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.”
“True enough.” Nashmun was driving, but he pointed up at the sky with one hand. “Have you ever imagined that?”
Scooting lower in the leather seat of the car, Utana tipped his head to stare skyward as the odd-looking bird passed overhead, and he nodded. “Yes, the large birds who soar, but whose wings do not move. I have seen and wondered on these.”
“They’re not birds, my friend. They are airplanes. Very much like the car in which you are riding now. They are machines, made by man, to take us from place to place. But instead of traveling on the ground, as we do in the car, the airplanes fly through the air.”
Utana shot him a look, then craned his neck to see the bird again. “It is not possible.”
“Of course it is. We’re going to ride in one very soon, to take us to your new home.”
“We are … to fly?”
“Yes. You’ll love it.”
Shaking his head as the airplane-bird moved out of sight, vanishing into the clouds, Utana said, “It is a strange world.”
“I’m sure it is. Your English is coming along beautifully, however.”
With a grunt and a nod at the device on the seat beside him, Utana nodded. “The voice that speaks into my ears is … help.”
“It’s an iPod. And the word you want is helpful.”
“Helpful. Yes.” He studied the man, his stomach fluttering with excitement over what was to come, and yet his mind was occupied with matters far more important. And one beautiful woman whose kiss still lingered on his lips. “Where do we fly?”
“There’s a house awaiting you—almost a palace, really. It’s where certain foreign royals stay when they visit my nation’s leader. And I’ve procured it for our use for … well, for as long as we’re likely to need it.”
A palace. It was certainly time, Utana thought. He had been treated with far less respect than his station demanded by the people of this land so far. And yet that, too, wasn’t his highest priority. “In … the direction of north?”
“South, actually.”
Utana shook his head firmly. “I must go north. My mission lies in the north.”
Nashmun sent him a steady look. His eyes appeared honest. “I want to help you in your mission, my king. But you need a home base. A place from which to plan and launch your attack. You need to heal from that wound you have,” he said, with a nod at Utana’s midsection. “And to regain your strength, and learn more about the way this world works and how to make your way in it.”
“They will escape me. I will know not how to find them again.”
“You can feel them. Sense them. Can’t you?” Nashmun shrugged, not awaiting a reply. “Besides, I doubt it will be necessary. They’ll be sending someone after you before long, if they haven’t already.”
Utana lifted his brows. “Someone?”
“An assassin. To kill you, Utana. They know you have no choice but to wipe them out. And they will try to murder you before you get the chance.” Nashmun tightened his grip on the wheel that let him steer the car. “That’s what kind of scum we’re dealing with here. They’re not human. They don’t have human emotions, or even common decency. They would do this, take the life of the man who created them—a man who should be as a god to them, a man they should fall on their knees and worship—they would take the life of their own king, their own father, in order to protect their own putrid existence.”
Utana lowered his head. Indeed, the man was correct. His people had already sent an “assassin” to try to kill him. A fiery, powerful, sexy assassin he would rather ravage than battle.
And yet, he couldn’t really blame the vahmpeers for doing so. He had, after all, destroyed a great many of their kind.
“It will be better to let them run awhile,” Nashmun was saying. “Let them find a haven they think is secure. They’ll start to think they’ve escaped you, start to relax their defenses a bit. Meanwhile, we will be gathering information. We’ll know everything about where they are and how many of them remain. When we move in, we’ll take them by surprise.”
“Not we, Nashmun. I. I will be the one to send them to their deaths.”
Nashmun shrugged. “As you wish, my king. But either way, it will be easy. Fast. One attack, and it will be