Two
The morning rays of light streamed through the window, waking Copper from the troubled sleep she’d had during the night. Even now, after so many months, she still had nightmares. The dreams served as a constant reminder of the evils she had used to be able to believe were not real. After Lilith and Darmetheus had left on their honeymoon, she had come back home to Texas and her life here. Still, the dreams came nightly.
She had never thought of herself as a weakling. She wasn’t squeamish. Hell, she had powers of her own, damn it! She had discovered them when she was fairly young. How could she have become such a scared little mouse?
Sighing, Copper ran a hand over her eyes, scrubbing away the sleep before rolling to her side and staring out the window. Her mind raced with thoughts of what had transpired before the danger had been eliminated. A shudder escaped her as she pulled the covers over her head and tried to banish the memories as they formed.
“Oh, God!” she muttered in frustration. “Look at yourself! Hiding under your covers, afraid to get up for fear there might be something getting ready to attack from under your bed!”
Huffing in determination, she threw back the covers and slid from the bed. Refusing to give in to the urge to check under it, just in case, she moved angrily to the mirror and stared at her reflection.
Unruly auburn curls flew everywhere around her head and down her back. Growling at herself, she pointed at the reflection. “You’re a redhead, idiot! You are meaner than a snake in the grass and twice as deadly!” she squared her shoulders, adding in a softer voice, “And you are not afraid! Got it? Get it through that thick head of yours! There is nothing to be afraid of now! Those things are gone!” She gestured madly, waving her hands in the air. “You saw them! They all went poof! End of story! They – Are - Gone!”
Even as she spoke, the image of one specific man came uninvited into her thoughts; half Cherokee, half Scottish and all man; tall, powerfully built, with eyes like driftwood. Sighing, her shoulders sagged at the thought of him.
Shuddering even as she closed her eyes to get rid of the image, she whispered, “Yeah . . . even he’s gone, dumb ass. Get a grip, Copper.” she told herself even as she tried to erase his face from her mind.
Lilith had encouraged Copper to stay at the cabin, but she had just not felt comfortable there. She couldn’t be herself surrounded by the Eternals that had chosen to stay.
Or more specifically, she couldn’t be herself around that one, gloriously beautiful hunk of a man, who had refused to leave. The same one who made her insides melt every time she caught him looking at her with those chocolate eyes.
As a result, she’d borrowed Lilith’s truck, and snuck out when no one was looking. She just couldn’t handle the attention he had tried to show her. She wasn’t used to it. Felt suffocated by it.
She wasn’t some silly, twit of a girl who was going to fawn and fall over him like a love struck fool. Hell, she didn’t even like men. They were just too hard on one’s heart. The fact that she couldn’t get him out of her mind, now, six months later was proof positive that men were just trouble.
Besides, he had been the least of her worries. Those demon-what-you-might-call-em’s were enough to have anyone locking themselves away for the rest of their natural lives.
Suddenly feeling entirely too girly, she rolled her eyes, sitting down in the nearest chair and groaning. “It was only a few days for you. Lilith went through that crap for what must have felt like an eternity.”
Even as she whispered the words, she felt a little pain in her ego that Lilith hadn’t confided in her sooner. Or actually, at all, until it was so deep even Copper could do nothing to keep her from being kidnapped by those monsters.
