Page 14 of The Bear's Chosen Mate
Seriously?Warm apartment, warm man, and you want us to go outthere?Her cat was indignant.
We can’t stay,Kaylee insisted.
Her cat all but pouted, then once again vanished.
Kaylee shuddered but forced herself to keep moving.She snatched up the soft throw blanket off the couch and wrapped it around her shoulders as a coat, then left the apartment at a near run.
Waiting for the elevator was torture.What if he figured out she was running away?What if she couldn’t get away in time to save him from making the biggest mistake of his life?
The wind outside had to be gale-force level.It shrieked up the elevator shaft, creating a whistling sound like nails on a blackboard.
The doors slid open, and Kaylee rushed forward, hitting the button for the ground floor and then stabbing theclose doorbutton repeatedly.She held her breath as she stared at the apartment door, willing the elevator to shut on time.
Hurry, hurry, hurry.
The massive metal sheets finally moved, sliding together in three, two, one…
Kaylee sighed in relief.Once she was a safe distance away, she would phone James.They would have a rational conversation about why, even though she liked him plenty and they would always be friends, she would be a terrible mate.
Taking fate into his own hands?That’s not how this worked.
A sudden crackle rang out followed by an echoing metallicboom, as if someone had dropped a bowling ball down a laundry chute.Blue light oozed through the narrow line between the doors in front of her, and the smell on the air was ozone and charcoal.
The elevator jerked to a stop.
The lights went out.
6
James was two steps from the shower when something registered as wrong.The itch in his brain escalated.
Why was he taking a shower now?He’d had one earlier in the day, when he got home from his trip.
He marched back into his bedroom and looked around in confusion.There was something he was supposed to do…
Be doing…?
Nope.Couldn’t figure it out.
He strode toward the living room and nearly tripped over a sodden pair of jeans abandoned on the floor.He lifted them in the air in confusion.Sniffed.A familiar scent filled his nostrils.
Why was there a pair of Kaylee’s pants—
Kaylee?In his apartment.
Without pants.
He marched quickly through the suite, but she clearly wasn’t in his bedroom, nor the living room or kitchen.James ignored the rain pounding against the window and pushed out onto the balcony.He hung over the railing far enough to check the visitor parking.
Spotting Kaylee’s dump of a truck didn’t make the big picture any clearer.
He had just straightened up when a lightning bolt shot across the sky like in a comic strip panel.The jagged white line blasted from the storm-blackened clouds directly toward his apartment.The roar of thunder arrived at the same moment as the lightning, shaking the windows, deafeningly loud in his ears.
An instant later, he was flying through the air before slamming into the concrete wall behind him.
For a moment, all James could see were stars floating in front of his eyes.Everything else had gone pitch-black, and his ears rang.
The scent of burnt hair made his nose crinkle in disgust, and he raised his hands in front of his face to discover his vison clearing on the sight of curled and shriveled hair on his knuckles in the few spots it wasn’t fried away.
