Tom scrambles out of the driver seat but pauses before opening the door for me.
“Sir, I, uh, I don’t think the rabbits will like a bloody wolf in the seat with them,” he says breathlessly, as if afraid I’ll rip his throat out for suggesting it.
I give him a nod before lowering my head. Slowly but surely, I relax into my human form. Tom is right there again, holding out my jeans. I take my time, putting them on gingerly. My muscles ache from the transformation. Usually, I let myself run longer in my wolf form before shifting back. Unable to keep the slight limp out of my walk, I feel like my body has been through a meat tenderizer.
Shifting is the equivalent of an intense weight-lifting workout, where you work to muscle failure. While I’m used to being pushed past my limits when shifting, I’m not used to doing it so fast. I’ll need lots of water and protein to recover, or I’ll wake up with one hell of a cramp in my calves, or worse, my ass.
A wry smile pulls across my face. Maybe I could ask Red to help massage the knots out of my glutes.
Tom gets the door and I slide inside. He even hands me a couple wet wipes, and I quickly clean off the blood staining my neck and chest.
Instead of being terrified, the little rabbit returns to my lap. My arm loosely encircles Bombs as Tom drives around the parked car and carcass of the fire mage.
The rabbit’s tiny tongue is both rough and soft as he begins to lick my arm in earnest.
“He likes you,” Red says.
Under the sooty streaks, her face is bloodless. I recognize the strange distance in her voice. She’s numb, likely in shock. In the middle of the night, her apartment burned down, and she just watched me kill a man. It’s a lot to process, which is why I doubt she’s processing at all. It’s all on hold, teetering on the edge of a cliff.
Where we are going, I can give her a safe space and a soft landing.
Yet under all that I smell something else. Fear. Red’s afraid ofme.
Even as I put my attention on the rabbit in my arms, something in me cracks. It leaves a deep fathomless fissure in its wake.I’d never hurt her.
But as soon as I think that, I remember why we are together at all.
My mission is to destroy her only family.
Never once in my career did I doubt myself. But Red has me doubting absolutely everything.
While Bombs continues to lick my arm, I carefully smooth back his soft ears. “If it weren’t for your little pets here, I might not have woken up in time. They sensed the danger before me.”
A ghost of a smile touches her mouth before disappearing just as fast. “Where are we going?”
“Isn’t it obvious? To my place.”
Chapter29
A Modern Castle
BREXLEY
Tom offers to help us take the rabbits up, but I wave him off. The doorman at the Sky Woods complex gives me a nod as he unlocks and pulls open the glass doors to the lobby.
I can tell if Red had more hands she’d attempt to cover up her current state of undress. A true professional, he doesn’t even blink at our appearance. Good, I pay them enough not to bat an eye.
Red’s brows are drawn as we cross the jade floor to the elevators. We head up to the fourteenth floor and I lead her to an apartment on the far corner of the building. It takes my fingerprint to unlock the door, then I invite Red to enter before me.
“Lights on,” I say.
“Lights on,” a robotic voice repeats. Suddenly the apartment is awash in warm light.
Red gasps softly.
My two-level condo is primarily dark stone and warm wood tones. The living and kitchen area make up a large, open space. A dark metal staircase ascends to the second level that leads to the master bedroom and an office. The walkway is open and looks directly down into the main living area. A chandelier of glass globes the size of basketballs drips down over the living room.
“Shoes off,” I say, while toeing mine off. Then I add as an afterthought, “please.”
