She stared into his eyes in silence.
Then she slipped her hand into his.
CHAPTER 12
Kaya didn’t look to see if Mira and Kellan were watching as she and Aric stopped dancing and slipped away from the terrace together. The moment felt too personal, no room for anyone else’s eyes or judgment.
Right now, it was only Aric and her.
No room for the reality of the fact that his life waited in another city, while her future with the Order teetered precariously here in Montreal.
He picked up the blanket Siobhan had left behind on the terrace, then walked Kaya out onto the lawn. The mansion was built on a large, woodland hill. The forest of tall pines and enormous maple and oak trees provided seclusion for the command center, as well as acres of privacy for training exercises and other Order business.
Aric led her into the dense woods, walking what seemed to be a deliberate path.
“Where are we going?”
A smile curved his sensual mouth. “You’ll see.”
In a few minutes, they reached the summit and a steep ledge of granite that overlooked the city below. The tree line stopped only a couple of yards short of the edge, which provided an unparalleled view of Montreal’s lights and the wide river that cut through it in the distance.
Kaya turned a surprised look on him. “You know this place?”
“When I was a kid my family used to visit Niko and Renata and Mira here in the city. Every chance I got to explore these woods, I’d end up here. There’s no view like this anywhere else.”
She laughed softly and shook her head.
“What’s so funny?”
“This is my favorite place in all the world. Whenever I need time and space to think, I come up here.” She gave his hand a little tug. “Come on. The best spot to sit is right near the edge.”
He followed her out of the woods and into the open air on the ledge. They spread the blanket on the last few feet of smooth stone before the granite shelf ended in a sheer drop several hundred feet down.
Kaya sat down in the center of the small patch of wool, her legs stretched out in front of her. Aric joined her, leaving barely an inch between them and resting one arm over his updrawn knee. With the moon and stars above them and Montreal’s glittering lights scattered in the distance below, neither of them spoke for a while.
Maybe it should have been awkward, coming out here with the knowledge that she would soon be undressed beneath this Breed male with him inside her, but she felt only calm when she looked over and saw Aric seated next to her.
It felt safe, perched at the edge of a lethal drop next to a man she barely knew and dared not trust.
Not beyond tonight, anyway.
Nothing could touch her up here. This hill had been a beacon for so much of her life, the only steady thing she had. Tonight it didn’t only belong to her, but to Aric too.
Tonight, it belonged to both of them.
And maybe that’s why she felt comfortable giving him a small piece of her truth.
“When I was little, my mom used to tell me that terrible monsters lived on this hill. She said they had hideous, sharp teeth and liked to eat children.”
Aric glanced at her, his brows raised. “Not a fan of my people, I take it?”
“Not really,” she replied, more understatement than he could possibly know. “I was so terrified from the stories she told me, I used to look up at this hill and wonder if anyone was sitting up here, looking at me too. Monsters waiting to swoop down into the city and chew me up. She made sure I believed every awful thing she said. She thought it was funny that I was so afraid. I don’t think she was ever satisfied until I was crying or hiding in a corner somewhere begging her to leave me alone.”
“Sounds like some great parenting skills.”
“She was an awful, hateful person,” Kaya admitted, no varnish on that truth. “From all I know of her, she was making bad choices from the time she was a teen. Apparently, things didn’t get any better after she became a mother. Some of my first memories of her were watching her either passed out or sticking a needle in her arm. We were homeless more often than not. That is, when she wasn’t shacking up with some gangbanger or john she’d just met.”
Aric’s eyes were solemn, but not pitying. Thank God for that. “I’m sorry. No kid deserves that kind of childhood.”
