Twilight Fulfilled

The bell above the door jangled when she walked in, and a woman said, “Just sit wherever you want, hon. Coffee?”

“Yeah. A gallon or so,” Brigit answered without looking.

Then she slid into a booth along the front, her eyes still on the motel across the street.

A filled coffee mug clunked down in front of her. “Are you the wife, or the P.I. working for the wife?” the waitress asked.

Brigit darted a glance the other woman’s way and got stuck. She’d expected the clichéd red or blond beehive with pencils sticking out. Instead, she saw a careworn face, silver-gray curls and a smoker’s wrinkled upper lip. “I’m sorry?”

“You’re watching that mo-tel like it’s gonna get up and run off if you turn your head. You got a husband having a fling behind your back?”

“Oh.” She got it now. “No, no husband.” She showed off a bare ring finger. “Just a friend I’m going to, uh … surprise.”

“Uh-huh. You want food?”

“Something fast. What’s ready?”

“French toast can be on your plate in ten minutes.”

“Make it five and I’ll double your tip.”

“Deal.”

Four minutes later Brigit was wolfing down a stack of syrup-drenched, piping hot, buttery French toast that was actually pretty damned good.

She slugged down the coffee, getting up and digging in her pockets for cash.

“The breakfast is five bucks honey,” the woman called from behind the counter. “And here’s a coffee to go, on me.” She slid a capped, extra-large cup across the counter.

“Thanks. I’m grateful.” Tossing two fives onto the counter, Brigit grabbed the cup and turned. She needed the caffeine boost. She was blocking her presence from Utana as thoroughly as she could, mentally maintaining an invisible and impenetrable shield around her aura. It was exhausting, and yet vital.

The men were still in the motel room. What the hell were they doing in there?

She left the diner, cup in hand, and glanced up and down the winding road. The motel was covered in white clapboard siding, with brick-red trim, shutters and doors. Each door bore a metallic, gold-toned number. A sidewalk ran along the front, and the semicircular strip of blacktopped parking had room for one vehicle per door.

A smaller, square detached structure bore a sign that said Office.

Behind it, there was a big empty rolling field full of brambles, briars and weeds. And that, she supposed, was where she was going to have to go. Sighing in resignation, she headed up the road until she rounded a bend and was out of sight. Then she jumped the ditch and jogged far enough into the giant weed patch to be invisible, and from there she began making her way back toward the motel.

She emerged from the weeds directly behind it and began counting the windows, trying to match them up with the doors in the front. When she got to the one she thought went with Room 6, she crept closer.

The window was a little too high for her, but she located a loose cinder block beneath the oblong fuel tank in the back, dragged it closer and stood on it. She took a quick peek inside, then ducked down, blinking in shock.

Her eyes had registered the following: Big. Male. Naked. Wet. And effin’ ripped. The makeshift toga had been hiding a chest that made her heart beat faster and a backside that made her knees go weak. Damn.

Drawing a breath, she closed her eyes slowly, then opened them again and peered through the slightly fogged glass one more time.

Utana was standing beside a shower stall, staring at it as if in wonder. He was buck naked, and she couldn’t take her eyes off him. She had a three-quarter view, and it was the shoulders that got her first. Rippling, bulging, beautiful. Every muscle was visible beneath his smooth, tanned, hairless skin. Then his chest, broad and thick, and then the abs … And as he turned a little more, the blackened section of skin where her blast had hit home. As she focused there, she felt the pain he was still in. He was trying to overcome it, trying to function in spite of it, and, for the most part, he was succeeding in keeping it buried.

He was one powerful man.

Her gaze slid downward—down to his pelvic bones and …

Oh, for the love of … well, it figured he would be hung like a stallion, didn’t it?

She blinked and forced herself to look elsewhere. But it was not safe. His hard butt had just enough curve and dimpled inward at the sides. His thighs were like tree trunks. His calves like banded steel.

God, all right already. She had work to do here.

She had to kill him. She had to destroy that beautiful work of art just beyond the glass. She could probably do it right then. He was so busy staring at the shower, as if he were completely awestruck by the device he’d just made use of. His hair was still wet. He’d shaved at some point. That was probably what had been taking so long. She didn’t imagine his newfound pal had had an easy time showing him how.

Utana dragged a towel from the rack and wiped himself down with it, taking great care on his injured belly.

And then he turned to the sink and twisted the faucets as if for the first time, like a child. As the water ran, he cupped his hands beneath it, and a smile split his face wide. He cranked the faucets off, then back on, then off again.

A moment later he was doing the same with the light switch. On, off, on, off.

Brigit lifted her hand, palm up, fingers loosely resting against her thumb.

His white teeth were perfect, the joy on his face exquisite, despite his pain. He flicked the light a few more times, then gazed at the toilet. Bending, he picked up the lid and stared inside. His smile faded. A frown drew his glorious black brows together as he studied it, tipping his head this way and that. He lifted the tank lid, peeking inside, and his frown grew deeper. Replacing the tank lid, he hit the handle, and with a whoosh the toilet flushed. He jumped back, eyes going wide, and then that smile reappeared. Closing his eyes, he placed both hands on the tank and closed his eyes as if listening, or feeling for something.

Of course, she reminded herself. He could understand how something worked by laying his hands on it, absorbing the information by touch. That was what he was doing now.

Eventually he took his hands away. “Ahh, that is what you do,” he said, his voice loud enough for her to hear beyond the glass. “I guessed well.”

Brigit drew a deep breath and began calling up power from the depths of her. She waited to feel it rising up through her feet, heating her legs, filtering into her spine like magma rising through a volcanic chamber. But it didn’t.

Utana was done with the toilet now. He was picking up articles of clothing that had, apparently, been provided to him by the local Samaritan. He held up the trousers and looked at them doubtfully.

Turning, he yanked open the bathroom door and strode, naked, back into the room, apparently complaining about the pants.

Out of sight. Out of reach. She’d had the chance to save her people, and she had let it slip away. Again. What the hell was wrong with her?

Oh, but that smile … those eyes … told her more clearly than anything what was wrong with her.

She’d stopped seeing him as a killing machine. She’d seen him, just now, as a man. A man who could feel joy in the wonder of hot and cold running water, and electric lights. Like an innocent child, rather than a ruthless killer. A man whose death would mean his return to a state that was a lot like being buried alive.

Exactly like being buried alive.

No one deserved that, did they? Surely there had to be another way.

Slowly she withdrew from the window. She was going to have to follow them still farther, because she was certain now that this motel was not their final destination. If only she had her car.

“My king, you are about to experience something you’ve never even imagined.”

Utana was feeling much better since his bathing, though still hurting immensely from Brigit’s blast. He ignored the pain—something a warrior and king must become adept at doing. It was part, he thought, of being alive, being in a body again. And after being trapped without one for so long, he appreciated even the pain. He felt good, too, about his cleanly shaven face and the minty taste the “teeth-brushing” had left in his mouth, despite still being exhausted, in pain and uncomfortable in the modern clothing he’d reluctantly agreed to wear. The pants, in particular, felt confining and strange.

He looked across the car at his newfound vizier, doubt in his eyes. “You know not the wonder of my … imagines.”