Panic floods my brain, but my body goes still. This is survival—finding a quiet place inside my mind to retreat to, somewhere he can't reach. It's the only thing I have left.
"Look at you," he murmurs, almost tender. "So obedient when you remember your place."
His hand trails up my thigh and I close my eyes, swallowing another scream. Bury every emotion I have somewhere he will never reach.
I refuse to let a single tear fall.
He may have my body, but he will never have my fear.
So I go somewhere he can never follow, walking out of the room without moving an inch.
FOURTEEN
KEIRA
We've been trudging through the forest for hours. The storm keeps falling, harder now, soaking through the seams of my jacket. Wet pine needles stick all over my boots.
We're lost and Tristan is refusing to admit it.
The courier we were tailing disappeared off the ridge. Someone extracted him, and somehow we missed it.
"You were supposed to hold back at the ridge," Tristan snaps from behind me. "You were point two, not point one."
I shove a branch aside. "I had eyes on him while you were trying to cut corners."
"You didn't get eyes on him. You lost him."
"Maybe if you'd moved faster?—"
"Maybe if you'd listened once in your fucking life."
I stop so abruptly he almost crashes into me.
Rain slides down his face, carving sharp lines along his cheekbones. His copper-brown hair is plastered to his forehead. His jaw looks carved from stone, and his eyes are so light against the rain they're almost glowing.
Fuck him for looking the way he does.
Dangerous and way too beautiful and so not helpful considering I'm trying hard not to notice him.
"I listened to you in Prague, and our target shot an eighteen-year-old while you were off fumbling with a tracker. Forgive me if I'm not desperate for round two."
"That's not what happened," he grits out.
"No? Then what did happen, Tristan?"
His eyes harden. "Drop it, Red."
I press on, heat rising in my chest. "No, Teakwood. I'm done letting you get away with shit."
He closes his eyes, attempting to control himself. I jab my finger into his chest. "You love your own ego and being in charge more than anything else. You have such bad trust issues you'd rather lose a target than bend a little."
"That's enough."
"You think you're so much better than everyone else."
He grabs my wrist and slams me against a tree. The bark digs into my spine as his body cages mine.
"I wasn't fumbling with a tracker in Prague. I was distracting the target off you and onto someone else."
