Revival (The Variant Series, Book 1) (5 page)

She stared at him blankly. He started for the dock.

The rush of gratitude she had felt toward him for saving her from certain death in the bookstore was now warring with an uncharacteristic urge to
smack
that idiotic smirk off his face.

Grateful though she might be, he’d still just dropped her into the icy waters of a lake in the middle of nowhere, over a hundred feet from the shore.

And for whatever reason, he seemed to find it funny.

All around the lake, mountains towered high above, limiting the horizon to a blue circle of sky. The early evening sun was already threatening to dip below a distant prominence. Wherever they were, it wasn’t Florida.

“Where in God’s name
are we
??” she demanded. Cassie wanted moxie? Well, Alex was bursting with it right about now.  “What just happened? Who was that fire-happy psycho in the bookstore?"

Her words came out at a stutter through chattering teeth. Great. She’d aimed for intimidating and hit cold and waterlogged instead. 

“And who are you, anyway?” She tried her best to sound assertive. “Better yet,
what
are you? How did you bring us here?”

He paused mid-stroke and glanced back at her, his self-satisfied grin faltering, but only for a second. Instead of answering her questions he made for the dock again.

Alex continued to tread water for another moment and then resigned to following him. What choice did she have?

They were still a good fifty feet out when an angry voice echoed across the lake.

“Dammit, Declan!”

The smug smile was wiped from her dubious hero’s face.

Declan? So he had a name.

A forty-something man in an immaculate black suit and gray peacoat was making his way down the dock. He was handsome, though not in any traditional sense. The man was tall and lean, lanky, but with an air of purpose and authority that made him appear larger than he was. His walnut-colored hair was going grey at the temples and his thin mouth and weathered features intensified the scowl on his face.

With a grunt of annoyance, Declan resumed his swim to the dock. His strokes sent him quickly through the water, despite being weighed down by wet clothes and a pair of boots.

He made it look easy.

Alex followed, her progress slow and awkward.

After nearly twelve years in Florida, Alex was well accustomed to being in the water. She’d even been on her school’s swim team the year before, helping them to the state championship for the first time in ten years.

Then again she hadn’t been doing laps in the school’s swimming pool fully clothed with a satchel roped around her.

Her savior, not surprisingly, reached the dock first.

“The lake, Declan? Really?” The man knelt at the edge of the platform, offering his hand. Alex could hear the hint of an accent that she couldn’t quite place. “You couldn’t find a better spot to reappear?”

Declan took the man’s outstretched hand and, bracing his other hand on the dock, hauled himself from the water and onto the platform in one fluid motion.

The younger man sat down with a thud and peeled off his saturated jacket. Alex gripped the edge of the dock, trying not to notice the way Declan’s thin white t-shirt was now clinging to his well-defined torso.

She’d known the guy a grand total of five minutes and he’d already left her with a sour first impression. The last thing she ought to be doing right now was ogling his six-pack.

Alex shoved all musings about Declan’s physique to the back of her thoughts and finally registered what the tall man had said.

They could have reappeared somewhere else? Declan
chose
to drop them in the lake?

Oh, yeah. Her first impression had definitely been the right one.

“Carson Brandt was there,” Declan said, wringing the water out of his coat. “Had her cornered.”

The twisting motion called her attention to his biceps.

Cursing her traitorous hormones, Alex tried to derail that train of thought with an attempt to pull herself from the water under her own weight.

Her arms gave out a few seconds in and she slipped beneath the surface.

Well, that was embarrassing. If she could look any more pathetic to these people, she wasn’t sure how. Alex slicked back her hair. Declan was still wringing out his jacket and hadn’t seemed to notice.

A cold breeze ripped across the surface of the lake and, suddenly, Declan’s muscles weren’t nearly so distracting. She needed to get out of this water before hypothermia set in.

The tall man nodded. “But the
lake
, Declan?”

“The building was going up in flames.” He squinted up at the man in the suit, the glare of the sun in his eyes. “She could have been on fire.”

The man chose to ignore this and turned to help Alex from the water, resigned.

“For the record,” said Alex through chattering teeth, “I was not
on fire.”

She tossed her satchel onto the deck, took the tall man’s outstretched hand and—in a maneuver that only slightly resembled the one Declan had just demonstrated—launched herself from the water and tumbled onto the dock.

“I knew I should have sent Nathaniel with you.” The older man shrugged off his coat and placed it around Alex’s shoulders.

“Hey, I got her out didn’t I? She’s here. She’s in one piece.”

More or less
, she thought to herself.

Alex tried to wring some of the water from her hair, crinkling her nose as she plucked a slimy clump of algae from her dark brown tresses. She tossed the disgusting glob back into the lake and dropped the tangled, still-dripping mess that was her hair in resignation.

“She’s fine,” said Declan, defensive. “You’re fine, right?”

She gave him a look. “
Peachy
.”

“See? Both Alex
and
her astounding wit have made it here intact. Her sense of humor seems to be M.I.A., but I’m pretty sure that was a pre-existing condition.” Declan got to his feet and headed toward the shore. “Mission accomplished.”

Alex glanced up at the man in the suit. His eyes followed Declan’s progress, scowl still firmly in place.

“Um, hello?” said Alex.

The man in the suit turned to face her.

“Hi. Excuse me, but... what just happened? Where am I?”

His expression softened.

“Of course. I apologize. I’ll explain everything once we get back to the cabin.” He helped Alex to her feet. “My name is John Grayson. No need to tell me yours. I already know quite a bit about you, Alexandra Parker.”

He ignored her look of surprise.

“You must be freezing. Let’s get you inside. I know you have questions for us. I promise, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know just as soon as you’re settled. You’ll be safe here for the time being.”

“Safe? Safe from what?”

“Like I said. Once you’re warm. I’ll answer your questions then. Do you prefer Alex or Alexandra?”

“Alex,” she said, gathering up her saturated messenger bag and adjusting the oversized coat that hung from her shoulders.

Alex wasn’t about to wait until they reached the cabin. She wanted answers now. Figuring that by asking questions with a yes or no answer she might be able to wheedle a bit more information out of him, she tried again.

“Did you send Declan to follow me?”

“I did.”

“To keep me safe?”

“Yes.”

“He wasn’t supposed to bring me back here, was he?”

Grayson’s mouth was a thin line. “His job was to evaluate the situation and to ensure your safety. He wouldn’t have brought you here if there had been another way. Although dropping you in the lake…”

“I’m guessing you don’t welcome all your guests this way?”

His expression became rueful. “Declan’s turned getting under people’s skin into something of an art form.”

“I get that.” She tried to smile, but her teeth were still chattering too hard. It came out more like a grimace. “I’ve only just met him and already I’d like to shoot him.”

Grayson offered her a watery smile and started off in the direction Declan had vanished.

Alex followed after him, hesitant, but freezing. Her Converse All-Star’s squeaked, wheezed and oozed lake water with every step. “Inside” promised warmth and the potential for dry clothes.  That won out over hypothermia any day.

— 5 —

A
lex huffed as she struggled to keep pace with Grayson’s long strides, lungs burning as her exhalations formed hazy clouds of mist in the thin mountain air.

Sunlight trickled through the rustling branches of the trees above, creating dancing pools of light on the forest floor. As the wind picked up, Alex pulled her borrowed coat tighter around her shoulders.

The trail leading to the cabin snaked its way at a steep incline through the forest and she soon found herself focusing less on her guide, and more on her unsteady footing. Large amounts of melting snow had left the well-worn path slick with mud and pockmarked by puddles of standing water.

Alex stumbled along behind Grayson, her flat-soled Chuck Taylor’s offering little in the way of traction.

“Not much further now,” he said.

The rush of adrenaline that had flooded her system earlier was letting up, but this unexpected exercise had kept her blood pumping. She felt relatively warm despite the wet and the cold. 

A short ways ahead of them Declan had paused to retie a bootlace.

Grayson had noticed him, too. Alex could tell, because the preoccupied expression he’d worn for most of the walk had morphed into one of vexation.

Declan straightened, picked up his canvas jacket and continued walking, now only a few yards ahead of them.

Alex gasped.

They had emerged from the wooded path into the mouth of a small clearing. At the top of two stone staircases stood a sprawling structure that—Alex could only assume—was the cabin Grayson had referred to.

Cabin
wasn’t the word for it.
Mansion
came closer.

Alex had seen cabins before.

In fact, she was quite familiar with one in particular.

Every year during summer break, Aunt Cil would drag her to a tiny mountain town in North Carolina for two weeks to “get away” from the fast pace of the city. The cabin had two bedrooms, no phone, ropes on the bathroom doors in place of doorknobs, wood siding, a tin roof and a window air-conditioning unit that never seemed to cool a radius wider than three feet.

This was not her aunt’s summer cabin.

Alex stopped in her tracks and took in the sight before her.

The massive three-story home stood flush against the mountain, paneled in richly stained dark cedar and marked with stonework accents. With its immaculate grounds and unique features, it looked like something straight off the cover of an
Architectural Digest
magazine.

Who
were
these people?

Declan was now almost twenty feet ahead of them, making his way up the first of the two stone staircases.

Where the first staircase emptied out there was an open area just large enough to accommodate a neatly stacked woodpile and a small, shed-like structure built in the same style as the house above.

Next to the woodpile, a guy around Declan’s age stood splitting firewood. Despite the chilly weather, he was wearing only a pair of jeans and a black tank top. A gray, long-sleeved henley was tied around his waist. His olive complexion and short black hair set him apart from both Declan and Grayson in appearance.

When Declan reached the top of the first set of stairs he lowered the axe.

“Hey, you’re back! How’d it go?” He took in Declan’s soggy appearance with thinly veiled amusement. “…The hell happened to you, man? Why are you wet?”

“Oh, you know. Walked through fire, rescued the girl, went for a swim.” Declan walked past him and started up the second stairway. “Just another day at the office.”

Alex looked him over as she approached.

Like Declan, he was gorgeous. Unlike Declan, there was an obvious kindness in his dark brown eyes. Those weren’t the eyes of someone who’d rescue her from the fiery clutches of death only to drop her into a frigid lake for a laugh and the sheer rush of it all.

She liked him already.

The dark-haired teen turned his gaze on Alex… and the axe slipped from his hand, falling to the ground beside him with a muted
thump
.

He stared at her, mouth open in a small “o” of surprise. Recognition blazed in his eyes.

He said something then that she didn’t quite catch and the look of wonder was wiped from his face. Schooling his expression, he offered her a slow smile instead.

What was that about? She was certain she’d never seen him before. A guy like this, she would have remembered.

“You brought company,” he said.

“So I did,” Declan called over his shoulder. “Now put a shirt on, before your fugliness sends her screaming back into the lake.”

Declan’s joking aside, it was as though some perfectly chiseled Greek god had descended from Mount Olympus and now stood before her, chopping firewood. If Cassie had been here, nothing short of Armageddon would have prevented her from flirting with him.

Cassie.

She was probably wondering where Alex had disappeared to, right about now.

“Alex, I’d like you to meet Nathaniel Palladino.” Grayson gestured toward the axe-wielding Adonis. “Nathaniel, this is Alex.”

Alex glanced down, feeling self-conscious. Between her drenched clothes and Grayson’s too-large jacket swallowing her petite form, she was likely exuding all the sex appeal of a drowned rat in a peacoat.

“Nice to meet you,” said Nathaniel. He stuck out a hand as they approached.

“You too,” she said. His hand was warm and his grip firm, but gentle. She could feel calluses on his palm.

Nathaniel jerked his hand back with a quiet curse. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—I mean, I… My hands are disgusting,” he said finally. “You know… Tree sap.”

“Oh,” she said, surprised and a little confused. “It’s fine. Really.”

A flash of color caught her eye.