Chapter 8

Leo let me fall asleep on the couch, basically on top of him. I woke up when I felt him push the hair out of my face. At first, I flinched and jolted awake but when my eyes found his face and the gentle smile that it had spread across it, I relaxed into him once again with a sigh. I had to gather my panicked thoughts before I could get up off him.

“You fell asleep on me,” he mumbled.

I stretched and sat up, feeling stiff from sleeping in a strange position or maybe it was from something else. I got the sense that sleeping with him had been something normal before. Something that my body remembered but my head couldn’t. Why had we stayed at his house instead of going back to Warren’s?

“Are you hungry?”

I negated by shaking my head as I yawned and stretched out my arms above my head. I didn’t even feel it in the back of my mind like I had before. Was that normal?

“I guess that’s a good thing.” he sighed. “I have to check in at work so we should get cleaned up and head out. You have some clothes in the closet here so pick out whatever you want.”

I followed him into his bedroom and waited patiently for him to get his things and head to the bathroom. The bedroom was small and mostly neat. The bed took up most of the space being at least a queen size if not bigger. I touched the gray sheets that were draped across it in a heap, wondering if I could get a vision or a memory or something from them but nothing happened.

I went to the closet apprehensively after he was safely in the bathroom and chose a grey tank top with a drop neckline. It wasn’t as flashy as my other options so I could wear it with the skinny jeans I was already wearing. The only thing left to do was put it on but that was a much more complicated decision than I expected.

Would he stay in the bathroom long enough for me to change unseen? Had he already seen me naked? Should I just wait my turn for the bathroom?

Biting my lip, I decided not to wait for him. I had my shirt pulled up just past my belly button when the bathroom door opened and I froze.
“What are you waiting for? Was it that hard to choose?” he teased a big playful smile stretching across his face and a twinkle in his eyes. He had definitely already seen me naked and I didn’t know how I felt about that.

I pulled my shirt down with a single quick movement and his expression changed.

“Shit, Raven, I’m sorry. I didn’t think about it. You can have the bathroom if you want.”

I tried to smile as I lied, now gripping the bottom of the shirt I was wearing uncomfortably. “I’m good. You just surprised me.”

We looked at each other for a silent moment then he used his head to point at the open bathroom door before moving out of the way to let me pass him. I gave in and moved toward him carefully, pausing at the door to try my smile on him again before I shut myself in to change my shirt and quickly run my fingers through my hair.

I didn’t bother looking myself over in the mirror because I was uncomfortable enough already. I didn’t need to see just how low the shirt was cut or the fact that I couldn’t wear a bra with it. I also didn’t need to see the fear in my own eyes that might trigger another vision or whatever it was that had happened when he kissed me the night before.

Did it only happen when we kissed or could it happen at any time for any reason? How could I keep it a secret if I didn’t know when it would happen.

Out of the bathroom, I looked over at Leo, who was shirtless and had turned when he heard the door open. My eyes were caught by the muscles of his chest and the smooth brown skin that covered them like cellophane wrap clinging to every curve. I hadn’t seen the large circle tattoo on his chest over his right pectoral before. It reminded me of a rune I had seen in a book once while reading up on Viking history and their influence on modern Europe, but I didn’t know if that was what it was or not and I wasn’t brave enough to ask him about it.

He cleared his throat, pulling my attention back to his face.

“As good as you look in that, I think you’ll want something to move in. I can’t see Kris not trying to do training today.”

“But I don’t remember anything,” I whined, worried that I’d just get beat up.

“We’ll have to tell him about the memory loss but we can trust him. You were almost ready to be tested before all of this so if you don’t get back up to speed fast, your secret might cause more problems for us,” he reasoned while opening a drawer to the dresser and pulling out clothes. Then he turned and tossed them at me across the room. “That’s what you usually wear and put your hair in a messy bun. You have hair ties in the top left drawer.”

I bit my lip again and went back into the bathroom to pull on the clothes. I felt exposed in the leggings and thin tank-top but tried to get into the character of who I used to be. I could be fierce. I could be powerful. I just had to stop worrying about everything else.

So with a deep breath and a bit of eyeliner to wear as war paint, I became Raven the fierce; Raven the bold.