Chasing Trouble (7 page)

"She is," Edgar said, real casual.

I blinked as she slapped the back of his head, and fully expected the lion to jump up and roar about the disrespectful wolf. Except Edgar only smiled and kept fussing with his phone. Ruby pointed at me, or maybe Benedict. "Look, chickie. I like you a lot but I'm not going to war with SilverLine for you. I can't. So you've got to figure out how you want to play it. Todd Evershaw, despite being Miles' cousin, is a good guy. Benedict is a lawyer, so make of that what you will. And if you want to stay a free agent, fine, but give me a head's up so I don't end up with a bar full of men, moping around and crying in their beer."

I had to take my sunglasses off to squint at her. "Wait,
what
?"

It was Ruby's turn to rub her temples. "Babe, Benedict likes you. Todd, apparently, likes you. Is there one you prefer?"

My heart sank and heat flushed my cheeks. Words wouldn't form.

Rafe started to smile and ducked his head, and Edgar looked on the verge of laughing out loud. I tried to sit up and collect my dignity. "That can wait, and it doesn't involve any of you. Can you please tell me how to get to the bears' house?"

"Why yes, Goldilocks," Edgar said, and the laugh escaped. Even Ruby couldn't keep a straight face. The Chase security chief fixed me with a stern look, though. "They are not the kind of guys that you just walk up to and start demanding things from, Eloise."

I collapsed forward and covered my face with my hands. "Jesus Christ. I just need to find Lacey. By tomorrow. Before Val kills me."

"She won't kill you," Benedict said, gathering me once again to his side and straightening the blankets to cover me up completely. "I'll go with you to meet with Kaiser. He's the alpha for the bears. He might be able to help you."

"But what if he can't?" I looked at him, then his brother, then Ruby and Rafe. Fear surged in my throat before I remembered not to meet their eyes. "What if he won't help me and I can't find Lacey and she's dead? What then? I can't pay Val her ten grand back and I can't pay back another loan to Bridger, she -- her price is too high, I can't do it. How am I --"

Benedict hushed me, smoothing my hair out of the way so he could massage up the back of my neck. "Deep breaths. We'll fix it. We'll find your friend, and if we don't, the money is easy."

"Easy for you to say," I shot back, bitterness making me unkind even as his magic hands melted the ache out of my brain. "You've
got
money, you don't have to go to some damn loan shark if --"

"Yes," Benedict said, slow and patient. "I do have a lot of money. I will give you some of that money, and then you can pay Szdoka back."

"But --" I cut off, cheeks burning as I straightened and faced him, and noticed that Rafe and Ruby had disappeared. "But why would --"

"Because I like you," he said, and leaned forward to kiss the tip of my nose. "And you're worried about a lot of stuff. So we pay Szdoka back so you can have more time to find your friend. Okay? We'll go talk to the bears tomorrow. Kaiser owes me a favor."

I frowned, trying to concentrate as I looked at him and then Edgar. Edgar shoved to his feet. "I'm calling it a night, and I'm taking the car. So you're both stuck here. Ben, I'll have Carter drop a car off for you tomorrow morning."

Benedict didn't seem to mind, playing with my hair. "One of the SUVs. Just in case. And some cash."

I looked between them, trying to keep up when it felt like half the conversation remained unspoken. Edgar looked at me, a hint of a smile softening his expression. "How much money does Val expect you to turn over?"

"Ten thousand," I whispered.

"Interest?"

"Not that I know of?"

Edgar straightened, smacked Benedict's shoulder, and clattered down the stairs, whistling. I stared after them, then looked at Benedict. "What the hell is going on?"

He yawned and stretched, arm across my shoulders. "First, let's talk about why you took all my clothes when you left this morning."

I sank a little lower and let one of the blankets creep over my nose. Right.

H
er cheeks flushed immediately
and Benedict worked to keep a straight face. She even brought one of the blankets up to hide her face until only those wide silver eyes were visible. Mesmerizing. Her voice reached him, small and muffled. "Well, I didn't want you running after me. Just in case Val had her people waiting outside to grab me."

Half a smile escaped before Benedict could reinforce his stern expression, and he had to look away before he laughed. "You stole my clothes and left me naked in a hotel room to protect me from the hyenas?"

"Yes." Even in one word, he heard a bit of a giggle.

Benedict rubbed his forehead, then leaned forward until he could have rested his chin on her knee. "While I appreciate the sentiment, don't do it again." Then he tweaked the end of her nose through the blanket and smiled. "Edgar will be screwing with me for years over that."

Those silver eyes half-closed and she yawned, sinking lower on the leather couch. He just wanted to sit there and watch her. Maybe feed her. Touch that crazy hair that seemed to reach out for him. Instead, he pushed to his feet and held out a hand to help her up. "Kaiser and his guys get up early, so we'd better meet them early. You ready for bed?"

She hesitated, but eventually stood, looking a little rumpled. Benedict folded the blankets and put them across the back of the couch and headed for one of the bedrooms, expecting her to stake a claim on the bathroom and another room. Instead, she followed him into his room and started taking off her clothes.

He blinked. "Eloise, what are you doing?"

She froze, shirt half-over her head. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," he said, moving forward to help replace the shirt so he could see her face. She looked resigned more than anything. Resigned and tired. "Do you want to sleep here with me, or in the other room?"

"But --" Another yawn almost cracked her jaw, and the long dark tendrils of her hair floated up from her shoulders. "If you're loaning me the money, how am I supposed to pay you back?"

His heart sank. She couldn't think the loan came with strings attached, and certainly not an expectation that she would put out. Benedict fought to keep from stepping back or recoiling or showing any of his revulsion at the idea of trading his money for sex. "Baby," he said, reaching out to catch her shoulders. "If you need the money, it's a gift."

"No." She shook her head, backing up out of reach and bumping into the battered dresser against the wall. "No, I don't take charity."

"It's not charity," he said. "A gift. And if you want to pay it back, then we can figure something out, but I can tell you right now, it won't include you sleeping with me out of obligation."

Her face flushed and she chewed her bottom lip, not meeting his eyes.

As the silence stretched, his heart sank. "At the hotel. You only fucked me to pay me back for lunch?"

Eloise flinched, turning away, and he felt lower than the lowest snake. That amazing night was purchased with a fifty dollar lunch. Benedict pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and turned away, walking into the living room before he said or did something he couldn't take back. A growl started in his chest despite that he tried to swallow it down. The lion was not pleased, wanted to take her in the bedroom and show her why she couldn't put a price on what they shared. But he felt absolutely low.

"It wasn't that," she said, and followed him back into the living room. Benedict held up a hand to keep her from getting too close, and she stopped short. Eloise cleared her throat. "I thought you were like the others. I'm sorry."

"So it was that," he said. Benedict felt flat, as if she'd gutted him. "It was ... transactional?"

"Don't look at me like that," she whispered, hands up near her face.

Benedict faced her, for the first time questioning if everyone else were correct and Eloise only wanted his money. "Like what?"

"Like I betrayed you." Those silver eyes devoured him, the hair rose in a cloud, and a hint of red rimmed her eyes. "Please. I'm sorry. I thought that's what it was, but then you touched me and --"

She cut off abruptly as the wobble in her chin grew too strong and her voice shook along with it. Benedict gave up and sat on the couch, head in his hands. He'd never paid for sex. Ever. He'd never taken advantage of a woman who needed help, would never dream of pursuing a relationship with such dynamics. And the fact that she thought that about him, even for a moment, shook everything he believed about himself. Made him question every relationship he'd ever had.

He took a deep breath, still rubbing his forehead. "Eloise, I might need a minute."

She looked as crushed as he felt, and retreated. Sat in one of the arm chairs and stared at him as if she could will him into doing something. He tensed. Maybe she could. He still didn't know exactly what she was, maybe she'd manipulated him. Benedict didn't look at her. "How else did you convince me? Did you use some weird magic on me? Get me to do what you want?"

Her lips parted but she started shaking her head, more and more vehemently in his peripheral vision. "No. I thought you would run away. When I'm angry, people just run. But you stayed. You stayed right there, and I couldn't --" She pulled at her hair, angrily wrapped it up in a bun when it tangled around her fingers, and she shoved to her feet again. Paced around the coffee table, close enough to bump his knees. "I don't think I did. I didn't mean to."

When he sat back, shaking his head, she lurched forward and almost tripped over the table. "I didn't mean to, I swear. If I did, it was because you -- you..." She chewed her lip desperately, hands out. "I'm cold. I'm always cold. Except when you were there. It's because what I am -- there's ice inside me. There's so much coldness and I can crush it down, hold it down for a while but then other people get mean or angry and it just sort of -- comes out. And then I have ice in my eyes and my brain and my veins and it has to go somewhere."

He watched the silver swirling in her eyes, as it pooled and then dripped onto her cheek. His heart sank, the lion demanded he comfort her, but he couldn't move. The man couldn't do it yet. Eloise cleared her throat, her voice remarkably steady despite that another tear snuck out. "Every other time, someone gets hurt. Me or someone else, the ice has to go somewhere. Except -- except that night, when I was with you, it didn't. You warmed it out of me." And her entire face went red.

Benedict refused to admit it was an ego boost to think he'd heated her right through. Not that any of it made any sense. He rubbed his forehead, trying to remain aloof despite the unhappiness radiating from her. "I need you to be one hundred percent honest with me, right now. We need to have a conversation about this stuff and I need to trust that you mean every word. Otherwise I'm not sure how this --" and he waved a hand between them, not wanting to put into words what he thought they'd shared. "--would work. Okay?"

She shifted her feet, uneasy, but finally nodded, retreating to stand behind one of the chairs as if it offered some protection from his questions.

Benedict rubbed his jaw, watching her. "What are you?"

Eloise wiped her cheeks and plucked at the seams on the chair cushion. "I'm a gorgon. Part gorgon."

"Gorgon?" He just looked at her, waiting for more.

She made a flustered noise, the color creeping up her cheeks. "Gran was a medusa. My mom was part, and she thought if she bred with a man who was something else, I wouldn't get any of the nastiness from Gran. It didn't work."

Bred. The word disturbed him. It was far too clinical for an intimate process, a miracle that produced Eloise. But he kept his lawyer face on, remained impassive. This could all be another act. "So what was your father?"

"I don't know, exactly. Not human. Not shifter, that I know of." She shrugged, not quite meeting his eyes. "He wasn't around. Might have just been a donor."

Benedict cringed inside, to think of any man abandoning his family like that. Especially a daughter, lost and uncertain. "So that's why you ended up in foster care?"

"How did you --" Those silver eyes flashed and some of the misery faded into irritation. "How did you know?"

"Natalia knew a friend of yours at the soup kitchen. She spilled the beans about you and foster care. The group home."

Eloise shook her head, rubbed her upper arms and moved around the room, more of a wander and less of a pace. "I was in rough shape back then. More so than now," and she gave him a half-smile before wheeling about and facing away. "I couldn't really control the mojo, so every foster home that took me sent me back after a couple of weeks. They thought I was creepy or dangerous. So I ended up in a group home full of predators." Her hair uncurled from the bun and created a curtain across her face, hiding her expression. "It went about as well as you would expect."

Benedict could imagine. He'd done an internship during law school with family law, and occasionally provided pro bono services for child advocates. He'd seen the results of the foster care system first hand. So her view of relationships as inherently transactional wasn't really a surprise. He took a deep breath.

But she wasn't finished. Eloise clenched her hands into fists. "But I survived it. I survived. I'm never going back to that place. I'm in control of my emotions, I'm in control of this --
thing
that I am. It does not define who I am. I'm not just a monster."

The lion grumbled his support, and Benedict struggled to find the appropriate words. At length, he managed, "You could never be a monster, Eloise."

"I am. At least part." She flapped a hand to dismiss whatever argument he might have offered. "I'm a monster. That's okay. It took a long time to admit that. I just have to control it. Stuff it down."

"What if you didn't stuff it down?" He sat forward, elbows on knees, and considered one of the year-old magazines on the coffee table. "For us, not shifting just makes the shift less controllable. The longer we go without taking the other form, the harder it is to remember being human. Maybe it's the same for you."

"When you shift, you don't automatically kill someone, do you?" She glanced at him and away, fighting to contain her hair once more. "If I go full gorgon, people die. Immediately. It's not a pretty thing. It hurts. To see someone turn to stone. Exactly as they were the moment I looked at them."

A shiver ran through her and he almost missed the desperate wipe at her cheeks again. Benedict eased to his feet. "Is that why you were surprised I'm not afraid of you?"

"Everyone's afraid of me," she said, low and cold. "It's just a matter of time. Even Ruby -- she pretends like she's not afraid, but she is. And Atticus, who's the best streetfighter in the entire league -- he flinches if I look in his direction."

Benedict cracked one knuckle at a time. "You know Atticus from the fights?"

A brief glance at him, then a bitter laugh. "Well, since we're being honest, yeah. I'm on retainer for one of the leagues, in case someone goes full berserk. I can paralyze them or kill them, depending on how bad it is. They pay pretty well, usually, but lately it seems like Val has a tax on it."

He wanted to punch Val Szdoka in the face the next time he saw her. Benedict looked at his watch. Almost eleven.

Eloise didn't notice, didn't seem to care, staring blindly at a painting on the far wall. "And you too. You might not be afraid of me, but you don't like what I am. It's okay. I'll pay you back somehow."

"Eloise," he said, sounding more tired than he felt. "I don't like what you did. It's different."

"Right." She cleared her throat, turning on her heel and heading to the back bedroom. The one farthest away from where he'd been going to sleep. "I'm going to turn in. I'll be up to help Ruby mop the floors. I can find the bears on my own."

The door shut before he could get a single word out, and Benedict stared at it with no idea what to do. It made sense. It all made sense, every last word of it. That didn't make it any easier to rid himself of the uneasiness of their first encounter. He didn't know if they could recover from that. If she would give him the chance to recover.