As was my brain right now.
I couldn’t remember the last time I felt this restless. Well, that was a lie. The night and morning before I’d learned that Dawson had died, it was like this. Equally tired and hyper, I was keyed up and too damn lazy to do anything. An itching deep under the skin, a stirring to take on my true form and do…what?
“Jesus,” I muttered, letting the light fade out around my palm.
Sitting up, I swung my legs off the bed and stood, stretching out cramped and tight muscles. Sleep so wasn’t happening anytime soon. I could always do some patrols. Yay.
Man, I was about as exciting as a game of golf.
A year ago, I would’ve called up Ash. She was always good with easing a serious case of boredom. Or Dawson, and I would have…
I derailed that train of thought before it could completely form.
I wouldn’t be calling Ash, and there was no Dawson.
Leaving the bedroom, I hurried downstairs and out the front door. Brisk November wind slammed into me as I stopped in the driveway.
Not going to look. Not going to look. Not going to look.
Twisting around, I looked up at the house beside mine, to the bedroom on the second floor. Lights were off. Wonder what Kat would do if I woke her up and said we had to work off the trace? And I wasn’t thinking about the running kind of workout. Horizontal cardio. Hell, stand up, sit down, on the floor, anywhere anytime kind of cardio. I wasn’t picky.
Body said yes please, common sense said no.
Kat would punch me in the face.
Hmm. Maybe then I could ask her to kiss it and make it better.
I’d taken a step toward her house before I stopped myself. Kat hadn’t been feeling well earlier. Humans were so ridiculously fragile. They could die tripping over a damn chair leg. Car accidents could kill them. Colds turned into pneumonia and killed people.
Mental note: pick up vitamin C before school tomorrow and force it down Kat’s throat.
Spinning around, I sighed and started toward the lake. From there I could head down toward the colony, make sure everything was kosher, and keep circling until I was ready to collapse. Sounded like a damn good plan.
Halfway there, that strange tingling whenever Kat was near—and not the fun kind—broke out across the nape of my neck. It couldn’t be her.
I picked up my pace.
She had no reason to be out in the woods in the middle of the night. It was late and cold and—
Holy crap.
As the still waters of the lake came into view, so did Kat.
My pulse sped into uncharted territories. Was I dreaming? Because she was standing there with her back to me, her bare feet sinking into the loose soil at the edge of the lake, and she was only in a loose white shirt. Those legs—God, I really had a thing for her legs—and her long hair blowing in the breeze.
This was a mirage created to torment me, no doubt.
“Kat?”
Slowly, as if it took some great effort for her to move, she turned, and I knew this was no dream. Tonight just got a hell of a lot more interesting.
“What are you doing, Kitten?” I asked.
She stared at me for so long I started to get a bit worried. “I…I need to cool down.”
She needed… Understanding whipped through me. “Don’t you dare go into that lake.”
Because Kat never, ever listened to me—why start now?—she moved backward. Water lapped at her ankles and then her knees. “Why?”
“Why?” I took a step forward. “It’s too cold. Kitten, don’t make me come in there and get you.”
Considering how fast I was and how incredibly slow all humans were, I was a little boggled by how quickly Kat went into the lake. Her head slipped under, and I knew it had to be freezing.
What in the hell was she doing? Kat could be weird at times. After all, she really thought she could convince herself that she wasn’t obsessed with me, but this? There was no logical explanation.
Shooting forward, I hit the lake at breakneck speed and sank down, wincing as icy water swept over my head. I grabbed her around the waist and shot back up, not even touching the water or the ground until I had her safely on her feet.
So I could strangle her. Hello. Colds. Pneumonia. Death. Jesus.
“What’s wrong with you?” I demanded, grasping her shoulders and giving her a light shake. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Don’t.” She pushed at me weakly. “I’m so hot.”
My gaze drifted all the way down, getting hung up on several areas. I’d seen most of it before, but she was…wow. Like no one else and a whole slew of warm and fuzzy things.
“Yeah, you’re hot,” I said, ignoring the near primal urge to take her down on the grass and do all kinds of things. “The whole wet white shirt… It’s working, Kitten, but a midnight swim in November? That’s a little daring, don’t you think?”