Otherworld Challenger by Jane Godman Page B

infected.”
    â€œHow far are we from your house? Tell me we don’t need to do any more flying.”
    He grinned and she thought how much smiling suited him. It took that hard edge off his looks. She wanted to tell him to do it more often, then she remembered they didn’t have that sort of relationship. It was strange how sharing a plane journey with him and a leopard had made her forget that Jethro was almost a stranger. And an antagonistic one at that.
    He returned to his task, his fingers deft as they placed sterile dressing pads over her wounds and bandaged them in place. “No, just a motorbike ride followed by a short boat journey.”
    â€œNow I know why you were so angry about the distance from the portal to your home.” Vashti remembered Cal’s question—“Do you have to go home first?” And Jethro’s brusque response—“Yes.”
    She wanted to ask him more. Like, “Why, when time is so important, are we starting our journey here in Maine?” She suspected, since Cal, who was his friend, had gotten the almost-silent treatment, she wouldn’t fare any better. No doubt about it. The man was an enigma. “I didn’t realize it meant you had to travel from one end of the mortal realm to the other.”
    Jethro had finished tending to her leg and was surveying her ruined jeans with a grim look about his mouth. “Nothing I can do about them. You may get some strange looks, but I’m sure you can give them one of your haughty royal stares in response. Can you walk?”
    â€œThere’s only one way to find out.”
    His eyes lingered on her face. “You are a very unusual girl, did you know that?”
    â€œI’ve had an unusual upbringing.”
    Something changed then in the dark depths of those eyes. It was as if he withdrew from her without moving. “So you have. I almost forgot.” The words seemed to rouse him into action. “Wait there.”
    After Jethro had landed the plane he’d taxied straight from the runway into a private hangar. His booted footsteps echoed now on the concrete floor as, having jumped down from his side, he walked around the front of the aircraft and opened the passenger door. “Give me your hands.”
    Vashti hesitated a moment. Her fierce independence went to war with the fear of looking foolish. What if she found she couldn’t walk and fell flat on her face? Pride won. Placing both her hands in Jethro’s, she allowed him to assist her out of the plane and onto the ground. To her intense relief, her legs, although shaky, held her weight. She leaned against the side of the plane while Jethro retrieved their bags from the space behind the seats, the scene of her recent fight with Iago. Her muscles were stiffening and she was going to have some serious bruises tomorrow to remind her of that encounter.
    â€œWill Iago come after us again?” She would need all her strength if he did.
    â€œSooner or later, yes. All I know for sure is he’ll do it when we least expect it.” Jethro moved to another part of the hangar. Pulling back a tarp to reveal a mean-looking motorbike, he quickly checked the machine over. Apparently satisfied, he beckoned Vashti over and handed her a helmet. “Put this on.”
    She glanced around the hangar. There were numerous other large, vehicle-size, canvas-covered shapes within the building. “Is everything in here yours?”
    Jethro was stowing their bags in a cargo box on the bike, but he glanced up at that. “Yes. Why?”
    â€œNecromancing must be a lucrative business.”
    There was that grin again. The one she had thought, until so recently, she hated. Now, all of a sudden, it managed to turn her insides to liquid. Vashti wasn’t sure she liked the change. She didn’t have time to examine her reasons, but it felt a lot like control had somehow been handed over to Jethro.
    â€œIt pays the