I don’t ask any of it.
I’m too afraid of how badly I want the wrong answers.
“I’m tired,” I say finally, voice low.
Jace stops pacing and runs a hand through his blond hair. “Yeah. You should sleep. Do you want?—”
“I want to sleep somewhere that doesn’t smell like him,” I admit, and mentally grin. “I’ll call Roo, and we’ll stay at a hotel across town. That way, I’ll be a little harder for Daniel to find. But I’m going to need one of you to take me back to my apartment so I can get my car.”
“We’ll make up the guest room.” Silas stands. “There’s one on the other side?—”
“No,” I interrupt, soft yet firm, drawing a line with my honesty. “I don’t actually want to be alone tonight, or isolated out of some misguided sense of chivalry. I won’t break. There’s no need to separate me for the illusion of space.”
Kieran rises from the opposite side of the couch and offers me his hand. “We won’t. You can sleep in my room.”
He leads me down a long hall, two shadows hovering at my back as I step into their world.
I don’t just feel protected… I feel claimed.
The truth has finally caught up to us.
Most of it, anyway.
Why did I offer my room?
I mean, other than it being cleaner than Jace’s room and warmer than Silas’s room… It felt like the right thing to do.
But I should have shown her where the necessities were and walked away to give her privacy.
I should force myself down the hall to the nearest spare room like any sane person… Close the door. Sit on the edge of the bed, and pretend I’m not one wrong breath away from doing something irreversible.
But I don’t.
I stand on the threshold ofmybedroom door, wondering if she’s comfortable.
Not the cluttered guest room a few doors down, the one Silas miraculously cleaned up in thirty seconds flat. Or his room... Or Jace’s room.
Mine.
Eris didn’t even glance toward the other doors we passed.
She just glides through the hall, bruised by exhaustion, as she comes down from the adrenaline, and steps into my room like gravity pulls her there.
Like this door was always the destination.
I move around her, stepping into my closet to grab her a t-shirt. It’s one of my favorites, soft from a hundred washes, faintly smelling of cedar and rain and me. She takes it without a reaction, as if it already belongs to her and I’m simply returning it to its rightful owner.
Now she’s in my bathroom, shower water so hot steam seeps from under the door. And I’m pacing the hallway like a guard dog who hasn’t decided whether he’s protecting her or worshipping her.
Jace brings a bottle of water, deposits it on the bedside table, and leaves without a word, his hand fisting in his hair. The slight pain on his scalp is the only thing making him believe she’s really in our home.
Silas stands at the end of the hall, arms crossed as he leans against the wall. His eyes are daggers, lost in concentration as he waits for… something.
Maybe me.
Maybe the fallout.
But all I do is loiter outside the doorway.
