We jump together and sing. He raps “Baby Got Back” and doesn’t miss a single word. Tex beams when I laugh, while every time I make him laugh, the tension drains out of me faster and faster. Each muscle in my body relaxing.
He wraps his arms around me, kissing my forehead, then my nose.
“There she is.” He smiles down at me.
I roll my eyes at him, and he chuckles.
“You can’t tell me you don’t feel better.” He kisses me.
“I do.” I wrap my arms around his neck.
“You gotta have fun every once in a while.”
“What is this ‘fun’ you speak of?” I smirk.
He grins and tickles my sides again, my legs threatening to crumple before he scoops me up in his arms.
“I will never get tired of hearing your laugh.” He spins us around, and I laugh again.
“You’re good at pulling it out of me.” I kiss his cheek. “Thank you, Tex.”
“Anything for you, Iz.”
36 THE COLD PRINCE
Jace
Idon’t knock. I don’t know why I’ve even come. Habit, maybe. Or hope. Or something in between.
The hallway’s dim, washed in that pale kind of light that makes everything feel softer than it is. My hand rests on the doorknob, fingers flexing once.
She’s probably asleep. Still, I open it. Quietly. Carefully.
And then I see him. Tex. In her bed.
His arm wrapped around her bare waist, my territory, like he has any right to touch her in her sleep. As if he’s earned it, or she’d choose him if she were awake.
Her face is tucked into the space between his neck and shoulder. Her hand curled over his chest like it belongs there.
It doesn’t.
There’s a sheet, but it doesn’t hide much. Not the flushedskin. Not the mess of her hair, spilling across the pillow. Not the way they’re tangled together like they’ve done this before. Like they’ve always done this.
The beast inside me rages, seeing her in the arms of another man. She’s mine. She belongs to me.
My breath catches in my throat, but I don’t move. Don’t make a sound. I just stand there, fingers still on the knob, watching them in silence like some kind of fucking ghost.
I watch the rise and fall of her breathing, that little crease between her eyebrows she gets when she’s dreaming. Even now, even unconscious, she’s fighting something.
And he thinks he can soothe her? He thinks he can be her comfort?
Ridiculous.
She has no idea how many enemies she’s made just by existing. How many knives wait for her back to turn. And Tex—that idiot—sleeps like a rock with his guard down, while she curls into him like he’s safe.
No one can keep her safe like I do.
My pulse spikes, slow and lethal.
