my soaps from Ruse’s human hands. “But gimme a few minutes, and I’ll see if I can come up with something more concrete. You wanna tell the others, and maybe we can meet in Thorn’s attic shortly?”
“That sounds more than acceptable,” Ruse answered. “The two of them are hanging around in the next room waiting for the visual evidence that you’re not dead.”
“I’m fine!”I hollered, hoping the other two would be able to hear me. “I’ll talk to everyone in a little bit!”
Ruse gave me a sideways smile and a thumbs up before saying, “See you in a few.”
I rose to my feet and got my balance as my lower half still hadn’t recovered from the feeling of jelly-legs. Then I took a few steps toward the shower head to crank up the temperature. Something like embarrassment began to rise within me as I considered the three of them heading to Thorn’s attic all discussing their own individual experiences with me. Would they even disclose that sort of thing? Should I have been concerned with how easily I had given myself to each of them, or should I have been more concerned with the fact that they were all monsters, and I was still just a dumb human girl in college who nearly fell into the trap of some masochistic rich man, who’d won me over with the promise of a cool house and a paycheck? Either way, I had worked myself into this position, and it wouldn’t do me any good to agonize over the details of morality.
That rich man, I knew, was not long for the world. I played over in my head what I imagined it would be like when I looked down the sight of my weapon and pulled the trigger. I imagined myself saying something cool, like, “You thought these creatures were monsters when you were the biggest monster of them all!” but then reality crawled back into my head to remind me that all of this was my real life and not some gritty teen drama.
Getting from ‘Point A,’ where Ruse would mimic Ted on the phone to get Jonas Silver here to see his latest dead girl, to ‘Point B,’ where I’d shoot the son of a bitch, was going to be the hard part. I had never shot anyone before, so I knew that, as confident as I wanted to be, there was a possibility that I’d miss that first priceless shot. If the conflict turned into a hand-to-hand battle of strength, I wasn’t sure I would win against a grown man, and I wasn’t sure what sort of help the others would be. They mentioned they couldn’tkillhim, but could they helpmekill him?
I couldn’t connect the dots without some help from the others. I tilted my head back in the water to rinse out the last of my conditioner before turning the water off and stepping out of the oversized shower. My body was aching, and for good reason. My busted nose was still sore but had long stopped bleeding, and the pain on the back of my head had dulled to just a mild headache. I gathered my discarded clothing and headed back to my room to down a couple of Tylenol and get some clothes on before meeting up with the others.
* * *
My walk across the balcony toward the west wing was interrupted when I caught the aftermath of Ted’s gruesome elimination. Pools of red covered the floor just under the balcony, right between the foyer and the living room. A bloody spray was thrown all over the walls with a few drops even hitting the ceiling. The smell of carnage hit my nose, and I had to cover my mouth to avoid vomiting at the initial shock of it all. Whatever had gone down between Ted and Ruse, it very much looked like Ruse had enjoyed himself, and I couldn’t imagine Ted stood even a snowflake’s chance in hell against the shifter.
Despite all the gore, I couldn’t locate Ted’s body anywhere, or even part of it. Ruse had mentioned something about “feeding” on Ted, which would explain the absence. The benefit to having monsters for boyfriends, I supposed, was not having to bother with having to figure out where tohidea body when one of them killed a person.
With a shudder and a shake of my head, I continued down the hall to the end of the wing, where Thorn’s ladder was already set out and waiting for me. I took a deep breath in the hopes that I wouldn’t be bombarded with questions or weird looks from Nox and Thorn so that we could focus on the task at hand. Besides, I wasn’t ready to explain myself, if I even needed to.
I could hear the monsters in the attic arguing amongst themselves in hushed tones, and paused on the ladder to eavesdrop.
“We’ve—you’vecrossed a line, Ruse,” Nox hissed. “What do you think is going to happen when the Man finds out you’ve gone and eaten his man on the inside? We can surely say goodbye to any further offerings or meals if Logan fails to end the curse.”
“IF!”Ruse barked back. “Ifshe fails, we are properly fucked, I agree, but I don’t think she will.”
