Page 15 of Fangs for the Memories (Budapest Bites #1)

I can’t seem to get warm, even in the car, even with Ferenc next to me. It’s probably the shock. The fact I’ve ignored the existence of creatures like werewolves, vampires and gargoyles. Mostly because we were told they were harmless.

I have seen nothing so far which would demonstrate any of these monsters are harmless.

“How is Viktor going to get back?” I say through chattering teeth as a way to distract me.

“He has his own transport,” Ferenc says, shifting a little closer to me.

“Where are we going?”

“I’m taking you back to my apartment,” he says, and hearing my intake of breath, continues, “until I can be sure it is safe for you to go back to the Géllert.”

“Why wouldn’t it be safe?”

“I don’t know what those vampires wanted, and if they weren’t under the direction of Dominik, then I need to find out more,” he says, gazing out the window as we move back from the countryside into the town and the buildings get taller.

“Is that what you were talking to Viktor about? Back in the cave?” I ask.

The pair of them had a conversation in rapid Hungarian I had no chance of following.

“Sort of. There has been a truce between my pack and Dominik’s nest for a long time. An uneasy truce, but a truce nonetheless,” Ferenc says, the fingers of one hand drumming on his suit pants.

My mind immediately worries for the fabric if those claws appear again.

“But those vampires in the cave were not under his control,” he adds.

“That’s a bad thing?”

“Not necessarily for me, but for Dominik, perhaps.” Ferenc shrugs.

More shivers cause me to shudder and shake. My head is swimming with all the new information at the same time my body wants to shut down. It’s shock, it has to be. I can’t possibly be cold.

The big car slides through the traffic like a knife until we turn off the main streets and into the narrower ones, similar to the places I’d been walking through to find the Budapest thrift shops.

The car takes a swift right turn, throwing me onto Ferenc as it passes through an archway, gates open, and into an inner courtyard.

I want to lever myself off the big…werewolf, but all my strength has deserted me. All I have is a bone deep chill and teeth which will not stop chattering.

Ferenc carefully lifts me onto his lap, and with a sinuous ease, he carries me from the car and swiftly through a large set of heavy double wooden doors into a marble lined atrium.

“I’m fine,” I protest weakly. “I can walk. Put me down.”

Ferenc doesn’t respond. Instead he carries me up a wide spiral staircase to the next floor, through yet more marble halls, and into a large, light filled room with high ceilings.

A bedroom.

From the scent, I know it’s his bedroom.

But he doesn’t pause. Instead he marches straight through another door, and I find we’re in a bathroom.

And what a bathroom. It’s bigger than my living room at home…or at least the living room I used to have. In one corner there is the most enormous bath, in the other a vast open shower area, situated behind a glass panel.

“You need to get warm,” he says, slowly lowering me to my feet.

I can’t stand on my own, despite my earlier protestations. I have to lean against him, my limbs filled with pins and needles.

“I will run you a bath,” he says, gently pushing me into a carved chair.

He sets the water running. I attempt to undo the buttons on the boiler suit I’m wearing, acutely aware of how muddy it is in this super clean bathroom. But my fingers don’t want to work.

Ferenc drops to his knees in front of me, pushing my hands away, he makes easy work of the buttons and helps me off with my filthy outer layer.

Water has soaked through into my pants and jumper. Once the first layer is off, it feels like freezing air hits me and another shiver has me nearly on the floor.

“Come.” He pulls at the top, lifting it over my head, exposing my bra.

“Wait, I can take it from here,” I say, weakly.

“If you think I’m leaving you alone, you are wrong,” Ferenc says, his hands moving down my body to my hips where he releases the button on my cargos in a very perfunctory fashion.

I should try to push him away, but my hands are numb, my body is numb, and my head is full of eldritch horrors gleaned from the darkness of the cave. Too many of them, they crowd back in on me as I wonder if I’ll ever get warm again. My body is shaking so hard, I can’t see straight.

I find myself being lifted up again, and he walks over to the bath, steps in, fully clothed, and lowers us both into the water.

“What are you doing? You’ll ruin your suit!” I exclaim as the hot water encloses us.

“It’s a suit. I have others.”

“You have more than one bespoke suit?”

“Of course,” he rumbles, leaning back in the tub, my body against his. I still have my bra and knickers on, thankfully…I think.

The heat of the water is good. Almost good enough to take away the awkwardness of this situation. The pair of us in the bath, together.

“Better?” His velvet, accented voice pushes into my addled brain, once which is fogged with the cold, the fear, and the confusion of the world I’m in.

The brain which is really trying not to think about the hard muscular body I’m lying against, instead thinking about the warm water and how it is easing my cramping muscles and unfreezing me.

“How…how…” My teeth are still chattering. “How did you know to do this?”

“You think I don’t know about getting you warm because I’m a werewolf?”

“No, because you are a man.”

“You don’t like men much, do you?”

“Why should I?” I sigh. “The man I was supposed to marry humiliated me and took my livelihood. I think that entitles me to be wary of males.”

“Not all males,” Ferenc rasps in my ear, “I hope.”

The feeling back in my limbs, I push back on him and climb out of the tub, grabbing a towel to wrap around myself before I turn to glare at him.

“All I want is the truth. So far, all I have is lies.”