Sloane nodded. “It’s traditional for elves to exchange virginity with a friend or someone of a similar rank at thirty, but we were… discouraged from the practice.”
“I mean, I wasn’t exactly encouraged to have sex either, but I still managed to lose my virginity in the band room’s supply closet when I was seventeen. Why didn’t you disobey orders and just do it? It’s not like anyone would know, right?”
“I had no interest,” he replied.
Cecilia’s stomach tightened. In a hushed voice, she asked, “Has that changed?”
Sloane’s chest expanded with a deep breath. “Yes.”
She really couldn’t decide whether the news should make her more concerned or less. On one hand, there was something deeply endearing about knowing he was so deadly yet so innocent. On the other hand, it made him seem even more unpredictable.
The gods only knew what a super-powered virgin who’d spent the last year watching her through her bedroom window was capable of.
It was a lucky thing for both of them that the sound of a bell dinging broke the tension. Tugging her hand out of his, she nervously brushed her hair behind her ear and made to stand up. “That’s my food.”
Sloane waved at her to stay seated. Rising from his chair, he told her, “I’ll get it. Don’t move.”
Cecilia watched him walk away. It didn’t even occur to her to get up and run until he reached the pick-up window, and even then, she found herself paralyzed.
Go,that reasonable part of her screamed.Go!
Only her eyes darted toward the treeline. No doubt she’d get lost in there after only a handful of steps, and the road wasn’t much better, seeing as she’d be on foot and he’d be on a bike.
Her heart raced as she battled her conflicting impulses. This was the first chance she’d really gotten. For all she knew, it’d be heronlychance. For the first time since Dahlia called her from Felix’s house all those weeks ago, she finally understood what her best friend meant when she insisted she couldn’t juststay.
No matter how attractive the kidnapper, he was still a kidnapper. And a prison was still a prison, even if he let you out for cheeseburgers and motorcycle rides sometimes.
She blinked hard as her eyes refocused. The small crowd of teens in their puffy jackets passed between her table and the restaurant, obscuring her view of Sloane.
“You okay?”
Cecilia glanced at the girl who spoke. A girl with deep brown skin and shifter-bright eyes looked closely at her, phone in hand. Pointing at the bruises on the side of Cecilia’s face, she asked in a quieter, double-timbered voice, “You need some help getting away from that elf?”
Another teenager, this one a lanky, curly-haired boy with a bad case of acne, chimed in, “Our pack’s close by. You can come with us and you’ll be safe. No one fucks around with wolves. Not evenelves.”
The other teens nodded, their noses wrinkling in a distinctly canine way.
I could go,she realized, time slowing.I could tell them to call Patrol or just hop in their car and let them drive into pack territory as fast as possible.
They’d do it. She could see it in their eyes. These kids who couldn’t have been older than seventeen were willing to risk their safety to help a strange woman in need. Because kids were fundamentally good, andthatwas why she’d worked so hard to become a teacher. When a child saw someone needed help, they helped.
…She just didn’t want them to. Not this time.
All at once, the silent war of her impulses went silent. Cecilia’s stomach unclenched as she slowly relaxed her posture.
Giving the sweet wolves a sincere smile, she assured them, “Thanks, kids, but I’m okay. I promise.”
The girl with the bright eyes didn’t move a muscle. “You sure?”
“Yeah,” Cecilia answered, her gaze pulled magnetically toward the dark shape of her elf as he came up behind the teens, deadly hands laden with a tray covered in greasy food, “I think I am.”
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
Things weredifferent when they returned to the Battery, and it wasn’t just because he’d never felt happiness before now.
Cecilia’s arms squeezed tightly around his middle as he guided the bike through the hidden garage door. Almost as soon as they left the restaurant, she’d placed her helmeted head on his shoulder and leaned her weight into him, trusting Sloane to keep her safe on the road. Whatever tension lingered in her seemed to have evaporated, leaving her disturbingly at ease.
