They’d had the hottest sex of his life. His newly awoken Shadows were utterly obsessed with her. He liked spending time with her, speaking to her, and hearing her opinions, but, if anything, all of that just terrified him more. Somehow, he’d gone from determined to stay alone to tumbling faster and faster down the rabbit hole.
When he was with her, it all made sense. She said their Shadows had chosen each other, and he believed her. But now, sitting in his car, too tired to get out and climb the stairs, too drained to face the emptiness of his home, he wondered what the hell he was doing.
He picked up his phone, looked at the screen—one o’clock in the morning, no messages—and put it back down.
He picked it up again, needing something, but not sure of what that was. He started to type a message.Hi Kay….And then stopped. What was he going to say? That he was lonely. And confused. Sitting in the dark. God.
He started to delete it, but somehow bobbled the phone and pressed send as he tried to catch it. Damn it. Could he still delete it? But then it would show a message had been removed. What was worse?
The phone rang in his hand, and he nearly dropped it. God. Now he had no choice.
He pressed to answer and lifted it to his ear. “Hi, Kay.”
“Hi, Ethan.” He could hear the smile in her voice. The soft sleepiness.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. I was just….” He let the words fade. He didn’t even know.
“I was awake.”
“Really?” He couldn’t keep the skepticism from his voice, and she chuckled.
“Yeah. I couldn’t sleep. I spent all day looking for something, anything, about those dark Shadows. I can’t ask anyone for help—especially now that the Council is involved. There’s nothing in any of the public libraries, and do you know how much insanity there is online? Then Elizabeth called to say there was nothing in the library at the college either.” She yawned. “Anyway, I went to bed early, but then lay here looking at the ceiling until I gave up and read my book instead.”
He let his head fall back, relaxing for the first time. “What are you reading?”
“Fantasy romance…. You know, kings and queens, knights with big swords. Fae, sometimes.”
His mouth twitched in his first genuine smile of the day. Somehow, he hadn’t imagined Kay with her biker boots and kick-butt fighting skills losing herself in a book about magic. He should have, though: her whole life was about accepting things other people would struggle to believe. And she tried to hide it, but Kay believed in happily ever after.
“What are you doing?” she asked softly.
“Sitting in my car, working up the energy to go inside.”
“Because you’re too tired, or because you don’t want to go inside?”
He snorted. How did she always manage to get directly to the bottom of the problem? “Both, I guess.”
There was a long silence and then he heard rustling and a muffled thud. “Wait for me, I’ll come and get you,” she said, from a distance.
“What do you mean?”
“Have you got a leather jacket?” she asked.
“Yes, it’s—”
“Good. Put it on, and I’ll see you in half an hour.”
He’d hardly said goodbye when the call ended. By the time he’d gone inside, had a glass of water, pulled on his battered leather jacket, and wandered back down the stairs, he could hear her. Or rather, he could hear the distinctive throaty rumble of a motorcycle turning onto his street.
Kay pulled up in front of him wearing jeans, big black boots, a fitted leather jacket, and a black helmet. She flipped the visor up and grinned, and he couldn’t help but grin back.
“What are we doing?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
She laughed, spinning to unhook a spare helmet from behind her and hand it over. “We’re going for a ride.”
He swung his leg over the motorcycle and nestled himself against her. He had only just settled his hands on her hips when she pulled away from the curb, and he gripped tighter, letting her warm strength stabilize him.
Kay kept the revs down and guided them quietly down the residential streets until they were on a motorway leading out of the city. Then she opened the throttle, and they flew.
