His eyes flash dangerously. “What do I have to be upset about?”
“Jealous, then.”
He looks, for an instant, startled. And then he laughs right in her face. A cold, unfunny laugh that makes the hairs on her arm stand on end.
“You think I’m jealous? Of Thorley? A barely sentient jarhead?”
“Don’tcallhim that.”
“It’s what he is,” snaps Lys, swallowing up the space between them. “He’s a small, little crush from your small, little town, and if I hadn’t stepped in, you would have settled for him and gone on to live a small, little life.”
The words hit her like a slap. She rears back, shocked. Lit from beneath by her flashlight, he looks as unassailable as ever. Not a god but a demon cut from the cloth of hell.
Tightly, she whispers, “Maybe that’s what I wanted.”
His jaw wires shut. “Maybe it is.”
It shouldn’t hurt, hearing him say it. It shouldn’t feel like she’s been ripped open. She’s known all along that this thing between them is synthetic. Ugly and unsustainable.
But, says a voice inside her.But.
Directly in front of her, Lys stands as still as a living statue. His cheeks are veined like marble. His throat bobs beneath thin cobalt bruises. He’s menacing in the gloom—menacing and inhuman and all his own.
And she thinks she might love him.
“I need to leave,” she gasps out. “I can’t be in here.”
His gaze turns thunderous. “Go, then. I’m not keeping you.”
She turns, her flashlight carving a wobbling arc through the hallway’s inky black. The dark feels like it’s going to collapse in on her. The knot around her chest cinches tight enough to cut off circulation. Spots bloom in front of her eyes. She can’t breathe.
“You should know,” calls out Lys, his voice as cold as she’s ever heard it, “Thorley was acting on my orders.”
She stutters to a stop atop the threshold. She waits for him to say more. When he doesn’t, she swings around to face him. Her throat feels like she’s swallowed nettles.
“What are you talking about?”
“I told him to get close to you,” says Lys. “To trick you into thinking he liked you as more than just his kid sister’s friend.”
“What?” She searches his face, not understanding. “When?”
“His first night at Mercy Ridge.”
She stands frozen, useless, the fight going out of her. She thinks of Asher on the bed, the box full of letters in his lap. He’d been too forgiving. Too eager to move on. She’d seen right through it, and she ignored her intuition. Because she was weak. Because she was afraid. Because she wanted it to be true.
“Why?” Her voice is thin as a reed. “Why would you do that?”
“Because this thing between us is a sickness,” says Lys, “and you were starting to mistake it for something else.”
She wants to laugh right in his face, but she can’t find the air. It feels like her lungs have been punctured. Each inhale rattles like broken glass inside her chest.
“If that’s true, then why did you bring me? Why talk me into coming? Why drag me along on this whole stupid road trip?”
“Come on, Shea,” he goads. “You’re smarter than that. You know why.”
It’s become a habit, reaching for her wrist—running her thumb along the raised sickles of his bite. She does so now, his eyes tracking her movements. Blue splits deeper into his skin, veins popping along his throat. Hungry, even now. Insatiable, even as he breaks her.
“You needed me,” she realizes. “You needed blood. God. You let me think it was something more. You let me—”
