“We agreed it was casual,” he says tightly.
“Ah, we did.” She inclines her head in mock agreement. “Pity.”
“We were also just leaving.” His hands flex at his sides, betraying both unease and agitation.
She gives him a smile with too many teeth to be considered warm. It’s more like a challenge. “Were you now?”
Can you just tell this bitch to skedaddle?
Be the asshole I know you’re capable of being. The one you save just for me.
I’m going to be frozen to this tree if we stay much longer.
You don’t tell a witch to skedaddle.
Oh shit.
Yes. Oh shit is correct.
He keeps his eyes on her, but I can see the tension in his stance. His shoulders are still, and his posture is calm, but it’s there. It’s in the tightness of his jaw, the way his fingers clench tightly at his sides, and his breath coming out too measured. The kind of stillness that occurs when someone is holding back their demons.
A witch.
Apparently, thereareactual witches in the Witchwoods. I knew something was off about her. Wait until I tell Ambrose.
Kingston’s eyes cut toward me, narrowed in a silent warning.
I shrug.
I’m too cold to raise my arm and give him the finger.
“We’ll be on our way now,” he says in a tone that clearly shows the conversation is done. He walks over to me and grabs my hand. Wisps of onyx shadows follow in his wake. He’s pretty brave turning his back on the woman whose eyes are currently promising pain.
“King,” she calls in a smooth voice.
He stops walking, his back still toward her. “Should your bed ever get lonely again, you know where to find me.”
Without answering her, he reaches down and grabs his helmet, then proceeds to pull us through the woods, back toward the academy.
I scoff.
Seriously, Adair? With a witch?
He looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “Jealous?” he asks, a sexual undertone lacing his words.
“Ugh, clearly not,” I remind him, staring at my hand gripped in his. “Here against my will, remember?”
“You seemed willing enough back in the clearing.”
I look at him like he’s crazy. “You are out of your mind. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“You’re in denial. Has anyone ever told you that?”
I stop walking, pull my hand from his, and cross my arms. “Explain.”
He fully faces me. “You’re not what you thought you were, yet you refuse to accept what you can be. You view this world in black and white when it’s so much more than that.” His lip curls. “Perhaps you should pull your head out of the sand, actuallystart trying in your dark studies and stop focusing so much on a man who clearly has no clue what he wants.”
His words sting. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
