Yanking my arm free, I said, “I was invited.”
“In Buffalo.” He clarified.
“I live here,” I declared, navigating into a sitting position. Just because he clearly had the power here didn’t mean I had to lie around like a lap dog.
“I thought you were going—what the hell is that?” he demanded.
Startled, I looked behind me. “What?”
Strong yet gentle fingers grasped my chin to pull me back around. Without letting go, he used his free hand to brush the hair back from my face, his nostrils flaring as though he were an enraged bull.
A growl rumbled through his throat. “Is that abruise?”
“Well, I did have gun jammed to my head a few hours ago,” I explained. Probably explained the headache too. It was good to know it was just that and I wasn’t dying.
His eyes turned into glittering slits, the temperature in the room dropping so fast I shivered. “I’ll kill him.”
“He’s already dead,” I said, replaying the way Kieran had brutally killed the man who attacked me and tried to kill Haz.
Cheekbones carved in granite, jaw set in stone, he tipped my face to the side and then back like he was taking inventory of something he owned. I said nothing. The heartbeat in my ears, too thunderous a sound, made it impossible to think.
“There are fingerprints on your neck,” he bit out.
“There are?” I asked, reaching up to where he stared.
Before I could even make contact, he folded his fingers around mine and drew them down, eyes sweeping over me like a possessive embrace. Like the only one allowed to touch me was him.
“He can run through this life and into the next, but not even death is a shield for my wrath.”
Oh.The idea that his authority was so finite—so violent—that he could use it to reach into the afterlife and exact revenge was powerful.
Knowing he would do it for me?
Everything else crumbled to second-best.
“Does it hurt?” he asked, voice shifting from jagged to silken, underscoring the benevolent tone with a soft brush of his lips across the tender spot on my temple.
My breath shuddered as I struggled to find a voice. “I’ll survive,” I answered because that was what he always said tome. Look at me matching energy. Holding my own.
Pulling back, he grasped my face, and I was swallowed whole by not only his embrace but the bottomless universe existing in his stare. It was like staring into infinity without feeling fear.
“Survival isn’t good enough for you, little mouse. I want you to thrive.”
Well, that was short-lived. To be fair, I couldn’t exactly match this energy because I didn’t even know what it was.But I like it.
I blame the hypnotism of his…everythingfor the words that tumbled free. “Then you shouldn’t have left.”
After his sharp inhale, we both froze, and if there had been a ticking clock in the room, it would have been the loudest counter of every single moment I’d died from embarrassment.
I was nearly expired when he let go of my face, making me feel like an untethered boat in a stormy ocean.
“I thought you were moving somewhere warm.” He was gruff, as if he didn’t even notice I was about to be lost at sea. Probably get scurvy too.
The hypnosis evaporated, and I plunged back into reality and straightened my spine. “I decided to stay.”
“Why?”
Because I wanted to see you again.“I got a good job.”
