For years, I had people tell me I was impossible to be loved. I couldn’t have cared less. I wasn’t interested in such a frivolous emotion. My needs were met and then I continued to do my job. There was no need for love.
Until I met her.
When Erik found Sloan, when he worked to win her over, I was there. I remembered how he fell away from his playboy lifestyle and focused solely on the woman who had a part of his soul. It was ridiculous, the way he softened and folded for my sister-in-law. Changed into someone better because Sloan would accept no less.
I didn’t understand it then, but I did now.
I couldn’t change my nature or my gift, but I would do whatever else Quentin required of me. She asked if I would force her to stay and I hadn’t lied. If she wanted to leave, she could, but I wouldn’t give up on her.
I stared at the blank side of the wall for longer than I cared to admit. Was there really not a single reason she could find to give me a chance? Would it anger her if I added some helpful reasons to the wall?
As I turned to leave the room, something else caught my eye. At the corner of her desk laid a bouquet of stems and a few inches away rested the bright yellow tulip heads that had been sheared savagely from the body.
Thoughts of Archer infiltrated my brain and my aura unfurled as my intuition took me to where he was. People startled as I appeared in the lab, but Archer looked over at me with feigned surprise.
“Would you like me to bow?” he asked from the desk where he was lounging.
The scientist beside him was probably a decade older than Quentin and sported deep lines around his eyes and salt and pepper hair. He clapped a hand on Archer’s shoulder in a friendly manner and turned his attention to me.
“Is there something I can help you with?” the man asked.
“He’s here for me, Emmanuel,” Archer said, unfolding himself from the chair. “Did Quentin send you?”
“You’re making her uncomfortable.” I seethed.
Was this what she was alluding to this morning? Archer was pressuring her in his own way and she felt uncomfortable with his gestures.
“Me?” He pressed a hand to his chest. “I’m not the one who’s slaughtering her kin.”
“Watch your mouth.”
Mortals surrounded us and if any of them found out about what she was, then Hunter wouldn’t wait for a vote.
“I gave her honesty. She’ll thank me for it in the end,” Archer said.
My aura shot out, wrapping around his ankle and pulling him sharply towards me. A sick sense of satisfaction rushed through my chest when his skull bounced off the floor and he cursed.
“Find Gareth,” Emmanuel called, and from behind me, I heard the door opening and closing.
“Listen to me,” I hissed, bearing down on Archer. “She has enough to deal with without unwanted advances from you.”
“I’m offering her the hand of friendship,” he replied. Archer kept his aura tightly coiled away. “She’ll need people to rely on.”
“She has me.”
“A murderous psychopath. That must give her a deep sense of comfort and help her sleep at night.”
“I did what I had to.”
“You’re defending it?” His irises flickered to forest green.
“You don’t understand. Elara—"
“Don’t you dare say her name.”
“I knew her long before you bothered with her existence. You were too obsessed with Larkin to notice her.”
The green flared out through the lab, and it cleared benches of glassware and paperwork.
