I don’t know where the words are coming from, and I don’t know what they mean until I hear them out loud.
“I thought I knew where I wanted to go, but I guess I don’t. So it doesn’t matter which path I choose, does it?”
His smile grows so wide, he might as well be the fucking Cheshire Cat. The contrast between his neat, dark clothes and the fresh scratches on his neck makes the moment even more surreal.
“What does matter, is who you have at your side,” he says.
And what the fuck am I supposed to say to that?
I take the monster’s hand and let him lead me deeper into the woods, my heart breaking for the green-eyed boy I’m leaving behind.
Chapter 11
Bastian
Haven’s hand is ice-cold and trembling. But she grips me as if I’m the only thing keeping her attached to this reality.
I catalog every micro-expression that crosses her beautiful, devastated face as I lead her deeper into the dark, away from the boy being pinned to the ground by security.
Grief. Rage. Desperation.
Surrender.
The last makes my cock stiffen against my zipper, but it’s the grief that undoes me.
The way it strips her bare, makes her jaw tremble, turns those blue eyes into something so raw and devastating.
For a wonderfully strange, unguarded moment, I forget to analyze and simplylook.
She’s beautiful. Horrifyingly, inconveniently beautiful.
We don’t go far—just deep enough that the trees provide cover, but close enough that we can still hear the crowd, the crackle of police radios, Kai’s yells.
When I bring her to a halt, she stares up at me with those glacial-blue eyes that have haunted my thoughts since themoment I saw her photo in the pile of scholarship applications on my desk earlier this year.
Behind her, I catch movement through the trees. Kai being hauled to his feet by Deputy Thatcher. He’s disheveled and manic, looking exactly like a delinquent capable of Melissa’s kidnapping and assault.
His eyes find us across the distance, quickly distinguishing us from the shadows.
I smile and wave.
His expression, even at a distance, is pure anguish. Deputy Thatcher has to physically restrain him when he lunges in our direction.
So protective.
Sopossessive.
As if I’ve stolen something from him. Kai doesn’t seem to realize she was never really his to begin with. He was merely keeping her company until she came to her senses. Until she understood who she was truly meant to be with.
Me.
The victory that surges through me is sexual in its intensity.
I shove Haven against a tree trunk, my cock thickening at the grunt she makes when her back hits the bark. I’m on her before she can inhale again, fingers curling around her throat, thumb pressed to the hollow between her collarbones.
“It always fascinates me how desperately trauma victims try to control the narrative.”
She grabs my wrist, but doesn’t try to escape. Fear and adrenaline have blown her pupils wide…a physiological response I’ve been waiting to see for far too long.
