In The Devil's Stables (Spirited #1)

Chapter 40

Charlotte heard her name called. At least she thought she had.

The rain sheeted around her, a thick curtain that blocked out everything but breaths and heart beats and nerve endings.

It was quiet, she noted. So ungodly quiet.

Rain slid unheeded down her cheekbones, her dress clinging to her chest and the weight of her skirts thick and damp between her legs.

The fire was a flickering menace on her periphery, one she knew, somehow, in someway, wouldn't be able to reach her.

That's when the sound of her name registered.

"Charlotte? By God..."

And then hands were burrowing beneath the heavy mass of her locks, clasping her neck. An arm swept around her waist, and then she was pulled into a warm body, her face cradled between neck and shoulder.

It was Greyson, his scent of bergamot mixed with rain and woodsmoke.

That was all it took for reality to come crashing back. Charlotte's hand fisted in Greyson's shirt, her teeth biting down on his skin as she wept. Her tears mixed with the rain, her shoulders shaking as Greyson's body sheltered her.

"H...how did you f...find me?" Charlotte asked, when she could speak, pulling back and watching a droplet of rain rove over the earl's lips.

"Your horse came galloping down the road, and that's when we saw it. The fire..." he murmured, his hand tangling further into her hair. "God, I saw you lying here and I thought...I thought..."

Charlotte didn't need to hear the rest.

Didn't wish to.

The foolishness of her actions - the fear that she might never see this man again, experience the warm ache in her chest - all collided at once, threatening to tear her apart.

"I'm okay," she whispered. She didn't know if it was Greyson she spoke to, however, her lips trembling slightly from the cold and the last lingering traces of her energy.

Greyson's thumb captured each sign of moisture on Charlotte's face, his eyes roaming over every curve and dip as if committing her to memory.

"Moreland?"

Charlotte's eyes fell to the crumbling heap of boards, the rain misting like a sick ghost. "He was inside when it collapsed. I...I had his knife. It stabbed through his coat and he got...stuck...inside..."

"God," Greyson gasped out, drawing Charlotte's body back into him. "God."

Charlotte's teeth began to chatter, and Greyson cursed, releasing Charlotte for a moment as he shrugged from his black greatcoat. Pulling it around Charlotte's shoulders, he clasped the fabric in his fists in front of her, dragging her body back into his.

His hand cradled her head, unwilling to release her as they both breathed. "I never...I didn't..."

Trailing off, Greyson's hand began a soothing motion over her back. Up and down. Charlotte ignored the twinges in her muscles and the sting of her shoulder. The throbbing of her face and the creak of her jaw.

Charlotte didn't wish for anything else but to be back home. Not at her parents' country estate. Not in London in her borrowed town home. Not in her imagined house with only Sophie for company.

She simply wished to be wherever Greyson was.

"Take me home." It was a meager whisper over the howling wind that had began, as if angry at the whole predicament as Charlotte was. As Greyson had to be.