Living With the Dead (Otherworld 9)

She fled, stumbling, into the bathroom as he called after her. She locked the door and leaned against it. Burning tears of shame blurred the room. The doorknob turned one way, then the other. A pause.

Then a rap.

"Hope?"

"I-I'm having a bath."

Which was, quite possibly, the lamest excuse she could think of.

"Let me come in - "

"What I said, I didn't mean it. I'm wiped out and I'm worried about Robyn and I'm stressing over what she heard tonight, and I just - I need a bath."

Hope could sense him at the door, but he didn't answer. She had to follow through, but the tub looked an impossibly long distance away. She staggered to it and turned on the tap. Hear that? I really am having a bath.

She undressed and lowered herself into the tub without waiting for it to finish filling. Her words pounded against her skull.

You could bite me.

She couldn't believe she'd said that. Worse, even now, shaking and crying in shame, she wasn't sure she hadn't meant it.

Bile washed over her tongue.

In movies, she'd heard romantic heroines declare they couldn't live without their man, and she wanted to tell them to grow a backbone. But she needed Karl. Without

him...

She couldn't bring herself to say she'd die without him, but in the last few years, there'd been times when she'd seen the abyss yawn before her, the chaos hunger grow from a craving to an all-encompassing I-must-have-it need, the demon whispering new ways to feed the hunger. She'd stared into that abyss and she'd known what she could become, and that if she ever became that, she would sooner die.

But she'd always had Karl to pull her back. To support her and teach her to deal with that darkness, to accept and control her demon the way he did the wolf. To tell her she'd be okay, she was doing fine, he was there and they'd handle whatever came.

Even if Karl walked away now, he wouldn't abandon her. He wouldn't stop pulling her back from the edge, being her friend. Just not her lover. She could live without that part of the relationship - she just didn't want to.

But everything Karl did - buying a condo in Philly, switching his territory to Pennsylvania, following her to L.A. - told her that he was committed to this relationship and he wasn't going anywhere. Even tonight, she knew he'd only been trying to figure out what he needed to change so she'd be safe with him around.

So why was she constantly worrying? Needing proof he planned to stay? Reminding herself that he might not stay and she needed to be prepared for that?

Because she wasn't prepared for it. What terrified her was not Karl leaving, but her fear of Karl leaving. She needed him so badly that she'd risk her life becoming a werewolf to keep him.

What kind of person did that make her? Not one she wanted to be.

"You're shivering."

Karl had picked the lock and come in without her realizing it. Now he was beside the tub, sitting on his haunches, his back against the door, hands folded on his knees.

He straightened. "Watch your feet. I'm going to add more hot water."

He bent at the taps, touched the water, then jerked his hand back. "It's ice cold, Hope."

She mumbled something about it cooling off too fast. Better than admitting that she was so out of it she'd sat in a tub of cold water without noticing.

Karl pulled the drain and Hope watched the water drop, the chug-chug of it echoing in the silent room. When it was two-thirds empty, he replaced the stopper, then nudged her feet farther from the faucet before turning on the hot.

Once it was refilled, he returned to his spot by the door without a word.

"I didn't mean it," she said after a moment.

"I hope not."