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“Where are we going?” I ask.
An errant rock slides under my shoe and I stumble. Chloe ignores my fumbling and keeps pulling me along. If there’s anything that could take me out, it would be a rock.
“There’s someone who would like to see you.” She motions for me to keep following her until we reach a small clearing at the edge of the forest. Parked beneath a tree and smoking a cigarette is exactly who I expect to be waiting. The earlier chill still lingering on my skin, sloughs off and is replaced with a warmth.
“Are you in on this whole thing?” I ask, giving Chloe a furtive glance.
“Do you remember the part of our conversation the other day when we said Devil’s Bay protected their own?” Chloe replies, lips twitching at the corner.
“Why would you be protecting me?” I ask, curiously. She barely knew me.
“Why wouldn’t I protect another woman?” Chloe shrugs.
“Protect me from Kieran?” I ask.
The tapes.
She hums before looking away to the alleyway. There is something she also isn’t telling me.
“Marisa.” My stomach somersaults as every letter of my name is drenched in that deep velvety drawl.
“Sheriff Valen,” I remark as he approaches us. Painted onto his face is a skull mask. He slows his stride, dark eyes roving the tight corset, tracing the exposed column of my neck down to the billowing skirt that exposes my thighs to the cold night. Christian’s broad shoulders, coat dripped in shadows, the faint tug of his lips; all of it relinquishes any hold I may have had on my desires. Fuck, he is beautiful. I hate it.
“Thank you, Chloe.” He nods, dismissing her with ease. She scurries off without saying goodbye.
Flashes of teeth sinking into the soft swell of my breasts, lapping at the shimmering droplets of blood, allows a flush of heat to creep its naughty fingers along the curves of my shoulders. I tear my gaze away from him, only then does my traitorous desires quell its heady dance.
“Here.” He hands me a smaller skull mask. “I figured you wouldn’t be able to find a mask.”
“Really? We’re two skeletons?” An incredulous laugh launches from my mouth.
He retrieves a pair of wool cloaks and hands one to me and shifts out of his coat. It’s dark as the night and warm.
“Why am I doing this?” The idea seems silly.
“You’re spending the rest of this night with me, don’t want to be noticed, do you?”
“Don’t you think Kieran will notice?” I gesture to our outfits.
“Oh, he has plenty to discuss with the mayor.” Christian intones something I can’t quite pick up.
I open my mouth to say something but he speaks.
“Just be normal.”
He begins walking the way Chloe and I came from, and I follow. I stay silent beside him, maintaining that quiet hum of emptiness that lives in my mind. But as we continue walking, I feel that pull. The electric zap that tickles my skin even through the thick fabric of my cloak. My mind comes alive with thoughts of him. I wonder what he feels beneath that brooding exterior. Did he feel the chemistry between us? The one that makes me feel all too comfortable around him? Did he feel the pull that almost feels curated by these invisible gods?
“Are you enemies with Kieran because of a woman?” I glance up at him, that skull mask dredging up something from my labyrinth of a mind.
“Do you feel comfortable with me?” he asks in return.
“I do—but the jury’s still out on that one.” I reply, tugging the hood over my head.
“I’m glad to hear that,” he quips.
“So?” I prod.
“So…the answer is yes and no. This woman, we knew each other in high school…then college—long distance—and sort of drifted off into nothing. You know, right person wrong time?” He seems to daze off into his mind for a moment.
