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“I dream of killing my dad,” he whispered. That voice was hoarse, and there was a cold, manic glint in his eyes, the one she’d seen the first couple times she’d collided with him. The face he wore when he stood on the world stage. The mask he rarely took off. His smile tipped down a bit, looking more like that baring of teeth—the shark’s mouth—he always used to give her. Seeing it again sent a violent shiver up her spine. “Truth or lie?”
“Truth,” she mouthed.
The corner of his mouth twitched with that same, dark humor that shone in his eyes. “Does that make me a bad person?”
The skin on her arms and legs pebbled. “No,” she decided. “He’s a bad person for making you feel that way.”
Shayla slept with Roman in his bed.
Roman had never been the type to actually sleep with women. He usually left the minute the fucking was over and done with, so it went against everything he believed in when he told Shay, “Come here” once they made it back into the motel room. The look on her pretty face told him she was expecting those words to come with the same benefits he’d given her the night prior, when he’d made her moan his name as she came on his fingers.
But she laid down with him anyway. And neither of them tried anything with the other. Roman just held her, her back against his front, her chest rising and falling under his arm.
She fell asleep quickly, and Roman did too.
Tonight, he didn’t crave sex. He craved comfort—something he hadn’t been given since before his mom died.
And so what if he barely knew Shay? So what if she’d stolen from him? So what if he had a reputation to uphold as Shadowmaster and Wolf of the Hollow? He was just a man, and out here in the desert, in this tiny, stuffy motel room, he’d managed to find something he’d spent twenty-seven years looking for.
He wasn’t sure what to call it yet, but it filled that void inside him and made him feel whole.
There were a lot of cracks in his soul, though. So he knew the feeling wouldn’t last long. But he decided he deserved to enjoy this moment, this slice of peace and comfort, before that strange thing filling the gaping hole inside him slipped through the cracks and left him empty once more.
57
Roman’s House
YVESWICH, STATE OF KER
Loren stood in Roman’s kitchen, chugging her second glass of water in under five minutes. She drained the whole thing, and once the last drop was gone, she looked at the water dispenser on the fridge with longing.
It was morning. She had woken up several minutes ago with a thirst that was staggering. Her mouth felt drier than a desert, and from moment she’d woken up, her stomach was assaulted with pangs so painful she had practically sprinted down here. The rest of the house was quiet, but she knew she wouldn’t have been left alone.
“Thirsty?” said a quiet male voice from behind her.
She turned to see Tanner Atlas drifting into the kitchen in gray sweatpants and a baggy white t-shirt. He was watching her with a frown, brows pulled together. His wolf Familiar stood at his side, head cocked to the left.
“It’s like I can’t get enough,” she admitted. She swallowed, her throat already dry and aching.
He held his hand out, the back of it facing her, and motioned toward her forehead. “May I?”
She set the glass down and nodded. He stepped closer, flattening his fingers against her forehead.
His frown deepened. “Do you feel cold?”
Feet pattered on the floor. Ivy walked into the room wearing exercise clothes, her hair tied up, Soot trotting beside her. The dog was a female version of Bandit—darn near identical.
Ivy slowed, her gaze flicking between them. She took out one wireless earbud. “Something wrong?”
“Loren’s cold,” Tanner said. “And she can’t quench her thirst.”
Ivy took out the other bud and walked over. “Can I see your tattoo? The Caliginous one.”
Loren rolled up the sleeve of her hooded sweatshirt and showed them. Her skin was so pale, the blue of her veins showed through, but at least that wasn’t anything new; she’d always had trouble keeping a tan.
The new ink was pulsing white, the light rippling in tune with her heartbeat, from the curve of the C to the loop of the heart and the zigzagging end.
The garage door banged open. Pounding feet and male voices drifted into the house.
