“Do you want me to come with you?”
I shook my head. “Go enjoy your lunch, and I’m sorry I tried to leave without telling you.”
“It’s fine,” Charlie brushed me off. “Don’t work too hard.”
The silence in the lab suited me just fine as I looked at what James had prepped on my bench. The needles were there, but I could probably do with a larger gauge. Crossing over to the cupboards, I pulled out a box of larger needles before taking a handful.
“You tried to run from me.”
I jumped at the silky voice that sounded through the lab. Gods had to be related to cats — quiet, territorial, exalted.
When I glanced over my shoulder, Grayson was leaning against a bench, watching me closely. I turned away and placed the box back into the cupboard.
“If we’re going to work together, then I have some conditions,” I said.
He cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. “I’m intrigued.”
“You do what I ask you in this lab,” I said, looking at him. “The progress of this project is important to me.”
Grayson shrugged, and I felt the irritation flicker inside me. It meant nothing to him, but it meant a lot to me and others who were recruited.
“Continue,” he said.
“You stay away from me when I’m not working with you.”
A smirk came to his face, and he pushed himself off from the bench gracefully, stalking towards me. He was definitely part cat.
“I won’t be the one that has a problem with that,” he breathed. “If I recall correctly, you were the one that wanted to get to know me better.”
I refused to be embarrassed by it anymore. After all, I wasn’t the only woman or man who had noticed that our twelve new residents were exceptionally attractive.
“A minor lapse in my professional judgement,” I told him seriously. “You’ll have to forgive me since I am just a mortal.”
Grayson had made it perfectly clear what he thought of me.
Filthy mortal.
The words took up more space in my head than I’d like to admit.
“Is that all or anything else?” Grayson took a step back from me.
I pulled out the single copper cuff, fashioned more like a bangle, from my pocket and held it in the space between us. The smirk Grayson wore dropped from his face, and he narrowed his eyes at the offending object.
“You’ll wear this when you’re in the house with me or going through integrative tasks,” I told him.
“Not a chance,” he snarled.
“It’s non-negotiable.”
“You want to strip me of my powers!”
“You said it yourself that I can’t trust you.”
I caught the twitch of his fingers and the black that crept out from them. Grayson looked as if he was weighing something out in his head. Whatever had transpired between Hunter and himself yesterday when they left the institute had left him hesitant.
“I’ll wear it when you sleep,” he told me.
“I told you it’s non-negotiable,” I repeated, ignoring his ridiculous suggestion. “You’ll wear it when we’re at home and when we need to go out. You don’t need to have it on when you’re with the others. This isn’t just my command. Gareth also agreed.”
