Killing Time by Elisa Paige Page A

humor.
    Purposely exaggerating the first syllable, he said, “Sounds like I’m choking on a chicken bone.”
    Despite myself, I smiled. “Yeah, it does.” I lifted my sock-covered feet onto the fountain’s wall and wrapped my arms around my knees. “The closest word for ‘friend’ is étawis. ”
    “So that would be my name if I were bittern?” he asked, sounding amused.
    I rested my chin on my arms. “No. The word does not apply to us.”
    Koda opened his mouth to say something when there was a knock at the suite’s outer door. I shot to my feet, drawing both daggers smoothly and shading on the same breath.

Chapter Six
    “It’s all right, Sephti,” Koda said. His hands framed my shoulders as he ignored the proximity of my blades to his belly, making my heart thud painfully at his lack of caution. “I called room service when I got out of the shower.”
    Sheathing the daggers, I solidified my form. “Room service?”
    He headed back into the suite. “Dinner. Food.”
    Working to calm myself took some effort, since adrenaline was flooding my system, and with it, the ever-present threat of a frenzy. Dimly, I heard Koda talking with another male, but didn’t bother focusing to make out their words. Breathing the garden’s floral perfume deep into my lungs, I extended my awareness in search of the serenity I’d experienced earlier. Slowly, it crept into my senses, easing the adrenaline shakes and soothing the rage’s sharp edges. Rolling my shoulders to release the tension, I’d just gotten myself centered when I heard the sound of the outer door closing.
    Warm, mouth-watering scents overrode the flowers’ fragrance and I hustled into the suite’s dining area to find Koda inspecting an astonishing number of covered dishes.
    He looked at my face and did a double take. “I noticed the soot when we were outside but didn’t realize how much there was.” I flushed at what else he’d noticed and his eyes danced with laughter. “Unless you’re planning on leading a war party tonight, you might want to shower before we eat. The food will stay warm if you don’t take too long.”
    Beating a hasty retreat to the bathroom, I closed the door and leaned on it as I surveyed the gleaming marble and brass. Remembering Koda’s description of endless hot water and sweet shampoo that hotels like this were supposed to have, I went to the shower, but couldn’t find a faucet—just a panel and a digital screen. Perplexed, I started pushing buttons and almost jumped out of my skin when water exploded from four showerheads, all at once.
    Grinning hugely—I’d come to love gadgets in my brief time among humans—I experimented and quickly figured out how the controls worked. At least, I thought I did. I parbroiled my hand when I stuck it under the water’s flow. Sucking on my burned fingers, I pushed some more buttons with my other hand, and through careful trial and error, set the digital display to read “103”—hot enough to sting in a hurts-so-good kinda way.
    Shucking my filthy clothes on the floor, I stepped into the blissful torrent of water cascading from the showerheads. I’d never imagined such hedonistic luxury and tilted my head back, basking in the sensory indulgence. Four jets pounded my skin, the hot water soothing away the aches and pains and nasty grime of weeks of hard travel, sleeping in cheap motels and hand-to-hand fighting. A wide grin stretched my lips as I marveled at how very different my current circumstances were from, well, pretty much everything I’d ever experienced. Exhilaration in this unexpected indulgence shivered through me. The experience was so…so…uncomplicated, wholly delightful and startlingly… feminine.
    Seeing the little bottles lined up on a built-in shelf, I opened their tops until I found the shampoo. Almost swooning from its sweet fragrance, I dumped the whole thing on my head, relishing the thick bubbles I kneaded through my hair. As the shower rinsed me off, I