Page 9

She didn’t know what to do with that.

“Sit down, at least,” she said, and she had no idea why those were the words that came out. She’d meant to tell him to leave again. Her throat throbbed. She pressed the dish towel against it and felt the heat of the swelling under the fabric.

Chris pulled the single wooden chair from behind the counter. Set it against the wall, facing the open doorway. Sat down.

Then he waited.

The silence lasted long enough for Sloane to hear the wind move through the tree line outside. Long enough for the adrenaline to finish draining from her limbs, leaving her knees soft. She lowered herself onto the edge of the cot because her legs were going to give out whether she wanted them to or not and tucked her hands between her thighs to hide the shaking.

He didn’t look at her hands. He was watching the tree line through the ruined doorframe, his body still, his breathing even.

She sighed deeply. “Are you going to stay there?”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“However long it takes.”

“Takes for what?”

He looked at her then. His eyes moved across her face, touched the bruises darkening on her throat, and came back up. “For me to be sure he’s not coming back.”

The steadiness in his voice scraped against a raw place inside her chest. She wanted him to yell. She wanted him to demand answers, to throw the bond in her face, to tell her she owed him an explanation because the magic had put his name beside hers. That was territory she understood. Men who pushed, men who grabbed, men who took what they decided belonged to them. She’d been raised inside that language. She knew every word.

Chris sat in a wooden chair with his hands on his knees and watched her silently.

“I know what you’re doing,” she said at last, the silence becoming unbearable.

“What am I doing?”

“Waiting me out. Staying quiet so I feel obligated to talk. It’s a tactic.”

“I’m just sitting. I am not expecting or forcing anything.”

“It’s a tactic. I’ve seen Viktor do it in briefings.”

His mouth moved. Not a smile, but the muscle memory of one, there for half a second before he caught it. “Viktor waits people out because he enjoys watching them sweat. I’m sitting here because a man just tried to strangle you, your door is broken, it’s dark, and I’m not leaving you alone in a house without a lock.”

“I don’t need a lock.”

“You didn’t have one before, either, and look how that turned out.”

Her blood flared hot. “Careful, Chris.”

“I’m being careful. I’m being extremely careful. If I weren’t being careful, I’d be in the tree line right now tracking the man who put those marks on your neck.”

“Why aren’t you?”

“Because you’re more important than catching him.”

The words hit her sternum. She felt them land there, felt the impact spread through her ribs, and she hated it. Hated the way her body responded to five casual words from a man she did not trust, had no reason to trust. Her wolf pressed forward, warm, urgent, straining toward the man in the chair with a pull that felt like a hook behind her navel. She shoved it back.

“Don’t do that,” she muttered, avoiding his eyes again.

He did not wait. “Do what?”

“Talk like you care.”