She chuckled to herself. Too many letters.
“Wait for me outside.”
Ronin nodded, then exited the cabin, ducking and angling his broad shoulders through the narrow door. He attempted to shut it, despite the useless hinges. Her chest tightened at the gesture. A radiant, achy longing she’d never felt before.
Love, perhaps? Whatever thisthingwas between them, it was all-consuming. Overwhelming in the best way.
What was it, if not love? Or at least the fragile seedlings of it.
With that thought bolstering her courage, she took a deep breath and opened the folder.
Mireille didn’t knowhow long she sat there, staring at the chipped blue paint on the wall.
It couldn’t be true.
She pleaded with whatever Gods actually existed for it not to be true.
Her knees buckled as she attempted to rise from the chair, instead crashing to the dusty floor. She rolled into a fetal position, clutching her stomach.
And her chest. Which had been cleaved in half.
A torrent of tears erupted, and she clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle them. Didn’t want him to hear. Didn’t want him to know.
Saliva and snot mingled on her palm as pain and anger and grief washed over her in relentless, violent waves. As if every emotion she’d kept caged for the past three centuries had finally broken free.
She’d thought she’d already freed them over these weeks with Ronin. Then realized she’d only freed the pleasant ones. The light ones.
The dark emotions were so much more powerful.
So much moretempting.
Her eyes darted to her sword, glinting with menace in the window’s soft light.
Avenge him, it taunted.
This had all been a mistake. A distracting, foolish mistake.
Familiar anger consumed her, chasing away all those other useless feelings. They’d never lasted longer than the pain anyway.
How could she have been so naive to think this time would be different?
She rose from the floor, swiping her nose with the back of her wrist, and stalked to the sword.
Then wrapped her hand around the hilt.
Ronin’sfirst sign that something was wrong was how long it was taking Mireille to read the contents of that folder.
He’d been standing outside the small cabin for a little over an hour, leaned back against a sticky pine tree, the resinous scent of sap stinging his nostrils.
Since his uncaging, his senses, even in his humanoid form, had heightened. Well, it was either the uncaging or his reduced Delirium consumption. It wasn’t that he didn’t need the elixiranymore. That craving, thataddiction, would never go away. It was a part of him, just as much as his wolf and his now non-magical tattoos.
But for the first time in his life, Ronin had a reason towantto curb it. To want to be present for every moment he spent with Mireille.
The past week had been utter fuckingbliss.
Deep down, he knew her feelings weren’t as strong as his. Not yet. The minute he’d seen her burst through that snake in her flaming wolf form, he’d wanted to get on his knees and proclaim his undying love.
But she was still skittish, still adjusting to a non-solitary existence, and he didn’t want to scare her away. So he’d be patient. Would wait to confess how he felt until a time when she’d be ready to hear it.
