The Blood Gospel (Page 46)

That done, she wiggled into the garment, hating how it felt against her legs. The sandals she left by the bed. Her sneakers were staying with her.

Once dressed, she returned to the door, found it unlocked, and peeked out into the hallway. She found it empty and stepped out of the room. As she turned to shut her door—something scraped across stone, sounding like nails clawing out of a grave.

Spooked, already on edge, she bolted across the hall. She didn’t want to be caught outside of her room, especially by whatever made that scraping noise. She pictured the slavering jaws of the grimwolf.

Without knocking, she burst through Jordan’s door.

She found him wearing only a towel and a surprised expression. In his right hand he jerked up a pistol—but then lowered it immediately.

“Oh, God, I’m sorry.” She blushed. “I shouldn’t have … I didn’t mean to …”

“It’s all right,” he said, smiling at her fluster, which only drew more heat to her cheeks. “I’m glad you came over. I wanted to talk to you alone anyway. Away from the others.”

She nodded. That was why she had headed over here, too, but she had expected that conversation to be one during which they were both clothed.

She stepped against the door, trying not to look at Jordan’s muscular chest, at the thin line of hair that split his washboard abs, or at the length of his tan legs.

She wanted to turn away, but her eyes caught on an unusual tattoo that spanned his left shoulder and ran partway down his arm and across a corner of his chest and back. It looked like the branching roots of a tree, all rising from a single dark spot on his upper chest. There was a certain flowery beauty to it, especially etched on such a masculine physique.

He must have noted the object of her attention. He drew a finger down one of those branching lines. “I got this when I was eighteen.”

“What is it?”

“It’s called a Lichtenberg figure. It’s a fractal pattern that forms after something gets struck by a lightning bolt. In this case that something was me.”

“What?” She stepped toward him, both intrigued by and glad for the distraction.

“I was playing football in the rain. Got hit near the goalpost after catching a touchdown.”

She stared up at his blue eyes, half smiling, trying to judge if he was making fun of her.

He lifted three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

Of course he was a Boy Scout.

“I was pronounced dead for three minutes.”

“You were?”

He nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“What was it like being dead?”

“I didn’t have that whole dark-tunnel, bright-light thing, but I came back different.”

“Different how?” He seemed pretty grounded, but was he going to tell her that he’d seen God or been touched by an angel?

“It’s like my number was up.” He flattened his palm over his heart. “And everything after that moment was a bonus.”

She stared at the design on his chest. That’s how close he’d gotten to death. He went through and came out the other side, like the Sanguinists.

He grinned and traced down one of the lines. “These patterns are sometimes called lightning flowers. They’re caused by the rupture of small capillaries under the skin due to the passage of electric current following the discharge of a lightning strike. I got hit here.” He touched the center of the branching on his chest. “The pattern spread outward. It was bright red for a while, but it faded and left a little scar.”

“But then?”

“I had the original pattern tattooed to remind me that this life is a bonus.” He laughed. “Drove my parents crazy.”

She lifted a finger, wanting to examine the design, to touch it—like she did all things she found incredible, then realized what she was about to do and stopped, leaving her finger hovering over the black mark on his chest.

He reached up and drew her hand closer. “It’s raised up a bit where the original scar was.”

She wanted to resist but couldn’t. As her fingertip touched his skin, a jolt shook her, as if some of the lightning’s energy were still trapped in his scar—but she knew it was something more than electrical discharge.

He must have felt it, too. His skin tightened where she made contact, the thick muscle hardening underneath her finger. His breath drew in deeper.

He still held her hand. She looked up into those blue eyes, those lips—the upper lip with a divot at the top like a bow.

His eyes darkened, and he leaned down toward her, as if wanting to assert that he was alive now.

She held her breath and let him, wanting the same after the long day of horrors.

His kiss started gentle and featherlight, lips barely brushing hers.

Heat flashed through her, as electric as it was warm.

She rose up on her toes and deepened the kiss, needing to explore it further, to explore him further. She wrapped her hands around his bare shoulders and pulled him closer, wanting more of him, more connection, more warmth. She dissolved into the kiss, letting it fill her and blot out the horrible events in the tomb.

Then she flashed on the pale ring of skin around his tanned finger.

It was a kind of tattoo that marked him as readily as the lightning scar.

He was a married man.

She leaned back, bumping into the washstand. “I’m sorry.”

His voice was hoarse. “I’m not.”

She turned her head away, angry at herself, at him. She needed to catch her breath and get her head on straight. “I think we need to step back from this.”

Jordan took a careful step backward. “Far enough?”

That wasn’t exactly what she meant, but it would do. “Maybe another step.”

Jordan gave her a quick, embarrassed smile, then retreated another step and sat down on the bed.

She sat on the other end, her arms crossed over her chest, needing to change the subject. Her voice came out too high. “How’s your other shoulder?”

He had hurt it while being yanked through the hole as they escaped the collapsing tomb.

Jordan swiveled his arm around and winced. “Hurts, but I don’t think it’s serious. Less serious than being pancaked in the mountain.”

“Being pancaked in the mountain might have been easier.”

“Who says the easy path is the right one?”

She blushed, still feeling the heat, the pressure, of his kiss. She looked down at her hands. She spoke after the silence stretched for too long, glancing toward the door. “What do you think they want with us?”