God, that must make her worse than a fool.
“I need to go look after Riley,” she said, working to keep the hurt out of her expression and her voice. “Thank you for helping me find him and bring him home.”
He gave her less than a nod, a stiff, formal response.
Leni didn’t wait to let him see any more of her humiliation.
Turning away from him, she strode out of the kitchen with a new resolve. From now on, she needed to protect her heart as fiercely as she was willing to protect her nephew’s life.
CHAPTER 16
She avoided him for the rest of the day and the duration of the night.
Thank fuck for that small mercy, even though he’d won it from her by being an unfeeling bastard. Something he seemed to excel at, and not only since he’d met Leni.
He didn’t know how to be anything else. Deep down, he would always be the disciplined laboratory rat, the born-and-bred soldier who’d been taught nothing but logic and combat from the time he was torn from his mother’s womb.
Knox had needed both of those skills yesterday morning, when Leni had stood before him offering her blood to heal him.
Offering her bond, for crissake.
He had been sorely tempted. Not only because of the severity of his UV burns, although they had been hellish enough to warrant some relief. No, the temptation that had leapt to life inside him had little to do with any of the pain or injury he’d endured for most of the day until his body had finally healed itself.
His craving to take Leni’s throat under his fangs had been born of something even more demanding than physical suffering. It had been fueled by desire. Possessive need. A depth of caring that had nearly overcome him when he saw the sincerity of her offer in her eyes.
Her blood—and her eternal bond—had been his for the taking.
Her tender, courageous heart as well.
It humbled him, even now.
And it shamed him to reflect on how callously he’d rebuffed those gifts.
He’d had to shut her down hard and fast. Especially when everything Breed in him had been dangerous with the need to feed, to find some relief from the intensity of his wounds.
Shit. He should have taken her up on the offer to bring him a blood Host. Nearly twenty-four hours since he’d run headlong into the morning sunlight to look for the boy and now he was walking the edge of a ravenous thirst.
He would have to leave the house to address the situation as soon as night fell. God knew if he’d be up to the test of another night under the same roof with Leni, regardless if she continued giving him the cold shoulder.
But what about the next night? Or the one after that?
He knew the best solution for her, and for himself.
It was the one he’d been trying to ignore while he dealt with the agony of his burns. Now that he was healed, it was time to do what was right.
Before he could change his mind or delay any longer, he picked up his burner phone and called his brother’s encrypted number. The call connected on the third ring, nothing but silence on the open end of the secured line.
“Razor, it’s me.”
A measured exhalation filtered into Knox’s ear. Then a low, hissed curse. “Well, I’ll be goddamned. Hell must’ve frozen over if I’m hearing from you, brother.”
“Close,” Knox said, glancing out the attic window at nothing but snowdrifts and ice crystals on the ground below.
“Where you at?”
“Maine.”
Razor grunted. “What the fuck are you doing up there—and in the middle of ball-shriveling February, besides?”
