Amalgamate

Chapter 11

There was nothing like a hot steamy shower to put a girl in her right frame of mind. The pain was easing, maybe from just moving around a little. She winced when she reached up to towel dry her hair. Deciding she didn't need to be thorough, she wrapped the towel around her and headed back down the hall towards the recovery room.

She couldn't hear or see anyone, it was like a tomb. Which just gave her the chills. Quiet was good, but this was eerie quiet.

When she rounded the corner into her room she found Karita perched on the end of her bed, waiting for her. "Now, is somebody gonna start talkin' or what?" Rowan barely got the words out before Karita sprang from the bed with lightning fast speed, sinking a hypodermic needle into the soft tissue of her neck just above her clavicle.

The drug worked quickly, too. She could feel the warmth spreading rapidly throughout her body. The backs of her knees went weak and she felt herself collapsing. She put her arms out in hopes of breaking her fall when huge sun burned arms enveloped her from behind and pulled her in close. "Son of a bitch..." was all she could mutter as her eyes began to close.

"Let's go newbie." Greer was anxious to leave, every moment they spent here was compromising all of their safety.

Her neck could no longer hold up her head. Falling back, she went limp against Greer's muscular chest.

Rowan slept like the dead, but her mind was still in rapid fire. She was reasoning through the events of the last twelve hours or so, convincing herself that everything...everyone she met, all of it, was just a dream. She was still in the hospital, still unconscious with Ian by her side. With that thought, she was able to relax and for the first time in over two years, she experienced a very realistic dream that wasn't about solving a crime.

In her dream, she knew the man who was touching her wasn't human. His scent...like the outdoors after a cleansing rain and his skin was so smooth, pale and perfect as though it had never seen the sun. His lips were thin, but commanding. She couldn't see his face clearly because they were surrounded by thick fog, but when she shivered warm arms wrapped around her and pulled her into a protective embrace. She closed her eyes and pressed her head into this stranger's chest. She didn't need to see him. She knew he belonged to her.

She hoped she never woke up because it could never compare to the way the man in her dreams was touching her now. She'd never imagined a man's touch could make her feel so relaxed and loved. But, she knew it was just an extremely vivid dream and she blamed it all on her excessive reading in the paranormal romance genre. It was getting to her.

Unsure of who or what he was only that he wasn't human, she let herself get lost in the dream. She'd always been drawn to the idea that lycans, vampires and warlocks existed, which was the reason for her extensive personal paranomal library. She had a room dedicated to this genre. Unfortunately, perfect men like the ones portrayed in those stories only existed in her novels, which was why she was alone.

Rowan wasn't a girl who settled and she had yet to meet a man who could compete with the characters in her books...except for Ian.

Ian...

Suddenly the fog cleared, a face came to view, but it wasn't Ian. She'd never seen this man before, but he definitely knew her. She could see the adoration in his eyes.

She reached for his face. His eyes were a bright sparkling blue, like the ocean water surrounding a tropical island somewhere off the grid. She could feel the pull between them, and knew she was linked to him in some way. If this was a premonition, she needed to know more. She needed to know who he was.

She strained to look closer...his jaw line square and hard... his lips...scarred. She tried to touch his lips, to run her finger over the scar across the corner of his mouth, but before she could make physical contact he leaned down and scooped her up into his arms.

His speed and strength took her breath away, her mouth a gasp as she looked in his eyes. The man of her dreams never took his eyes from hers. She could feel herself getting pulled into the deep blue abyss as he carried her away into the crisp, cool, night air under a canopy of stars. His smile was absolutely ravishing. It might even be her undoing, and as his smile widened she realized...he had fangs.