Read Treeland Pack Tales 3: A Trace of Ivy for Free Online

followed her in, and then a
quiet snick from behind told her the double doors had locked. She searched for
another exit and didn’t see one.
    Worse, the moment he let go of her, she craved the comfort
of his touch. Stockholm syndrome, anyone? Whatever. She was beyond sick, moving
toward pathetic.
    “Please consider this your home for as long as you stay.” He
disappeared into the recesses of the apartment.
    There were those courtly manners again, throwing her back
into the land of confusion. Monsters never bothered with such courtesy.
    She stared at the twin couches forming a conversation area
between a wall of glass and another of marble surrounding a giant fireplace.
The beasts hadn’t lived this well either.
    He returned before she’d finished gaping at the stunning
view of city lights. Lights she didn’t recognize. He opened one of a pair of
bottled waters and nudged it into her hand. “Drink. You need to hydrate.”
    “Where am I?” She waved toward the unfamiliar city.
    “Treeland.”
    A long way from San
Francisco.
    “You must be hungry.”
    She took a long swallow and considered refusing food. Her stomach
had given up on nourishment hours ago. But then this was another house of
horrors, wasn’t it? The view and the posh decor didn’t change her prisoner
status. This time the jail had only one guard. He had to sleep sometime. She
needed strength to survive and escape. “Yes.”
    “Do you eat steak?” He snorted as if amused. “Of course you
do, there are no vegan werewolves. I’ll get the grill started.”
    Werewolf? Me? He’s got
to be joking. I’m not a monster—no matter what Kat and Tess think . Surely
turning an almost normal person into a beast involved more than a tiny nip. Her
stomach lurched alarmingly. She rubbed the still-painful bite on her upper arm,
then casually slipped her fingers inside the sleeve, hoping she hadn’t bled on
his jacket. “Are you cooking the meat?”
    Chet scowled at her question. “Of course.”
    The rogues never
bothered sat on the tip of her tongue. For once she kept her ugly thoughts
to herself.
    He leaned against the wall, looking way better than any
normal man in jeans and an incredible pink dress shirt. “Is Ivy short for
Olivia?”
    “Yes. Do you have something washable I could wear?” she
asked, afraid to explore his immaculate private space on her own for fear of
bleeding on something irreplaceable. The apartment’s unexpected luxury was
almost as disconcerting as rotting meat scraps and motorcycles in the living
room. A wave of nausea hit along with the toxic memory leak. She swallowed
against a tide of rising bile.
    “First door on your right, help yourself to anything you
like.”
    She lurched down the hall, hoping the first door led to
amenities that included a bathroom.
    The bedroom, done in rich earth tones, was frighteningly
tidy. She didn’t have time to gape at the furnishings, yanking open the first
of a pair of interior doors.
    Luck was with her. She sank to her knees in front of his
pristine toilet and retched.
    Once her stomach was empty, she peeked through the vanity’s
drawers. The top left yielded toothbrushes still in their original packaging.
Obviously the man was prepared for spontaneous overnight guests. She stripped
one brush of its protective cover, applied toothpaste, and scoured her mouth.
    But then he wasn’t a man, was he? She kept forgetting he was
her new jailor. No matter how delicious he smelled.
    The subtle scent of verbena drew her to a glassed walk-in
shower. Body soap and half a dozen showerheads promised irresistible
cleanliness—at least on the surface. Nothing would clean away the monsters’
filth from her insides. She stripped. After folding her borrowed emergency
clothing—the blanket and his jacket—she set them on the closed toilet and
turned on the shower. Steam rose. She entered the enclosure. Hot water pelted
her from every direction, washing away the stink still clinging to her skin.
The citrus