“You know,” she says, “for a man who already has a woman, you sure have the nerve looking at another one.”
I find myself confused. “What?”
She yanks her jeans up over her damp thighs and zips them as I stare at her. “Oh, don’t insult me. I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“What are you—”
“You kicked me out for Lydia, Lucas.” She glances up at me, hair dripping, eyes blazing. “The way she looked at us? The way she looked at you? The way you looked at her? I’d have to be an idiot not to see that there’s something going on.”
“There’s—”
“You can do whatever you want.” Her voice cracks, just slightly, and she covers it with another hard laugh. “Honestly. I don’t want to get in the way of your happiness. If you had simply told me you were interested in someone…No, you know what? Screw you, Lucas! How dare you kiss me when you have someone already? You are trash. You are the epitome of garbage, and I’m insulted that the Goddess chose you for me. The one thing I can’t stand is a cheater.”
“Cheater? But I didn’t—”
“It’s fine.” She sniffs derisively. “There are plenty of good-looking shifters here, and I’m no nun. I’m glad I found out when I did. Otherwise, I would have been trying to convince you to—”
She trails off, buttons her jeans, and reaches for her shoes, her movements jerky.
Plenty of good-looking shifters? Is she planning to—
“I’ll see myself back,” Sienna says without looking at me. She brushes past me and starts walking.
My hand shoots out and closes around her wrist.
My fingers are wrapped gently but firmly around the delicate bones of her wrist. Her skin is cool from the water. I can feel her pulse leaping under my thumb, and I can feel my own pulseanswering it. She doesn’t try to pull away, but she doesn’t turn around, either.
I’m looking at the back of her head, at the wet, dark curtain of her hair, at the tense line of her shoulders under the damp fabric of her shirt.
“There is nothing going on between Lydia and me,” I tell her.
She goes very, very still. She doesn’t walk away.
And for the first time since I set eyes on her in that hallway at Darius’s house, I don’t want her to.
Chapter Eight
Sienna
I stare down at his hand wrapped around my wrist.
Lucas’s fingers are long and strong, the knuckles lightly scarred from a lifetime of fights I’ll never know about. His thumb rests exactly over my pulse, and I know he can feel it hammering.
I try very hard not to let any of what I’m feeling show.
“There is nothing going on between Lydia and me.”
His words echo in my skull, and they should feel like relief. They should feel like a door cracking open. Instead, they feel like a second slap, even harder than the first.
Because if he’s not with Lydia, then the humiliation in that library wasn’t about protecting another woman. He didn’t kick me out to spare someone he loved. He kicked me out because kissing me embarrassed him. Because he was ashamed of kissing me, specifically.
My throat closes.
I had made peace with the other version during my walk back from the library last night. I had built myself a whole, little, graceful narrative in those corridors: He’s in love with someoneelse. It’s tragic, but I’ll bow out with dignity. I’ll find someone who actually wants me. It was a story I could live with. A story that let me keep my pride intact.
But he just ripped it in half.
Breathe, Sienna, I tell myself.
