“Wyoming?”
He gave an affirmative shrug. “Since you don’t have anywhere to go, I figure the safest place for you is anywhere that’s not Colorado, at least for the time being.”
“How long have I been sleeping?”
“It’s going on one, so about six hours. Off and on,” he added, leaving no doubt that he’d been watching over her nearly all of that time.
Willow exhaled a sigh and ran a hand through her hair, which felt windblown and matted from her restless sleep. It still smelled like woodsmoke from the fire on the mountain, a horrid reminder of the reason she was in this motel room in the first place.
A painful lump began to build in the center of her chest, bringing fresh tears to the backs of her eyes.
Razor’s scowl deepened. “You should eat something.”
He indicated an assortment of vending machine snacks that lay on the nightstand next to the bed. Small bags of chips, packs of crackers and candy bars were heaped in a neat pile next to a bottle of water.
She should be starving, but all she felt was hollow and scared.
“Have you been able to get in touch with Theo?”
Razor grunted and shook his head. “Not yet. The private number he gave me goes straight to voicemail. I don’t like it. Something’s not right.”
Willow’s stomach clenched. “Do you think there are bad men looking for him too?”
“I don’t know. I can’t rule it out.”
Willow’s heart began to hammer with worry. “We need to warn him, Razor. Do you have any other way to reach him?”
“You let me deal with Theo. As soon as I find someplace safe to leave you, I’m heading to Montreal to find him.”
He gestured dismissively in the direction of the snacks he brought her. “Eat, build up some strength. Take a shower if you want. We’re only staying here to wait out the worst of the daylight. As soon as the sun sets we leave.”
Apparently, he was operating in one of two modes today: barking orders at her, or ignoring her. She supposed she should be grateful for that. One of them needed to be thinking clearly and logically, and it didn’t seem to be her. She forced herself to resist looking at him while he was sitting there half-undressed and brooding. Whatever current of unwanted awareness had arced between them back at the storage unit a few hours ago had certainly passed now.
At least it had for him, obviously.
Willow was still fighting to make sense of how she could be feeling anything but shock and bereavement. Inside, her heart was cracked wide open from the loss of her sister. But not even that had been enough to overshadow the unexpected heat she’d felt when Razor’s hands had covered hers when he’d helped her remove the storage unit key from her necklace.
She could still feel that uninvited heat now, just thinking about it.
What was wrong with her?
He was Breed, for fuck’s sake.
After what had happened to her parents, she’d spent most of her life avoiding his kind. Not that it was hard to do, first at the orphanage in Quebec City, then, later, living in the rural Colorado mountain town that had been her home since she’d stumbled into it after years of living and wandering on her own.
Until yesterday, it was unimaginable to her that she’d be in the same room with one of Razor’s kind, let alone reliant on him for her survival. He’d already saved her life once since they met. He even had the bullet wound to show for it.
He got up from the chair and started to pace the tiny room. His movements were fluid and full of power, like a big cat agitated to be trapped inside a cage. If he was the cat, she didn’t want to think about what that made her.
Willow watched him surreptitiously as she nibbled at a dry cracker then unscrewed the cap on the water bottle and took a sip.Glyphscovered his back just as densely as they did his front. If what she’d heard was true, the moredermaglyphson a Breed, the purer their bloodline. Which meant Razor was almost certainly Gen One. The strongest, deadliest of their kind.
He swung back to begin another track on the threadbare carpet and his eyes clashed with hers. She couldn’t look away fast enough to pretend she wasn’t staring. Instead, she blurted out the only thing that came to her mind.
“Your arm looks better. The bullet wound is almost healed now.”
He glanced at his bicep and shrugged. “All I needed was a few red cells.” When he met her gaze again, a flicker of dark amusement crossed his harsh face. “Relax. It wasn’t your carotid I tapped. I fed from the desk clerk when we got here.”
Willow stared at him. “You make it sound like you went out for a burger.”
