Cobra crossed his inked arms over his chest. He wore only a pair of low-slung black sweatpants, hisentirebody covered in tattoos. “Don’t apologise. You don’t owe me shit. I told you it could wreak havoc on your emotions and overwhelm the fuck out of you.”
“I’m really—” she began, then cut off when he raised an eyebrow. “Well, uh, I wish it worked out. I’m gonna… go now.”
“Do you want me to kill him for you?” I asked, my eyes narrowed as I followed their conversation. I’d got the gist of it, enough that the fuse burned faster, my arms shaking with it, hands curled into fists.
“No,” the woman laughed. “No, seriously, it’s fine. Just a… difference of interests. I’ll be fine.” She gave me a double thumbsup and backed down the hallway. “See you around,” she told Cobra, and then turned away.
I watched her leave, assessing her tread, the way she carried her weight, how she held herself. No signs of pain, no injuries she was avoiding, and she moved fine.
I let out a slow breath. The side of my face tingled with his attention. “I would have killed you if she said a single word,” I told Cobra without looking at him.
“Doesn’t surprise me. You got something to say, Lynn?”
I whipped around to glare at him, my canines bared and a rumble of warning in my chest. The explosive feeling inside me had shifted, less destructive but burning every bit as fiercely. “What the hell did you do to make a woman run out of your room like that?”
Cobra leant against the doorframe, his head cocked as he assessed me, seeing all my fury. “That’s between me and my sexual partners.”
“If you hurt her—”
He sighed. Heavily. But it was offense, not anger in his voice. “Do you think I’d be in a place like this, working with the Knights to stop abusers and violent monsters if Iwasone.”
“Hiding in plain sight,” I countered, my heart thunderous, hands shaking harder. I had so much adrenaline in my body, and it clashed with my exhaustion and sharp temper until I genuinely wanted to lash out at Cobra. “She was terrified.”
“She was overwhelmed by a cocktail of chemicals flooding her brain. That shit tends to happen when sex is concerned, let alone… what I need.”
What I need.Those words echoed through my head, through the chambers of my furious heart. “And what is it that you need, nightmare?”
Something flashed through his eyes. If I was reading him correctly, he was pleased by the name. He leaned closer, enoughthat my breathing went shallow and the explosive rage inside me turned to liquid heat. Oh. That was… unexpected. Not entirely unwelcome. I just hadn’t expected to get turned on by anything ever again.
“None,” he murmured, so close I could taste the menthol cigarette and rum on his breath, “of your fucking—” He leaned closer, until he must have seen the flare of my eyes, my involuntary swallow. “Business.”
I would have loved to say his words doused the fire in me, but they were a challenge, a red rag waved at the bull of my sudden interest. I tilted my head slowly, the two of us caught in a moment of tense eye contact. “I could make it my business.”
“I don’t fuck rescues,” he said with a coarse scoff, retreating inside his room. The harsh expression on his face made it clear it wasn’t an invitation.
“You don’t fuck anyone, apparently,” I taunted, glancing down the hallway as if that woman was still there. “You just scare them off.”
Cobra gave me his middle finger.
I smirked and walked away, heading in the same direction as the woman he scared off by being ‘that rough.’ What did that mean?Howrough exactly? I’d never been interested in anything but plain, vanilla sex before. Hadn’t experimented with anything more exotic than doggy style, and even that had been quick and satisfying. But the dark seed of an idea took shape in my head, and I was as disturbed by it as intrigued by the relief it might hold.
It would either fuck me up beyond all repair, or it would shut up the darkness in my head. And I could finally get some fucking sleep.
9
Cobra
Iwas asking for trouble, and I damn well knew it. I shouldn’t have left the door to my tech room cracked. Shouldn’t have done it for the past three fucking weeks, either.
I tried to concentrate on what Dad was saying about his five-a-side football match last weekend and how the team were tragically short a substitute, andif onlysomeone had a son who was good in defence, they might have stopped that goal. But the hinges squeaked on the door behind me and I sat up ramrod straight, my fingers tightening around the phone.
It could have been Devil, Tybalt, or even Prodigy come to check on the progress I’d made tracking our latest target, which was none. But the hairs rose on the back of my neck, and the steps that crossed the room weren’t heavy or loud, but they were familiar. Quiet, nimble, careful. The tread of a predator.
“At the risk of earning myself aworld’s worst sonmug for Christmas, can I call you back later?” I asked Dad, my ears mostly honed on the woman stalking towards me, fixed on her every movement, her breathing, the soft swish of the clothes she wore.
“What’s more important than hearing the trials and tribulations of the man who dedicated his whole life to raising you—”
I snorted, my mouth curving into a smile.
