“Touch her again, and I swear it will be the last thing you ever fucking do.”
Hayes is there.
Fury is carved into every line of his face, his eyes swirling like a storm barely contained. Beautiful. Lethal. He looks like the devil himself, cloaked in shadows and rage. Argyros is at his side, snarlingso viciously that foam strings from his teeth and spatters onto the grass.
Hayes wrenches Dylan’s arm behind his back and pins him to the ground with effortless, terrifying strength.
“What the hell, man?” Dylan thrashes around pathetically. “That hurts!”
“Good,” Hayes growls.
I stare at him, dazed. Where did he come from?
“Let go! What’s your fucking problem?” Dylan shouts.
“Myproblem?” Hayes leans in, voice dropping to something dark and deadly. “When a woman tells you to stop—you stop, asshole.”
“We were having fun,” Dylan sneers. “Believe me, she was asking for it?—”
Argyros lunges with a savage bark, ready to tear him apart, but Hayes is just faster.
Impossibly fast.
His fist slams into Dylan’s jaw in one brutal blow that sends all one hundred seventy pounds of Dylan Masterson flying across the yard. He hits the side of the frat house hard enough that the windows rattle.
“You son of a bitch!” Dylan wheezes, clutching his elbow. “I think you broke my arm!”
His expression twists from shock to fury, but with Hayes’s glare locked on him and Argyros circling him like a shark, he doesn’t dare move. Hayes stands there, chest heaving, fists still clenched, like he’s one breath away from slugging Dylan again.
I scramble to my feet, swaying.
“Hay?” I ask. “What… what are you doing here?”
He turns to me as if suddenly remembering I’m there, and all that fury drains away instantly.
“Are you okay?” His voice softens into something raw and gentle.
“I—I’m…”
My chest tightens, the night collapsing in on itself, and I bolt from the backyard. I sprint inside, ducking into the first open bathroom I see, hands shaking as I slam the door behind me and twist the lock. Then I check it again, just to be sure.
I turn on the cold water and splash my face, catching my reflection in the mirror. Mascara streaks down my cheeks, and there’s a smear of dirt on my skin, like I crawled out of something primal.
The girl in the mirror doesn’t even look like me.
Oh God…
My stomach lurches and I sink to the floor.
What the hell just happened?
And Hayes.
How did he get to me so fast? We were all alone outside. I’m sure of it. And the way his punch sent Dylan flying into the wall? It wasn’t possible…
A flicker of memory hits me then without warning, like a freight train. Suddenly, I’m twelve again, looking up at Hayes’s treehouse. Then falling, pitching backward, knowing with absolute certainty that I’m about to die. Hayes calling my name—and then… waking up in his arms. Safe. Whole. Like he’d always been there.
Except… that can’t be right.
