He sighed and shoved his fingers back through his thick hair. “I know,” he hedged, “I know. It’s just… something isn’t right.”
“You’re telling me,” I muttered.
A beat of silence hung between us. Then he squared his shoulders, some sort of decision made.
“I’m staying the night,” he announced. “It’s late. I’m tired. And no way am I leaving you here with whatever the hell is going on.”
I didn’t even have the energy to fight him. I was exhausted. Defeated. Broken up over the TDH incident and everything else. So I just lifted a shoulder and said, “Fine.”
Zane cocked his head and studied me, his expression softening. “You can’t blame yourself for the human’s death.”
I scoffed. “But Ichosehim.”
“And Lord Zebulon’s Tracker failed him,” Zane replied. “Someone is to blame here, Gwen, but it’s not you.”
Gwen.
I was so startled that all I could do was stare at him for a long moment. He stared back at me, clearly unaware of what had stumped me.
“What?” he finally asked.
“You called me Gwen.”
He frowned at that. “So?”
“So you never call me Gwen, always Guinevere.”
He shrugged. “Don’t you prefer Gwen?”
“Yes.” I dragged the word out, because it was true but…
“Then what’s the problem?”
“It’s…” I trailed off. “Never mind. I’ll go prepare the guest room for you.”
I left him still standing in the middle of the living room, my heart beating a little harder.
Zane didn’t refer to me by my nickname, and it sounded entirely too intimate on his lips. Like he’d peeled back a wall that had been erected between us for too long. It pitched me over the edge into hazardous waters.
Walking away provided me with a floating device. A safety clutch. A method of escape. One I desperately needed before I drowned beneath the tidal wave that was Zane.
His charm and care would be my undoing.
And I’d spent far too long crafting this boulder between us for him to take it down so easily.
Chapter Thirteen
Gwen
“Zane?” I called, trying to find him. He hadn’t followed me upstairs to the guest room like I’d expected.
Not in the living room.
Not in the kitchen.
Frowning, I checked outside to see if he’d left, but his car was still in the driveway. “Zane?” I tried again, starting to panic that something had happened to him.
“I’m up here, Guinevere,” his deep tones informed me, his tone beckoning sex. It just came naturally to him as an incubus. But sometimes I really felt like he did it on purpose to taunt me.
