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She tensed when Aiden made no move to shift away from her, realizing it wasn’t accidental. He couldn’t be serious. Blaire jerked her head back to look at the screen as she moved her leg away, rubbing her palm on her thigh. She couldn’t see the movie, but she did her best to pretend.

Another woman screamed on the screen as the killer found her hiding in her closet and Blaire jumped, her heart beating fast in surprise. She then felt a gentle graze across her hand—a comforting gesture—and her heart rate kicked into overdrive. Aiden had his hand on hers. Willing herself to calm down, she bit down on her lower lip as Aiden slowly moved his hand away after dragging his fingertips to her wrist. The actions were simple, but her inexperience made her nervous and unsure of how to handle the situation.

Blaire glanced at Aiden, who stared at her with a hard expression before his eyes flickered past her. She tensed and slowly turned her gaze to meet Lukas’s eyes. His brows were narrowed and his gaze searching, the muscle in his jaw jumping as he stared at her. The plastic water bottle crinkled in his hands from the tight grip he had on it. Her chest hurt from how hard her heart raced. The tightness made it hard to breathe.

Lukas opened his mouth to say something, but Blaire cut him off.

“I… I need to go to the bathroom,” Blaire blurted as she stood abruptly and squeezed past Lukas and Riley, not daring to look back as she moved down the stairs of the theater.

Blaire splashed water on her face, putting her hands on the sink as she tried to calm down. She didn’t understand what happened in the theater. Aiden wasn’t just being friendly in there. Riley was right, or at least Blaire began to think so. Aiden sure acted as if he liked her. Had he shown the signs before, and she missed it? She had no idea if the time they spent together had meant more to him than friendship.

Sighing, she dried her face with a paper towel before heading out of the bathroom and stopping short with a gasp. Lukas stood across the hall, leaning on the wall with his foot propped on it, his arms folded over his chest. His eyes were cold as he glared at her. He hadn’t looked at her that way since the first day when he tried to make her leave. She didn’t like it.

Blaire looked around at the empty hall, and backed up into the bathroom, hoping that would be enough for her to avoid Lukas for the moment, because he looked pissed, and she wanted to give him the opportunity to calm down so she could talk to him. Apparently not, because he shook his head at her as if to tell her no and pushed off the wall, advancing toward her as she backed into the bathroom. He wasn’t going to let her get away so easily. Whatever he was mad about clearly had to do with her, and she wasn’t sure she was prepared to deal with it.

Looking from side to side, she backed inside the bathroom as he came toward her like a predator stalking its prey. The way he came toward her reminded her of the night Caleb took her to his bed. So much anger in his eyes. Her mouth went dry.

She quickly backed into a stall, and her hands shook as she grabbed for the door to shut it and lock him out, but Lukas moved faster than she did. He pushed his way inside the stall before she could engage the lock, forcing her into the back corner next to the toilet. He latched the stall door behind him.

Before she could figure out how to slip past him, he stepped to her, moving to press his body to hers the same way he had done in the courtyard, his intoxicating scent hijacking her senses, warring with her fear. Fear of what this Vasirian, who seemed thoroughly pissed at her, might do while they were alone. He didn’t seem like the Lukas of the past few days. Even at his worst when they first met, he wasn’t like this.

It wasn’t just his body language or the look he gave her that spoke of his anger. On some level, she felt his anger. It wasn’t something she could put into words; tension that wasn’t there before she left the theater vibrated through her.

Blaire slowly put her shaking hands up against Lukas’s chest to try to keep at least some distance between them.

Lukas stared down at her. “What the fuck was that all about in there?”

“W-what are you talking about?”

He scoffed. “Don’t. I could feel the tension rolling off you in waves. I could hear your heart beating wildly.”

Lukas clenched his jaw as he obviously struggled to keep his composure. What the hell was he talking about? Feel her? Hear her?

“Nothing was going on,” Blaire blurted, desperate not to say the wrong thing.

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not… I wasn’t doing anything.”

Lukas licked his lips, and she could have sworn she saw fangs when his lip pulled back.

“Then why were you so wound up?”

Blaire looked everywhere but at Lukas directly. “I don’t know…” She didn’t want to tell him about Aiden and cause a scene, or worse, ruin their fragile friendship.

Lukas hit the stall wall above Blaire’s head with the side of his fist. She jumped and dropped her arms from his chest, pressing them against the wall at her sides. The sound was loud in the empty bathroom. Lukas covered her mouth with his hand as a woman entered the bathroom, stifling Blaire’s yelp. She stared up at him with wide eyes.

Lukas placed a finger over his lips in a silent command.

The minutes stretched as they stared into each other’s eyes. The tension between them ebbed gradually, and Lukas’s facial muscles relaxed as he focused on her eyes. How was she able to feel him like this?

The woman’s heels clicked on the floor further away as she exited the bathroom. Would Lukas get angry again? She began to tremble again.

He gently removed his hand from her mouth.

“Please don’t hurt me…”

Lukas’s eyes widened, and he stepped back, stricken.