He gazed down at her curly head lying so close to his, close enough that the soft strands of her hair were caught up in the scruff of his beard. Moving his arm around her shoulders, he squeezed gently and said, “Very well. I’ll be your defender, then. Until we find the others.”
Maeve tensed when he hugged her. It was a little embarrassing to be twenty-six years old and still a virgin. She’d never even lain in bed with a man—at least not before last night—had never felt the hard strength of a man’s arm around her. It felt so good, so protective. She hadn’t felt like this since she’d been a small child in the arms of her parents, or grandparents. This was very different from that, however. And not in a bad way. She slowly relaxed, feeling his chest move with every breath, his heart thudding against her ear. She smiled privately, certain he couldn’t see it.
She could have stayed there all morning, but they didn’t have time. Reluctantly, she sighed and said, “We should go.”
She felt more than saw his nod.
“We must find Nicodemus, before Sotiris catches up with us. I may be a monster, but he is a far more dangerous beast.”
She sat up and scowled down at him. “I told you, you’re not a monster. Stop saying that. Now, come on, let me show you where we’re going today. I checked the various routes last night. I even thought about using back roads, just in case someone’s on our tail. But it adds too much travel time. We’ll be better off sticking to highways and getting there faster.”
“I agree.”
“So take a look.” She spread out the map she’d picked up at the gas station, before everything had gone to hell, and traced the route she’d highlighted while he’d been in the shower last night. She could have simply pulled it up on her computer, but this would be easier for Dragan to follow while she drove.
He gave the map a quick glance, his eyes following the bright yellow line with a practiced ease, then stood quickly, the sudden absence of his weight leaving her bouncing on the bed behind him.
“Don’t forget,” he said, before disappearing into the small bathroom, “I’m driving today.”
She lifted her head to protest, just in time to hear his chuckle from behind the closed door.
Interstate 95, south to Savannah, GA
MAEVE GRIPPED THE handrest on the passenger side door as Dragan maneuvered his way through the connection to Interstate 95. It wasn’t that complex. Not compared to Boston or Manhattan traffic, but there was enough traffic to make the merge onto I-95 a tricky maneuver. She also had a feeling that Dragan didn’t have much experience in giving way, which was a big part of merging.
She was proven wrong a few minutes later, when he completed the maneuver easily and with surprising skill. Surprising only because until a few days ago, he’d never even seen a car, much less a busy interstate. But she was beginning to understand that whatever experiences had shaped Dragan before he’d been cursed—experiences that mostly revolved around fighting and killing—seemed to translate into an ability to adapt and flourish in new environments. Add in a very sharp intellect, and he might even be better at surviving modern society than she was. After all, she’d been the one hiding in a big house on the lake.
He glanced over at her sigh. “Problem, Mae?”
She loved the way he shortened her name. She thought of herself as “Mae,” but no one, not even her family, had called her that. And the few friends who’d tried had always gone with Eve, which she’d discouraged. But “Mae,” she liked that. Or maybe she just liked him. Yes, she was the idiot girl who was falling for the big, strong man with emotional scars.
“Maeve?”
She looked over with a smile. “Just thinking about what a good driver you are.”
He slid a very quick sidelong glance her way. “Is that a bad thing?”
“No. You’re already better than I am.” She heard the cynical note in her voice, but he only laughed.
“Compared to staying alive in the middle of a thousand fighters, all screaming for your blood, driving from one road to the next isn’t much.”
“Okay, well. When you put it that way . . .”
“Where do you want to stop tonight?” he asked, biting back a smile.
Maeve reached over and manipulated the nav screen, trying to gauge where they were, relative to where they were going. She’d hoped they could reach the Florida border tonight—something she now understood had been too optimistic. Maybe if she’d been able to sleep while he drove, but that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, no matter how good a driver he was. It wasn’t in her genes to relax that much.
“Savannah, Georgia,” she said thoughtfully, then scrolled a bit farther south. “Yeah. Savannah looks good. It’s another hundred miles or so, and about twenty miles off the highway. We probably won’t have to go all the way to the city to find a hotel.”
“Guess you’ll have to trust my driving a little longer, then.” His tone was so smug, she wanted to punch him. But then, he might punch back, or even poke one finger back, which would leave a bruise on her deathly pale skin. And then, he’d feel bad. She’d noticed that about him. For all the neglect he’d received from the people in his life, he’d picked up a strong thread of decency somewhere. She loved, er liked, that, too.
“Yeah, yeah,” she intoned instead. “No one likes a braggart.”
He laughed again. “Even I know it’s not bragging if it’s true.”
She stared at him. “Where’d you pick that up? And don’t tell me it’s from your battlefield days. That’s a totally modern idiom!”
“Television, I guess. I told you, the damn sorcerer liked to torment me with what I was missing. That was before you came.”
She supposed that was possible. And why was she suddenly so grumpy? “I’m hungry,” she decided out loud. “I get cranky when I’m hungry.”
“Good to know. I’ll have to keep you fed.”
Maeve stared through the windshield at the boring highway and wondered when their roles had shifted. Shouldn’t she be the one keeping them fed? Though it was a lot less stressful now that Dragan had become a bit more comfortable with this new world. She relaxed her seatback a little and rested her arm on the center console, watching the empty countryside roll past. And when Dragan’s hand lifted to brush hers in a brief caress, she smiled.
DRAGAN HAD FOLLOWED Maeve’s directions to the hotel without mishap and now lay on one of the two beds, contemplating the number and variety of lodgings in this highway town, and whether the vast armies of this world had developed better battlefield accommodations for their soldiers than the ones he’d shared with his brothers as part of Nico’s army. Maeve’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts.