I might be scared, but they are, too. They’re just better at hiding it.
“Okay.” My voice is little more than a whisper, but the way his grip relaxes a fraction proves he heard me.
Kodiak turns in his seat to face me, offering a tight-lipped smile that doesn’t pair well with his currently demonic eyes, fighting hard against the desire to shift. “Which town should we head to next?”
My stomach sinks as I look between them; really look. With the exception of his tattered clothes and the dark streaks on his skin, Stone’s practically good as new already, and Raiden’s only a little banged up and in need of a new shirt. But Kodiak looks like he got in a fight with a blender and lost, his skin riddled with more cuts and burns than I can count, yet he’s still smiling, all of them trying to putmeat ease like this entire thing isn’t my fault.
I should have stuck to my guns and kept my distance.
No point beating a dead horse; the damage is done. There’s a target on their backs now, so even if I cut all contact and ran halfway across the world, Malcolm wouldn’t simply forget them. He’d kill them the same way he’s killed everyone else I got too close to.
“I have no idea.” The seat belt digs in uncomfortably with me sitting sideways, and it’s worse when I try to get my phone out of my back pocket. “Or what I’d even do when I got there. My backpack was destroyed, along with all of my new paperwork.” I finally free my phone, but there’s a huge crack across the screen and it won’t turn on. “I have an ID, the clothes on my back, and twenty bucks to my name. No matter what I do, I can never get ahead, and I just... don’t know where to go from here.”
Stone clears his throat, shifting slightly in his seat to face me better. “Would you consider staying with us, at least while you regroup and figure out what you want to do? Because stalking with the intention of abducting you is one thing, Amara, but he tried to kill you this time.”
He traps me in his earnest gaze, and his direct scrutiny is more paralyzing than I was prepared for. Where Raiden’s is a punch to the gut, Stone’s is timeless enough to leave me mirroring his namesake. A multitude of pastel hues set in silver, iridescent and hypnotic, pin me in place, unable to so much as breathe. They say the eyes are the window to the soul, but it’s nearly impossible to decipher his emotions through them, taking away my one ability to get a read on people when all of my other defenses have already failed me. I’m left taking everything at face value with him; his claims, physical cues, and actions. All I can do is pray that I’m not making a massive fucking mistake, and take the biggest leap of faith in my entire life.
“I’ll stay... for now.”
***
“It looks worse thanit is. Seriously, I can walk.”
Stone only hesitates for a second before plucking me out of the backseat anyway. “And I can carry you. Don’t you want to heal as quickly as possible so you can get back on your feet?”
Tongue in cheek, I narrow my eyes at him, but he intentionally phrased it to where I wouldn’t be able to argue. Though his wounds are already completely healed, the scent of smoke and gasoline clings to what’s left of his shirt, masking his normal crisp, woodsy scent. It has the fight draining out of me, guilt worming its way in to steal any remaining protests from my tongue.
“You guys help Amara get settled,” Raiden commands, a hard glint in his eyes. “I’m going to run a perimeter check.”
Kodiak jogs up the walkway to reach the door first, and I’m shocked he has the energy after the six hour drive; I’m barely able to keep my eyes open. “Heads up, this onewillautomatically lock behind you, so watch me input the code.”
He waits for Stone to angle me so I can see the keypad, but doesn’t say the numbers aloud. You never know who might be lurking in the shadows, and plenty of other shifters have heightened hearing, so you can never be too careful. I’m not sure if I appreciate their attention to detail, or fear it.
The door closes behind us with an echoing sense of finality that sends every one of my nerve endings into overdrive. As if he can sense my sudden spike of anxiety, Stone retreats outside again, bending down so that I have access to the keypad to test the code myself. When it opens without resistance, it helps settle my nerves a fraction, but the click as it shuts once again coupled with the whirring of the automatic lock still has my stomach in knots.
Light grey walls surround us as we move from the entryway, down the hall, and into a pristine bedroom that looks like a military leader staged it for a house showing. A perfectly made twin-sized bed with a bleached white comforter, a solitary oak dresser, and an attached bathroom. Not much, nothing personal, but way more than I’ve had access to in ages.
It should make me thrilled, but all it does is remind me of how little I’ve managed to accomplish by my age.
Stone gently sets me down on the bed like I’m yet another bomb that will detonate when we least expect it. Grabbing a pillow, he props it under my injured leg before looking around the room, frowning slightly.
“Seriously, Stone, it’s not a big deal; barely even stings.You’ve seen me in a hell of a lot worse shape, and I still managed to walk three miles from the hospital to my car then. If anything, you should be the one taking it easy. You and Kodi took the worst of the blast.”
He gives me one of his signature sad smiles. “It’ll take far more than that to kill me. Trust me; I’ve tried.” Heading to the door, he clears his throat. “We’ll go shopping soon to get everything you need, but in the meantime, there are some clothes in the dresser you’re welcome to, along with anything else in the house. Try to get some rest, and if you need anything, just shout.”
The second the door closes behind him, I flop back on the pillows with a heavy exhale. There are so many thoughts racing through my mind that it’s a chaotic jumble, leaving me simply staring up at the ceiling and waiting for it to reveal the answers to all of my problems. When the silence becomes oppressive, closing in on me until the weight is suffocating, I scrunch my eyes shut tight, latching onto the first question that stands out above the rest.
Why would Malcolm want to kill me?
“Think logically, Amara,” I murmur. “You’re a creature of habit as much as you try to be anything else. Every first day in a new city, you typically spend it putting in applications until past sundown. You came back early, to the car that not only a shifter bought you, but a dragon shifter. Of course he’d want to blow it up, and likely assumed I wouldn’t be there at the time, would come back that evening to find it destroyed, and nowhere left to run but back into his arms.”
He tolerated my human hookups because they weren’t threats to his fated mate delusion, slaughtering them afterward to remind me that they were disposable. Meaningless. These three? They’re everything that Malcolm has always feared, and I don’t think even I’ll escape his wrath this time.
