After a long moment, I murmured into his chest, “You’re not reading my mind, are you?”
“Yes,” he said, feathering his fingers over the side of my hair. “You’re thinking about how huge my muscles are and how divinely gorgeous I am.”
I smiled. “I wouldn’t recommend you take up a career as a psychic anytime soon.” I pulled back a little, angling my head up. “I don’t want you to look,” I whispered.
He dropped his hand from my hair and rested it on my back. “I wouldn’t do that to you,” he murmured. “I won’t do anything to you that you don’t want me to, ever.”
“You have peeked before,” I reminded him, but there was no malice in my tone.
“Hardly my fault when your emotions and thoughts get scrawled like a neon sign in front of me.”
Outside, a crow cawed. I tucked my head back to his chest and closed my eyes. “I need to work on that.”
“Mmm.” There was something behind the mmm, an annoyance, but I was too tired to ask. I could fall asleep against his warm, hard chest.
“I was worried about you,” he croaked. “I know you wanted to be alone, but I was going out of my mind.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you.”
He pulled back and cradled my cheeks in his hands, forcing me to look at him. “Don’t be sorry,” he growled softly. “You’ve done nothing wrong. Don’t ever apologize for being upset.”
“Does Karson know where I am too?”
Ethan stepped back, his hands dropping to his sides, and my body felt empty without his warmth. “He has vampires set up all around the perimeter, keeping guard, so I’d say so.”
I blinked. “Did Monique tell him?”
He ran a hand through his thick hair. “I don’t know. He may have convinced her, or he might have worked it out like I did. I didn’t have the pleasure to speak to him after our little disagreement. He was too busy tearing the town apart, I would not want to work in child protection right now.”
I grimaced. He’d be searching for the man that hurt me, looking through years of files, trying to find out which family abused me. He’d do anything to find him, to make him suffer.
Ethan’s expression softened as he took my ragged, worried appearance in. “Let’s get you into a bath and get some sleep. You look dead on your feet.”
I tilted my head. “How do you know there’s a bath here?”
“Wild guess. Monique might be tough, but she’s a romantic at heart.” He spoke over his shoulder as he walked up the stairs. “If you go into her study, I can guarantee you will find romance novels. Check the fridge, there will be champagne.”
The news surprised me. Though it shouldn’t. Vampires were human, after all, and they carried all the same emotions. Except they were heightened. They could be fierce, deadly. But they loved equally as hard too.Unbreakable, Karson had once told me. Once a vampire fell in love, they never let it go. He loved me—he would always love me.
I checked the fridge. There was champagne.
After my bath,I found Ethan downstairs seated on the couch, staring at the fire, a faraway look on his face. I sat down beside him and curled my feet up. Exhaustion tugged at my body as my eyes fell to the flickering flames.
“Do you know who?” His jaw was tense, his normally blue eyes dark.
“I don’t want to know, not right now,” I murmured. “We have more important issues.”
The muscle of Ethan’s jaw twitched. “There is a man walking around who hurt you in ways no man should hurt anyone.” His tone lowered to something vicious, lethal. “He is breathing air he does not deserve, and I will make sure his last breaths are filled with agony.”
“No. I will find him,” I said, a bitter taste in my mouth. “When all this settles, if he’s still alive.” If Karson hasn’t found him first.
Ocean-night eyes drilled into mine. “And then what?”
“And then …”
His blood on my hands.
“I don’t know.”
