Free Time Untime by Sherrilyn Kenyon Page B

the gym.
    Strange.
    Sitting on a weight bench, Ren was texting someone. He glanced up at her approach and cocked a puzzled brow.
    The beauty of his face captivated her. If not for that overwhelming masculinity, he’d be considered pretty. And even though he was sitting down, he commanded attention. Respect.
    Fear.
    A lot of fear.
    “I-uh … I wanted to talk to you.” Although now that she was alone in a room with him, that didn’t seem like such a good idea after all.
    Rising to his feet, he turned his phone over and slid it into his pocket, but didn’t say a word.
    Kateri swallowed hard. Why did you have to get up ? He was absolutely huge in comparison to her. The power of his presence made her want to step back, but she refused to be intimidated by anyone. Even someone who could probably palm a basketball without fully extending his hand.
    Gah, he was massive.
    She cleared her throat. “I’m just trying to understand everything, okay? You were the one who rescued me, right?”
    He nodded.
    “Where was I? I mean, where did they take me from my office? How did I get there and how did you get me here ? Did we fly or something?” Surely they wouldn’t have allowed a man on an airplane with an unconscious woman and no ID? But nothing else made sense. “We couldn’t have driven this far? Right?”
    Ren debated what to tell her. On the one hand, she needed to know if she was to fulfill her duties, but on the other …
    Without the Guardian’s return, her part of the ritual wouldn’t really matter. The Ixkib’s duties were to reset the calendar. The First Guardian was the only one who could choose new Guardians and reseal the gates.
    If he wasn’t here …
    “Are you not going to speak to me?” she asked.
    Ren hesitated. He wanted to, but he didn’t trust himself not to do something embarrassing … like stutter. God, how he hated that affliction. While it very rarely occurred now, it had been horrendous in his youth. So much so that he’d been relentlessly ridiculed—which had only aggravated the severity of it.
    Finally, he’d stopped speaking at all.
    For over three years, he’d remained mute rather than listen to the laughter and insults of others as they’d cruelly mimicked his stutter. But for his friend, Buffalo, he’d have never spoken again to anyone.
    Unlike the rest of their clan, Buffalo hadn’t minded it, nor had Buffalo thought him stupid because of it.
    Together, they’d invented their own sign language so that Ren could speak without using his voice.
    Yet it wasn’t just his stutter that kept him silent now. He didn’t know what to say to her. He’d always been awkward with women. Buffalo used to joke that Ren could lead an army of men into battle and never hesitate. That he could face down an entire den of bears with his bare hands and not flinch.
    Put a woman in front of him and he trembled like an errant child facing an angry parent.
    If any clan wants to bring us down, all they have to do is send a woman after you and you’ll run screaming for the woods.
    That was because as bad as he hated to be mocked and insulted by men, it was even harder to take from a woman he found desirable. Nothing stung worse than to muster the courage to talk to a woman and then have her shoot him down before he could get more than a badly stuttered word out.
    And if they laughed at him …
    There were some humiliations no one needed.
    As much as he despised it, he was extremely attracted to this woman. All he could think about was tasting her lips. Of making love to her until they were both spent and dizzy.
    To have one moment in her arms …
    But he wasn’t brave enough to risk it. He’d been mocked enough in his life. Now, he only wanted to exist in solitude.
    Suddenly, his phone rang.
    Ren would have ignored it had it not been Talon’s ringtone. He still needed to tell them that the Ixkib was safe.
    Pulling his phone out, he turned his back to the woman and answered it. “Osiyo?”
    Kateri