I didn't answer. Didn't need to. We both knew what I was doing. I was throwing myself into routine, into the mindless repetition that usually brought me some sense of peace. The familiar rhythm that kept the chaos of my thoughts at bay.
It wasn't working.
Nothing had worked since she'd walked out that door. Since I'd watched her disappear into the night, her green eyes haunted and her power still crackling in the air between us.
"She hasn't been back," Jamal guessed quietly.
My hand tightened on the glass. "That's okay. That's good."
"Liar."
I shot him a look. Even flashed my fangs. "Drop it."
He raised his hands in mock surrender but didn't move. "Angel says Talin's been holed up in her apartment. Trying to have visions on her own. She thinks she's being secretive about it, but all the witches know."
Everything in me went still.
Wrong. That was wrong. Her power was too unstable, too raw. She needed?—
No.
I forced myself to breathe. To set down the glass with deliberate care. To keep my voice even. "Not my problem."
"Right." Jamal pushed off the bar. "You go ahead and keep telling yourself that."
My temper flared to life. "She knows where I fucking am. Why is this witch my problem, Jamal?"
He stared at me for a long moment. "Yeah, man. You're right. It's not your issue."
When he'd left me alone with the bottles and the glasses and the pristine order I'd built around myself like armor, I went back to counting. Organizing. Cleaning surfaces that didn't need it.
Anything to avoid thinking about how I'd failed her. How I should've been helping her track down Alex, because finding him would save Kenya. And Kenya mattered to Jamal. To Killian. To Dae-Jung. To Brogan. Which meant she should've mattered to me. And she did, dammit.
My hands were steady. My routine was perfect.
And the itchiness under my skin kept growing.
I threw the towel down with more force than necessary and braced my hands against the bar's edge. My reflection stared back at me from the polished surface, every line of my body screaming with tension I couldn't release.
This was good, though. The distance was good. Necessary.
When I couldn't take it anymore, I shoved away from the bar and grabbed a bottle of bourbon from the shelf, just to have something to do with my hands so I'd stop thinking about how close her mouth had been to mine. How badly I'd wanted to taste her. How every instinct I possessed had screamed mine even as my brain shouted warnings about chaos and loss of control.
I was a vampire who'd survived over a century by maintaining iron discipline. By keeping everything in its place. By never letting emotions override logic.
Talin Moss was the fucking antithesis of everything I'd built my existence around.
She was unpredictable. Chaotic. Her power fluctuated wildly, her emotions bled through every carefully constructed wall she tried to build, and being near her made me feel like I was standing in the eye of a fucking hurricane.
I should stay away from her.
I should stay the fuck away from her.
So why did my entire body reject that idea with a violence that left me shaking?
The front door opened, and my head snapped up with a speed that would've alarmed me if I'd had any attention left for self-awareness. I knew it was her immediately. I felt her presence like a shift in air pressure. I smelled her clean, herbal scent that made the back of my throat burn with thirst.
Talin stumbled through the entrance, and my chest constricted so hard I couldn't breathe.
