To stare a God in the eyes was to challenge us, and there would be no winning this fight. Blue met with brown so deep they could be mistaken for black. When I felt like Scott couldn’t support her weight, knees buckling under the intensity of my gaze, I broke eye contact, and my hands grabbed her upper arms and pinned her forcefully against the door. There was nothing gentle about my touch, fingers digging into the soft flesh as I held her upright.
“You’re curious,” I whispered as a small smile graced my lips.
“I —” Scott floundered to find the words.
I leaned in, my face close to hers, and Scott pulled her focus to my mouth instead of my eyes. Her thoughts were loud and clear. She wanted to pull me in closer and bridge the gap.
“You want to know more about me,” I said, matter-of-factly.
“It’s my job,” she shot back sharply.
What would it take to smother the fire permanently?
There was another rumble of laughter in my chest. “I can read you like a book, Scott.”
I had her pinned against the door, and when I leaned in closer, I heard her breath hitch. There was barely enough space to slide a sheet of paper between us. Her mind and her heart raced at the close proximity. My nose ran along her cheekbone and faint notes of honey and orange wrapped around my senses.
“I don’t think getting to know me thatintimatelyis part of the job description,” I whispered in her ear, amused by the salacious thoughts. Who’d have guessed the stiff in the lab coat would have such a dirty mind?
The heat coloured her cheeks, turning them pink and warm. I could read every single one of her thoughts, including those fleeting ones of how it would feel to be pressed against my body.
“Let me make this clear to you,” I whispered, sending a shiver down her spine. “I would never touch a filthy mortal like you in such a way.”
Quickly, I pulled away, letting her go and giving her some space as I let out a cruel laugh.
The embarrassment overtook her features as I reached past her and pushed the door open, causing her to stumble backwards out of the kitchen. She caught herself before she hit the floor, much to my dismay.
“Goodnight, Scott,” I dismissed her, proud of how deeply I’d got under her skin in a short amount of time.
The morning brought with it new possibilities to torture Scott, but disappointingly, she didn’t appear at breakfast.
Holden couldn’t find her and concluded she must have left for work early. I felt smug, knowing that last night had rattled her so much that she couldn’t sit at the same table as me over breakfast. That satisfaction lasted the entire way to the institute and up to the lab. Scott could try to avoid me all she wanted, but I’d find her and continue to play with her.
“Morning,” Charlotte greeted us as we walked into the lab. “Where’s Quen?”
“She’s not here?” Holden asked.
A bruise had formed around his neck and bloomed darkly across his skin, forcing him to constantly adjust the collar of his shirt. Another one of my achievements proudly on display.
“No, Matthew,” Charlotte said dully, with a roll of her eyes. “Or else I wouldn’t be asking about her. What the hell happened to your neck?”
I hung back by the door of the lab and watched the mortals chatter and go about their day. Completely mundane and trivial tasks. None of them of any interest to me. They continued to give me space, casting cautious glances my way, but nothing more. I looked forward to the day I wouldn’t be required to visit the clinical facility. The plan was to talk my way out of integration. I hoped that Hunter would rather send me back to Elysia than keep me here after they’d taken what they could from me. There were eleven others who could behave like pets if they so desired.
“Things got a little heated last night,” Holden replied to Charlotte.
He had the decency to look embarrassed, and the sense of contentment swelled in my chest again. The idiotic mortal had needed to be put in his place, and judging by the tense breakfast and silent journey to the institute, I’d done the job.
“I thought she was coming to work early,” Holden said, looking puzzled.
“I’m going to see Gareth.” Charlotte brushed past us both before looking back. “Oh, any idea what happened to the lab?” She gestured to the cracks in the floor and empty shelves.
“As I said,” Holden repeated, going red, “things got a little heated.”
Charlotte shot us both a look but didn’t utter another word as she left.
For the rest of the morning, I sat at a lab bench, content as I combed through the thoughts of the team that had been assembled to study me. It was the usual mixture of thoughts, although there were a few mortals that had aimed their prayers in my direction on more than one occasion. People hated when they were wronged and that was when they turned to me.
I was happy to leave Scott to her thoughts wherever she was. Most likely licking her wounds after our run-in last night. Breaking her would be easier than I imagined, and it filled me with a dark and twisted glee to think of her as dispirited. Without the front that she put on for her colleagues, without the confidence that she so falsely possessed, Quentin Scott was another pathetically ordinary mortal with a less than ordinary life.
