Free Alternate Worlds: The Fallen by Kaitlyn O'Connor

didn’t know women even did that
anymore.
    It seemed like fate, though, so I jumped on
the opportunity.
    Once I’d made arrangements for the repairs I
needed done, I packed up and headed back to my apartment in the
city. I only had a few weeks to figure out a way to get out of the
last few months of my lease and make arrangements to move.
    All in all I was pleased with the way things
were coming together. I wouldn’t be making nearly as much money as
I’d made before, but it wasn’t going to cost me nearly as much to
live either. The country air would be better for the kid—unless it
had allergies—and I was ready to get out of the rat race and slow
down.
    Plus, I hadn’t thought about Gideon more
than a few times a day in the entire time I’d been at the farm and
then only fleetingly.
    It still bothered me that I’d thought about
him at all, but I took it with a grain of salt. I had pretty thick
skin, but I was also a creature of habit and Gideon had hung around
long enough I’d started getting used to him. Then, too, there was
the great sex thing. It was so rare to find somebody who had that
effect on you a woman could be pardoned for getting addicted to the
good stuff.
    I was not happy when I got back to my
apartment and found Gideon laying in wait for me. I was so fully
occupied with my own thoughts and trying to get my key in the door
that the soft thud behind me barely registered. When he grabbed me
from behind I nearly shit a squealing worm.
    I elbowed him in the rib cage just for
scaring me.
    He grunted, his arms going slack enough I
managed to pull free. “You total ass hole!” I growled, whirling on
him furiously. “You scared the living hell out of me! What are you
doing here?”
    He looked surprised and then almost as angry
as I was. “Why did you leave?”
    I stared at him for several moments, caught
completely off guard. Nobody had kept track of me in so long I felt
totally disoriented at being questioned. “I had things to do,” I
said shortly, angry that he’d had the gall to question me at all,
particularly when he came and went without a ‘by your leave’.
Opening the door of the apartment, I entered, dropping the suitcase
by the door.
    It was too much to hope he wouldn’t follow
me.
    I wrestled with my anger for several minutes
after he’d followed me inside and slammed the door hard enough to
rattle the room. Finally, reason began to thread its way through
the anger and I realized that, aside from being startled, I was
being no more reasonable than he was. I dragged in a deep,
cleansing breath and let it out slowly. “Sorry,” I said as
apologetically as I could manage. “You scared me. It made me
mad.”
    That seemed to leaven his anger somewhat,
but I could tell he was still struggling with it.
    “Why were you looking for me anyway?” I
asked, flopping on the couch because my knees still felt as weak as
water.
    Several emotions flitted across his face in
quick succession, too fast for me to catch. Finally, he turned to
pacing the room, thinking. “I have not found my sword,” he said
finally.
    “Ah!” I nodded. That explained a lot. “I
figured you would’ve already gotten your man and lit out for the
gateway.”
    He frowned, but whatever he’d started to
say, he seemed to reconsider. “He knows I am here and I have
nothing to fight him with. Until I can find the sword, I must keep
on the move or it is my head that will be carried through the
gateway.”
    I felt so ill at that comment that I thought
for several moments I might actually throw up. Not once since I had
been gone had it occurred to me that Gideon was in danger. I
suppose I just hadn’t completely grasped his situation. Maybe I
hadn’t believed it at all. Regardless, I had spent more time
mentally berating him for heading off for greener pastures than
anything else.
    Finally mastering the unsettling emotions
roiling through me, I managed to focus on the problem. I didn’t
want Gideon to get killed. I much