I meet his gaze head on, refusing to stand down. Refusing to finch. “Someone has to stop him.”
“Agreed, but taking down Jonathan and you continuing to breathe don’t need to be mutually exclusive.”
I’m a little impressed he used that term correctly. Too many people don’t understand it. “I’ve made peace with that reality.”
“Tough shit, Eleanor. You have me at your side now.”
“Until you realize the horror of the world I’m going to have to dive back into, you will never understand. If I try to explode it from the outside, I will barely put a dent in it. I have to get to thestone cold heart of the demon in order to destroy him. There’s no other way.”
“There is always another way.”
I squeeze my fist around my fork. “Why do you care?” I whisper.
“I once ignored the warning signs, and someone I love paid the cost.”
“Love? Yes, I understand. You barely know me.” The problem with love is it makes you make illogical choices. It governs your decisions and unfocuses the mind. It gets people killed.
“I know you are someone who, if a friend calls and asks you to bring a shovel and a car, you speed along the highway, no questions asked other than how deep and how wide do they need the hole.”
My lips twitch. I have four people whose call I would take. Gail, Uncle Steven, Honor, and Fox. “You aren’t on that list.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. “I’m aware, but we have a mutual friend who is on both of our lists, and he asked me to take care of you. To help and protect you.”
“I’m not going to stop.”
He sucks his teeth, not looking at me. “I understand, and I would never ask you to. Vengeance is in your soul, but I have to warn you, it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The emptiness afterwards is a deep, dark void. You need to have a plan for what comes next, or you will be lost. It’s been your mission, your purpose, a part of your world for so long, you’re going to be lost once it’s gone.”
I’m not planning on surviving, so it’s not an issue. “I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it,” I settle on. I know I don’t have him fooled, not even in the slightest, but he lets it go.
Hunter leans over the counter, staring at me out of the corner of his eye. “I have something to tell you, and I don’t want you to freak out.”
I place my fork down on my plate and spin on the bar stool to face him. “What did you do?”
His lips twitch. Oh no. “To be safe, you need to be part of the town. You need protection, a closed community of folks who look out for you.”
“I don’t, actually. This is something you insisted on and blackmailed me into by getting our mutual friends involved.”
“Right.” He doesn’t look the slightest bit regretful. “The easiest way to explain your presence here was to tell William you are with me.”
“I am with you.”
“No. With me, with me.”
I blink. “I’m not following.”
Hunter runs a hand through his hair, then moves his hand between us. “Together.”
Oh... ohhhh. For fucks sake. “No.”
“Hear me out.”
“No.”
“To stay here, you need to be family. I made you my girlfriend to get him off my back. If you were a friend hiding out, he would dig harder for the reasons why. Being romantically involved with me means he won’t go looking for reasons as to why you are first the woman I’ve brought back to my home.”
His face is relaxed, free of any deception. First woman? That doesn’t make sense. I empty my glass of the last of the water, letting the bubbles fizz on my tongue as I put together the competing evidence of his words with the furniture. I slide off the stool, snorting when Hunter eyes my bare legs. I grab his hand, tug him off his seat, and head down the hallway.
“This is going somewhere fast,” he mumbles.
