I avert my eyes, not in shame, but in bashfulness.
This is indeed my last happy place. My only one, if I’m being truthful to myself. Those handfuls of stolen moments in this very chamber peruse in the back of my mind, and by the disheartened look on his face, he’s having the same memories wreak havoc in his.
“Little umbra,” he breathes, and I can’t take the softness, the brokenness behind that nickname.
“No.”
The word escapes my lips in a sob, and before I can think better of it, I turn around and run through the open doors.
It seems all I do in this cursed life is run away.
From my past.
From my family.
From the pain and abuse.
And now from him and the heartache of those lost moments of happiness.
I barricade myself in my room, looking for any flimsy sense of emotional safety, knowing that if he wanted, he could come barreling through those damn doors and through my wobbly defenses.
But he never comes.
And it’s better that way.
A knock pulls me out of my slumber, and I blink the haziness away, just as the first tendrils of daylight creep through the floor to ceiling windows.
Ugh, who in their right mind would come knocking at this hour? I throw my arms over my eyes, groaning. Maybe if I ignore whoever it is, they will leave me be.
“Umbra, get up.” Killian’s voice comes from the other side of the door, as the knocking becomes more insistent.
Of course, it’s him!
“Go away,” I call out, covering my face with the pillow.
I have no desire to see him, not after last night. And certainly not at the crack of dawn.
“Stop acting like a petulant child; it does not become you.”
His voice is no longer muffled by the door, and I peek from under my pillow to find him standing above me, clad in his signature black leather pants and billowing, half-unbuttoned shirt.
“Go away, Killian,” I repeat, refusing to move an inch.
“Don’t make me drag you out of this bed and carry you on my shoulder to the training hall,” he says, pulling the covers completely off me. The chilly morning air hardens my nipples into two unmissable nubs, and I realize a little too late I went to bed in a flimsy satin nightgown that leaves almost nothing to the imagination.
“You wouldn’t dare,” I sputter on instinct.
His gaze darkens, burning my skin as he takes me in.
“I don’t make threats I don’t plan to follow through on, Aimee. You should know that about me by now.”
He takes two steps closer to the bed, and his looming presence puts my body on high alert. I jump to my feet, trying to put as much needed distance between us as I can achieve, but he’s not having it. He crowds my personal space, and something electric, like static before a storm, crackles in the air between us. My shadows slither up and down my arms and legs, desperate to reach his.
“Will you back off already, you brute?” I say in agitation.
“No,” comes his simple answer. “You want to run away? Go ahead. Shadow walk yourself out of my presence.”
He’s trying to rile me up so I can use my powers to escape him.
