Tied With a Bow

me—”
    “That’s not your instincts talking!”
    He hesitated, and for a moment she didn’t know if he would let her go, but he did. Then he rose. He was still magnificently naked and clearly unconcerned about it. She shouldn’t have noticed, but God he was beautiful.
    “Don’t be afraid of me. I won’t hurt you,” he said.
    “I’m not afraid. I think you’re a lunatic,” she said, keeping her eyes on his shoulders and above. “You have to let me take you to the hospital.”
    “No.”
    “Why not?” she demanded.
    He flashed a heartbreaking smile and shrugged. “Because I don’t need to go there. And because . . . I want to stay with you.”
    She watched his muscles flex as he walked away. It was only after he’d disappeared from view that she realized his wounds no longer bled.
     
     
    So whoever he is, he’s immortal.
    Kate quickly retrieved his clothes from the dryer while he rid the living room of ventala bodies. He tossed them unceremoniously into the snow, ate two roast beef sandwiches, and showered again, though she told him they should just leave. The ventala he’d fought might not be fully dead. Unless their heads were cut off, the strongest ventala could heal what should have been fatal wounds. Bronze shrugged indifference at the possible threat, and who could blame him when all his wounds had closed and disappeared within three-quarters of an hour?
    When he was dressed and the house locked, he followed her to her jeep, helping to load her bags into the car.
    “I’ve had dreams with you in them,” she confessed.
    “Oh? What kind of dreams?”
    “Usually you’re falling off buildings or fighting with a really pretty blond guy.” She paused, wanting to raise the subject of the other dreams but unsure of how to phrase things to cause the least embarrassment for them both.
    “I have no memory of anything like that yet.” He climbed into the passenger’s seat and eased it back to accommodate his long legs.
    Eyeing him, she started the car. She’d hoped he might ask her more questions about the dreams, but he didn’t seem inclined to. She drew in a deep breath and exhaled audibly. Maybe it was a topic better left alone.
    “So the ventala knew you were at my house,” she said, talking more to herself than him. “I wish I knew how. Maybe one of the ones you fought in the woods had time to call and tell the others.”
    “That’s possible. I didn’t see what they did before they attacked us.”
    “I’m going to take you to the Etherlin. It’s a private community that the ventala can’t enter.”
    “The Etherlin,” he said, trying out the word.
    “It’s the home of a group of women who descended from the ancient muses.”
    “Muses? From the Greek myths?”
    “Yes, the modern muses inherited magic from their ancestors. They inspire people to create art and music, to excel athletically, to invent things—basically to imagine better and greater things for themselves and the world. The people the muses inspire are called aspirants. I’m one of them.”
    He nodded but didn’t comment.
    “While I’m in the Etherlin, I’ll talk to Alissa, the muse I work with. Talking to her always revs my mind. It’ll help me come up with new theories and ideas about why the ventala are after you.”
    “How do the muses help human beings have ideas?”
    “They’re part magical. Scientists have studied them and noticed that the muses have special proteins circulating in their blood and that the timbre and quality of their voice changes when they speak to someone they’re trying to influence. Their voices contain a vibratory note that activates more parts of the brain than normal human speech, particularly the areas used for creativity.”
    “The muses have a divine gift.”
    “Yeah. Pretty great of them to share it, huh? They’re very altruistic. Unlike the ventala, who are totally self-serving. If you really are from the past, maybe they’re worried you know something dangerous. Maybe there’s something you came here to do that will hurt them . . . so they want to stop you before you get the chance,” she murmured.
    “What do the ventala fear in general?”
    “They’re afraid that people will decide that the ventala are too violent to live among us. Of course, attacking people only makes us more likely to think that, so they must want you dead very badly to risk the consequences of attacking in daylight in a human neighborhood.”
    “Were the ventala