I step away from the window. My hand shakes as I brush my hair behind my ear. Then I look around for my hair tie. I always wear my hair in a bun. A tight bun.
Clench.
My hair tie is nowhere to be found. Neither is my purse where I always carry plenty of extras.
Instead my hair fluffs around me in an unruly mess. Not a complete mess. It’s brushed. …He brushed it last night before tucking me into bed.
The wave of relaxation that washes over me even at the memory of his touch calms some of the panic that’s been creeping in…until that itself freaks me out. What the hell? Nothing relaxes me! Nothing and no one! I’ve tried everything. Meditation, wine, hot baths… but shit, thinking about baths just reminds me of last night, again.
I’ve got to get the hell out of here or I’m just gonna go nuts battling with my own thoughts. I’m exhausted and I just woke up. I’ll go stir-crazy if I sit here much longer.
I pull on a soft sweater and another pair of thick leggings and socks and head for the door.
I pause when I reach out to touch it, sure it will be locked. Even after last night? Then I scoff at myself. You think that changed anything? Really?
But when I grab the knob, it turns easily.
Not locked.
I push through and then step out into the forbidding castle, squinting to see in the dimly lit corridor.
At the far end of the corner, light beams in diagonally from a high window, making dust motes dance in the air. But even as I walk towards it, the light falters and I hear thunder rumble overhead.
I shiver and think about calling out hello? But no, I’m not ready to see the Beast again so soon. Besides, how hard can it be to find the kitchen and get myself something to eat? My stomach rumbles, urging me on. This place might be big, but the kitchen will always be down, right? On the first floor or maybe the basement? That’s how old places like this were built? Upstairs/Downstairs kinds of arrangements?
I wrap my arms around myself and when I come to the end of the corridor and open a heavy door to a stairwell that heads up and down, I hurry down the stairs.
Damn, my feet are freezing. I wish I had something more than socks. It just makes me hurry faster. I pass one landing and keep going down. I was on the second or third floor, right? I think so, judging from when I looked out the window earlier.
When I come to the landing for what I think is the first floor, I keep going down. This has to be a servant’s stairwell, for as little frills as it has—I run my hand along down the railing as I go and then grimace—and as much dust has gathered. I take it the Beast doesn’t have a cleaning staff or call in a service. I wipe my hands on my leggings as I get to the bottom of the stairs and the dust smears on the soft black fabric.
Finally I push through the door at the bottom of the stairwell and—
It’s pitch black.
I gasp and stumble back, making sure the door doesn’t close behind me. The last thing I need is for the door to shut and lock behind me and leave me down here lost in the dark.
But I catch the door and when I fumble along the wall, I easily find a light switch. Oh thank goodness.
My thumping heart slows down but then I step forward, curious.
It’s a…gym.
Okay, not what I was expecting. But it helps explain the hulking muscles of my captor. Captor? Really? Can you still call him that after last night? You were the one begging.
Heat flares in my cheeks. Nope. Not thinking about that right now. Maybe not ever.
I walk closer to the weight bench and run my hand along the smooth, worn leather and then the stand of neatly stacked weights. There’s also a treadmill, a stationary bike, and a rowing machine. Well, good to know I can still keep up my cardio if the Beast will let me borrow his toys.
I cross the stone floor to the door at the other end of the room. The lights from the gym spill into a dark hallway. I flip another switch and a light flickers lazily on overhead, just one for the entire hallway. It’s the basement, so there aren’t any windows here to help relieve the unrelenting darkness.
I should turn back. I’m not seeing any kitchen. And it’s damp and cold down here. I can’t feel my toes anymore. I should’ve just waited in my room. It’s not like the Beast is going to starve me. He was probably about to bring me breakfast.
Then I scoff at my thoughts. Since when do I wait around for people to take care of me? I’m Dr. Daphne Laurel. I see problems and I fix them. My litany of failed experiments flash through my mind. Well, I try to fix them anyway. I will fix them, in the end. Starting with finding myself some freaking breakfast.
I straighten my shoulders and start down the hall. I stop at the first door I come to, doubting it’s the kitchen but determined to check every one anyway. Learning more about my surroundings can only be a good thing.
I flip on the light and laugh. Seriously?
A bowling alley?
Okay, it’s just one lane, but still, it looks regulation length, and there are pins set up in formation at the end and everything. I look around. Like, surely, this has gotta be some sort of joke.
But nope. The Beast loves…bowling? Or maybe it came with the place? Unlike the stairwell, though, there’s no layer of dust here, and I walk over the smooth, polished wood floor to the stand of bowling balls. There are various weights on the balls, but all of them have huge finger holes. I slip my slim fingers inside them and they’re engulfed. I yank my hands back. These are definitely the Beast’s balls. Of course they’re twice the average size. Snicker.
I step back and turn off the light, closing the door as quietly as I can behind me. I don’t know why it feels like peeking in these two rooms; it seems like I’m seeing into an intimate part of the Beast’s life. Parts he doesn’t share with anyone else. Things maybe no one else in the world knows about him.
I back away from the door. But I don’t turn and go back upstairs to my room. I head further down the hallway. I’m hungry for more. All I have are such incomplete pieces to the puzzle that is the man that’s suddenly taken over my life. It’s just a survival instinct. That’s all.
Yeah, keep telling yourself that.
I bite my lip and glance into the next few rooms. Nothing but storage. Okay, so maybe there’s nothing else to find anyway. It’s just a basement after all. I’m surprised by a flash of disappointment.
When I come to the end of the hallway, I flip another light and gasp. It opens to an arched stone vestibule that’s frankly fucking stunning. I step in, my eyes on the intricate corbels and vaulted ceiling so that it takes me a moment to take in what the room is being used for.
But finally my eyes drop back down to the huge open room…and all the very familiar equipment carefully set out on a neat array of lab tables.
Computers hum at several stations. There’s a lab-grade DNA sequencer off to the left, set up incongruously beside a gothic stone column. My feet take me towards one of several electron microscopes and my inner lab geek takes over. I pull on lab gloves from a box underneath the table and then sit down at the little stool in front of one of the machines. I grab a slide from a set labeled ‘specimens’ and put it underneath the microscope.
It’s a blood sample and when I turn on the microscope light and put my eyes to the eyepiece, the sight through the viewfinder is so familiar I gasp.
Battleman’s? He’s studying Battleman’s disease?