My foster mom, Brittany, was wrong: if I’m a good girl, Icanchange a man. Just take our toxic little relationship here, for example.
The plotting of my escape is already flashing before my eyes when he speaks once more.
“If you run, I’ll still hunt you down.” A rasp of a promise kisses those words.
My heartbeat flutters. He knows I’ll run. I know I’ll run.
The twisted idea of him chasing me down and tackling me to the ground probably shouldn’t turn me on as much as it does...
“Okay,” I whisper instead as I crawl across the puffy blankets and twisted sheets.
Rorrick’s deep green eyes follow me as I make my way toward them on my hands and knees. I should look away. This shouldn’t be as sexual as it feels. I shouldn’t be idolizing the brief kindness he showed me. He helped me when no one else did...
Twice.
I swallow hard and peer away.
Only to find Seven also seeping into my soul with his ever-watchful gaze. Heat burns across my cheeks, and I still don’t know if he knows what I did with the use of his magic.
The sensual memory of it all slips away when my attention drifts from his eyes to his...
“What happened to your nose?!”
Seven and Rorrick share a very long,very suspiciouslook between themselves. A line of dry blood is just below his right nostril, and he swipes at it the moment I mention it.
“I—I’m fine. Just feels like I got hit in the face with a shovel.” The moment he says the lie, a noise rings out through the room.
It’s a solid sound. A literal “plink” of resounding metal smacking across Seven’s incredibly gorgeous face. And then the materialized shovel clatters to the floor at his feet.
“What the fuck!” Seven’s outburst of surprise matches my own, as well as everyone else’s.
His hands clasp to his face, his eyes clenching closed in a pain that doesn’t make any damn sense.
What is happening here?
“Where the hell did that come from?” Christian picks up the shovel from the floor, and his attention sweeps through the room as if the shovel didn’t just swing through the air and intentionally land firmly against Seven’s bloody nose.
“Magic,” Rorrick accuses, all three of them shifting around the room now to get to the bottom of this bizarre shovel magic.
“Who do you think it is? Your father? The Fae King? Spies?” Rorrick’s big body is tense and on guard.
Christian shakes his head slowly.
“Whoever it is, they’re not out for blood. They’re just fucking with me.”
And the moment he says that . . .
A gasp tears from my throat. The room vanishes for a fraction of a second. And then I’m crashing down. As if by teleportation, I land from midair. My legs tangle with his. Luckily, his back... and skull break my fall.
“Fuck!” Christian’s hands fling violently at his sides before he looks up at me. Where I suddenly sit naked and straddling his hips. “You,” he hisses, his eyes narrowing with accusation.
“Me?” I ask on a mouse of a voice.
“You’re fucking with me...literally.” My sex presses firmly against his strangely unbuttoned black pants.
I cross my arms and cover my breasts with my hands. The gold chain from my neck to my wrists is still fully intact. It’s cold against my curves.
“Everyone calm down. Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Rorrick says coolly.
