Exhale (20 page)

The bathroom was more of the same. A lonely toothbrush standing in a tall blue plastic cup, Colgate toothpaste lying on the counter, its ass-end rolled up. A white towel slung over the top of a black shower rod and curtain. Toilet seat up.

If this guy were any more normal, he’d be Ward freaking Cleaver.

When she picked him up at the wild party earlier, Zoe assumed Gavin’s rock star bachelor pad would be decked out in leopard skin prints with beaded curtains and bongs lying around. She certainly hadn’t expected this.

She suddenly felt dirty for perving on his stuff while he was passed out in the next room.

Time to go.

She ransacked the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, found a bottle of aspirin, and left two tablets with a full glass of water on his bedside table. She stood next to the bed and stared at his sprawled form.

Could she be any more attracted to him? Even passed out, he had the face of an angel, more youthful in sleep than awake with those baby-thick lashes, the boyish black hair shooting everywhere. And that kissable mouth—open just a tad, teeth barely visible—with the lip ring reflecting the tiny slice of light coming from the hallway…He almost looked innocent.

If she didn’t leave now, she’d take that erection up on its silent offer.

“Sweet dreams, Gavin Cassidy.” She planted a kiss on his forehead and swiped his cheek. He made a little sleepy noise, turned his face into her hand. Heart racing, she pulled away.

Saying goodbye to him was getting harder and harder.

Chapter Eighteen

Around nine o’clock the next night, Gavin sat in his car and smoothed a hand over his stubbly chin. Zoe’s street was as quiet as it had been for the last week or so. No signs of Elementals, homicidal maniacs, or even barking dogs. Just thick, heavy, saturated air, devoid of movement. With a fist, he wiped the fog from his windscreen for the third time.

The light in the front of Zoe’s house flipped off, and moments later, another came on in the right bedroom. He waited fifteen more minutes before picking up his phone and scrolling through the log of incoming calls. Thank God he hadn’t accidentally deleted her number after last night’s drunken cluster fuck.

Zoe answered after two rings, her voice breathless.

“It’s Gavin.”

A lithe, human-sized shadow moved in front of the bedroom window. Must be her.

“I’m calling to apologize for last night.”

“Oh. That’s okay. We all have to cut loose every once in a while.” She paused. “You all right?” The figure behind the curtains seemed to sit down.

“I’d be better if I could see you. Maybe try to explain.” His chest ached. He rubbed a hand across the tight muscles, but it didn’t help.

She hesitated. “I’d really love to talk to you, but I’m sort of settled for the evening. How about we meet somewhere tomorrow?”

“I can be there in thirty seconds.” He checked his watch and reached for the door handle.

“What are you—” The gauzy curtains covering her window parted and revealed his muse. “Where are you?”

He popped the handle and got out. No Fyres on his Dreamsense grid.

“Come to my window.” She lowered the arm holding the phone and motioned him over.

He ended the call and slipped through the shadows to the house. The window slid open, and Zoe leaned out, about a meter above him.

“Are you stalking me?” she whispered with a half-smile.

“Every night.” He gazed into her eyes. She dipped her head, lowered her lids, and brushed her lips quickly against his. Holy hell. She stepped aside, and he climbed through the opening, grinning like the lucky fool he was.

He stretched to his full height, and she threw her arms around him. He laughed and hugged her back. “What, did you miss me or something?”

Her face buried in his neck, she nodded.

God, she was instant relief from all the shit flying around in his head. Her touch grounded him, put things in perspective. After a long squeeze, he let go, and she backed up awkwardly.

A lamp sitting on a bedside table cast a yellow glow on the small, undecorated room. The full sized bed took up most of the space, and a dresser faced it on the opposite wall. The closet door hung open, revealing neatly hung tee shirts—mostly blue—and stacked and folded shorts on a wire rack. A pair of sandals and trainers rested on the closet floor.

The covers were rumpled. A paperback lay facedown on the plain white sheets, its spine wrinkled with wear. He picked the book up, careful not to lose her page. “
Among Whales
.” He turned to her. “Who’s Roger Payne?”

She took the book from him, her fingers touching his in the process. “One of the scientists who discovered humpback whale song. Who’s Serena Mitchell?”

The slap of her question jolted him. How the hell did she know about Serena?

“A former colleague. Where did you hear that name?”

“I saw her obituary in your room last night.” Zoe’s blue eyes sparked, and her aura shifted to match it. She sat on the bed and patted the space next to her. He joined her.

“About that. I was a right bastard and shouldn’t have asked you to pick me up. I don’t normally drink like that. At least not anymore. I’m sorry if I said anything offensive.” There was no telling what sort of rubbish he’d spouted off, wasted as he’d been.

A smile wiggled out of her lips. She tilted her head. “You don’t remember?”

He scooted closer, and their knees touched, just like they used to on the raft they’d built together in the Dreaming. “All I remembered when I woke up was you said you’d changed your mind. Made this morning’s hangover totally worth it.”

She blushed. “You said you drank because of me.”

A loud exhale escaped him, and he squared his shoulders. “There’s a ton of shit happening—lots of responsibilities I don’t want. I was looking for a scapegoat to hang blame on, and you made an easy target.”

She quirked a brow. “Why me?”

He glanced at her, then focused on the thumb he furiously ground into his palm. “Might have had something to do with the broken heart you left me with in Brisbane. I’m not a fan of losing. I had my sights set on you. Things went a different way than I planned.”

She ran a finger over the inside of his left arm, tracing the blue and green ocean waves etched into his skin. “I’ve thought about it a lot, and the truth is…I missed you. In my dreams and here.”

He blinked long and hard. Sweet Jesus, it felt so good to hear her say those words. Fuck knew, he’d missed her too.

Her shoulders rose with a deep inhale, and she looked away. “That being said, I also called because it’s time I admit some strange things have been happening.”

His muscles tensed. “Like?”

She took hold of her shirt hem and twisted it between fingers and thumbs. “Some of it’s not that shocking. Apparently, I really can talk to whales. I had some enlightening conversations this week.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad…”

“There’s more.” When she faced him, worry hid behind her eyes. “A guy attacked me yesterday after work.”

He stared at her, dumbfounded. “What?”

“He didn’t hurt me, just scared the bejesus out of me. But it was enough to make me call you.”

Gavin stood up and gave her his back. Fucking hell. He knew he should have stayed on top of her. But with all the rescues in and out of the Dreaming, he’d been too busy. The best he could do was stake out her place after hours.

Not good enough.

“Why didn’t you tell me last night?”

She smoothed a wrinkle in her shirt. “You were hardly in a state—”

He spun around. “I’m supposed to protect you, Zoe. Help me do my job. Who the fuck was this bloke? What did he do to you?”

“I don’t think he had anything to do with the…Elementals. I’d never seen him before, but he thought he knew me.” She shrugged. “We called the police, and they carted him off to jail.”

He might not have been an Elemental, but the man might have been working for one. Gavin would do some checking at the jail tomorrow while Zoe was on the boat.

Agitation flared his nostrils. “Anything else you need to tell me?”

She lowered her gaze to the hands in her lap. “Your ex-girlfriend, Scarlet? I think she’s been following me.”

That did it. His blood boiled so hard and fast that he broke into a sweat. He’d fucking kill Scarlet if she did anything to his muse. Primal, protective instinct seized control of his mind and sent his Dreamsense live.

He didn’t expect the ping he received back.

The skin on his upper right arm puckered as if a strong breeze blew across it. He swept a hand over the spot just above his elbow where the tattoos swirled into airy representations of wind currents, birds, and clouds. He pushed his black shirtsleeve up. The colors along his biceps sparkled like sunlight on a lake. The raging Fire from seconds ago dissipated.

This was new.

Zoe’s jaw dropped, and her eyes widened. “What the hell? You’re…glowing.”

“Yeah. It’s okay.” Shit, no, it wasn’t. He backed away from Zoe.

The swirling yellows and blue undercurrents hammered into his flesh created new pictures out of the existing shapes and conjured breezes across the hairs on his arm. But the Earth, Fire, and Water designs didn’t move. It could only mean one thing. Air. And lots of it. Somewhere close.

He went to the door and laid a hand on it. Dreamsense picked up a burst of yellow on his mental grid, then it was gone. The tattoos returned to normal. Turning to Zoe, he said, “You mind if I have a look around out there?”

Gaze fastened to his tats, she stood up and wrapped arms around herself. “No, you can’t leave this room. If anyone sees you, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“Who’s in the house right now?” His Dreamsense had gone flat and cold.

“Just my research team. Nobody else.”

“You’re positive?” Man, whatever he’d sensed had been a superconductor of Air, most likely an Elemental. He turned to the window. Maybe it had been outside. But if so, why?

She hesitated. “I’ll double check. You stay here.”

She opened the door and slunk out. He watched her through the crack. A moment later, she returned and locked up behind her. “Just us. Sounds like everyone’s asleep. Front door’s dead-bolted from the inside.”

Maybe, but he didn’t believe in false alarms where his Dreamsense was concerned, and with his arm lighting up like a glow stick, whatever it was must have been close. And strong.

He went to the window, slid the curtain open a tad, and peered out. The Elemental—or whatever it was—had disappeared. His mind raced. “You said Scarlet was following you. Did you see her?”

Zoe returned to the bed and sat, tucking bare feet under her legs. Her expression was a bit dazed. “She followed me out of The Whale & Whistle the day you and I met.”

What the hell? She couldn’t have followed Zoe. Gavin’s Dreamsense surely would have picked up Scarlet’s Fire. “You sure it was her?”

“Hard to forget someone like Scarlet.” Zoe paused. “She threatened me.”

He didn’t need to read her bubbling dark blue aura to know she was worried. The trembling jaw was a dead giveaway.

His Fire roaring again, he dropped his arse to the bed next to Zoe. “Tell me what happened.”

“She warned me to stay away from you. Said not to trust you.”

Gavin snorted. Said the spider to the fly. “Scarlet’s a Fyre Elemental, and she probably wouldn’t mind seeing you hurt.”

Truth was, Scarlet most likely wanted Zoe dead, but he didn’t want to scare her further, especially when he was finally making some progress in convincing his muse she’d stumbled into the middle of an Elemental throw-down.

Zoe lowered her head and nodded. “I’m trying to ease into this whole Elemental thing. It’s hard to deny the evidence, but I need more information to understand it better. It’s a lot for me to take.”

“Okay.” He touched her chin and forced his gaze onto hers. “You and I fought Fyre Elementals in our dreams. You brought me a key, which you
claimed
would release a Wæter Elemental from my necklace. But the key was a bogus diversion, wasn’t it, Muse? You tricked me into thinking the key would save the Dreaming, but it was actually
you
who did the saving.”

Zoe’s cheeks reddened. Long strands of gold hair slipped forward and hid her face as she leaned over her knees.

“You gave me your Water, and it unlocked a well inside me,” Gavin continued. “Made me stronger than I’d ever been before. And since then, I’ve been struggling to understand and control new powers I think your Water tapped into.” He held up his arm, but the tattoos maintained their normal appearance.

“I left you in the Dreaming without saying goodbye because I didn’t think I was strong enough to protect you from the Fyres. But now I know that’s not true.
You
gave me the power to protect you. And that’s why I’m here now.”

She frowned. “I don’t need protecting. I’m nobody.”

“You’re far more important than you think. The Wæter Elementals are still looking to fill their vacated Archelemental position, and rumor has it, the job is going to a whale.”

Zoe’s head snapped up. “What whale?”

“All we know is it’s a mother with a baby.”

Her eyes narrowed. “So, that’s what Guppy was talking about the other day. She said the humpbacks were going to protect a whale…”

A light bulb crackled on inside his head, and they both spoke the same name at the same time: “Lily.”

Brow furrowed, she stood and paced the narrow space between the bed and the closet, rubbing her bottom lip with an index finger. A line of red shot through her now-yellowish aura.

“I’ve been watching for her, but no one’s seen her yet this season. If she has a calf, she might be a couple more weeks. The babies travel slowly.” She paused her wearing-out-the-carpet routine and met his gaze.

“My team has also been gathering some really bizarre data on the whales we tag. They’re traveling north, but should be going south. Most of the tags I’ve picked up were near Platypus Bay. What if the whales are going north to get her? Like some sort of escort?”

“Because who better to escort a Wæter Elemental to her Archelemental throne than a bunch of whales?” he said.