“I don’t. You’re just easy to read.”
I don’t buy it. Bringing the end to my lips, the taste hits me instantly. A sweet yet deathly spicy taste touches my tongue. I inhale a little, afraid that it’s some kind of weed and I’m about to cough my lungs up. Only my lungs expand easily, leaving the sweet taste of rose in the back of my throat, before I blow out a steady cloud of smoke. My head feels light as my muscles relax, and suddenly, I don’t care anymore.
I don’t give a fuck about Knight.
I don’t care if I ever go back to Earth. In fact, a laugh bubbles up my throat and my hand flies to my mouth to stop it from coming out. Nope. I failed. Because it comes out.
“Holy crap.”
“Careful, little one.” The woman giggles, taking the smoke from me. “You can’t be saying the H word down here.”
Down here.
“So I’m down?” I ask, narrowing my eyes and relaxing into the chair.
“Oh, let me guess,” she starts, sucking on the blunt. I’m pretty sure it’s a blunt. Like for magical creatures. “Deveraux didn’t tell you anything.”
“Nope. The asshole just stole me away from Earth and threw me down a portal without a word.”
“Mmm,” she murmurs, swiping her lips with the back of her thumb before handing me the trunk again.
I take it. Because I’m me. I take another hit, this time more than the last. It goes down the same, almost like air. Damn. This is the best weed ever.
“Stole you, you say.” She clucks her tongue against her upper mouth as if that is not the case. “Well, I guess we can rest in one fact.”
I don’t bother to ask what she means because everything just seems lighter. The stress I felt moments before, the ache in my stomach when I’d think about Ben and how much I missed him. It is all gone. Poof. Up in a cloud of smoke.
“I don’t know what is happening,” I whisper, the most honest words I’ve said in a long time. “Just when I think I have it figured out, I get whisked away to another world. One I never thought existed.”
“I need to ask you something,” the woman says. “And my name is Zhara.”
Zhara. Even her name is all…mystical-like.
“Okay, ask.” I wave to the spot between us.
“What do you know about your childhood?”
I sigh, shrugging my shoulders. “As much as any other person. Birthday parties, a few camping trips.”
“Be more specific.”
Jesus, um. “My uncle raised me after my parents died. We…liked taco Tuesday like most people and I preferred recess over class time, again, like most did.” I shake my head, knowing this isn’t what she’s looking for, but my childhood, aside from being raised by my uncle and not my parents, was literally that normal. “I had a basic life. Why?”
The Mage stares at me blankly.
“Huh. No reason.” Her eyes shift to my hands. “Can I read your palms?”
My hands are meeting hers before I can decide. I watch as she studies the lines, humming and whispering under her breath.
She drops them like they caught on fire, her face paling slightly. “I think you should go.”
“What?” I don’t quite catch the seriousness in her tone.
“Now!” She stands to her feet, pointing one long manicured finger to the door. “Leave. Please, Little Crow. Don’t come back here. Don’t cross the bridge, and if you can run,” she urges, “do it.”
I stand, picking up the keys to my car and rushing out the door. The outside slaps me across the face like a cool bag of ice, and the magnetic draw I had toward the store is replaced with an aching emptiness resting in my gut.
I want to go home now. I want my bed, my best friend, and normalcy.
But unlikely for me, since it seems I can’t have anything I want so long as he wants me.
What’s most troubling, though, is that deep down, in places I can’t reach or name, there’s a dark whisper that leaves a trail of goosebumps in its wake, and it’s saying something like… I want the obsessive, possessive bastard just as much.
Fuck.
Twenty-Five
Knight
Hunger crawls its way up my spine the farther and farther I walk away from her. Desperate to see her fight, run, or do anything against me. Why the fuck isn’t she freaking out? Demanding, the little it would do, to know why I just snatched her pretty little self from her world and dumped her into the corruption of mine?
I mean, she asked, but that’s it.
No fucking fight. No shoving or clawing.
It’s irritating and weak of her.
Maybe she knows she’s safe with me? What the fuck?!
I shake the thought off.
She is not safe with me. I’m the last fucking person in the realm and the next she’s ‘safe’ with. Not that I fucking care. I brought her here so I could keep an eye on her and make sure she’s not giving away what is mine—as temporary as it might be—that’s it.
I hit the main lobby just as the door opens and closes and Creed walks through. His jaw bounces when he clenches his teeth, and I don’t have to be a descendant of a telepath to know that something has recently crawled up his ass and has no intention of coming back out.
“Why would you bring her here?” He frowns.
“You’re asking like you don’t know, brother.” I go to step around him when he counters it and moves into my space.
“I don’t trust her.”
“I don’t need you to.”
“You shouldn’t trust her.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I growl, shoving him out of the way. I fucking hate that I left her there. Maybe I should have portaled us both home, to fucking hell with her sickness every time she goes through it. No one will touch her in Rathe. They can all smell me on her.
“Knight!” Creed calls out just as my foot hits the bottom stair. “You and I both know this isn’t going to end well. She’s a fucking human. Do what you need and then let her go.”
I ignore my brother, pounding up the stairs to our family home and making my way into my bedroom, kicking the door closed behind me. I wave my hand over the TV screen, and it pulls up a video of London. She’s in her car with tears falling down her cheeks. Sobs break out from between her lips, and I hate that anger swirls inside of me at the scene.
I click a portal and step through the swirls, taking the first step out and directly to the passenger door of the Ferrari Sinner gave her. Fucking idiot. He can pretend that he wants to fuck with her all he wants, but I’ve seen him with her.
She jumps when I slide into the passenger seat and slam the door closed, turning to face her. “Who did it?”
“What?” She glares at me through the tears in her eyes, her cheeks red and her scowl deep. I hate that even now, with ugly fucking tears littered all over her face, that one of her gets my dick hard more than one thousand dragon sluts ever could. “You, you fucking asshole! Take me home.”
My mouth slams closed, and I clench my teeth. “What?”
“Take me!” she screams. “Home! I want my best friend.”
“Your what?” I ask calmly, raising a brow at her. At this point, I’m toying with her, but it’s amusing to see her angry. Mad. Bet she fucks like a weapon when she’s this worked up.