Loren merely waited.
“I would kill them,” Darien stated. She paled a little, her mouth parting in surprise. “Want to know what would happen if they walked through those doors and I wasn’t here?” He allowed for a heavy pause before saying,“Youwould be killed. Right here on this hideous rug, best cast scenario. Worst case, you would be dragged someplace else to die a much slower death after they got whatever they want from you.”
She suddenly started coughing, smacking her chest as if she’d swallowed her spit the wrong way. A few people at other tables turned around in their seats to stare.
Darien briefly pinched the bridge of his nose.Fucking hell.This girl was an accident waiting to happen.
She reached for her cola and took a long drink, her eyes glassy.
“Am I going to need to perform first-aid on you, too,” Darien said quietly as people continued to stare, “or can I wait until someone is trying to kill you to do the saving?”
She set down her glass and gave him another of those heavy, irritated looks that border-lined eye-rolling. After a moment, she said of his offer to help her, “What’s in it for you?”
It was a good question, he had to admit. “What’s in it for me?” he repeated. “I guess I haven’t figured that out yet.”
She wrung her small hands in her lap. No scars covered her ivory skin; no callouses that might indicate she’d ever held anything more dangerous than textbooks and pencils. All mortals were viewed by the likes of him as something that was easily damaged, easily killed. This girl was clearly someone who needed to be held the same way a person might hold a bird, cupping their hands over them out of fear of breaking their bones.
Why would anyone be after someone so delicate, so…human?
Darien learned forward, dipping his head to her level. “Trust, Loren Calla.” She did that thing where she peeked up at him from under her thick eyelashes. “It’s calledtrust.And I’m asking you to trust me.”
It took her a minute to reply, and for those entire sixty seconds, she wouldn’t look away from him, as if his soul were an open book and she was leafing through the pages of it.
She drew a deep, rattling breath. And then, very quietly, she told him, “Okay.”
8
People stayed out of their way as they wove around tables, toward the arched doors of Rook and Redding’s and the bright street beyond. Loren knew it had nothing to do with her and everything to do with the six-foot-four deadly bounty hunter at her side. She wondered idly if anyone else noticed the blood on his combat boots, or if it was just her.
The slayer had stared at her the entire Star-damned time. She’d feared she would choke to death on the crostini, and she hadn’t stopped sweating for the full forty-five minutes they spent in the restaurant, despite the air conditioning blowing full blast through the vents. And it wasn’t just because he was a cold-blooded killer, though that had quite a lot to do with it.
Darien Cassel was stunning. With numerals of an ancient era inked on his knuckles, and the kind of lethal gaze that could make grown men piss their pants in fear, he had trouble written all over him. But these things didn’t stop her from noticing that he had the face of a heartbreaker, with a strong jawline, a sculptured mouth, and eyes such a vivid steel-blue, they seemed to glow in certain light.
And hisvoice…Gods. She wasn’t even going to get started on his voice.
He was everything the rumors had claimed, and more.
And he scared the absolute bejesus out of her.
A hot gust of dry air threatened to suck out her eyeballs as they left the restaurant. The streets remained crowded, though people gave them a wide berth as they walked. For a moment, Loren wondered where this bounty hunter had been all her life. He would’ve come in handy all those times she’d wasted nearly her entire lunch hour standing in line at food carts and cafes.
Red and blue lights flashed in the distance, near the shaded alley between The Salted Caramel Ice Cream Parlour and Medea’s Magic Tricks. The law enforcement must’ve arrived sometime while they were in Rook and Redding’s—dining as though they had nothing to do with the dead bodies staining the alley red.
The Devil took hold of Loren’s elbow and steered her to the right, away from the peace officers that were monitoring the crowds, and the detectives that worked for the Magical Protections Unit analyzing the scene of the crime. She resisted the urge to pull away from him, despite that he’d offered to help her. In her defense, he’d pointed a gun at her temple not long before that.
“I need to lie low for a while,” he said, keeping his head tilted downward as he walked. As if that would help! The man was practically a death god incarnate. Even so, that striking face and body stuck out worse than the tattoo below his ear. “When do you get off?”
Loren ducked under a mister, the droplets of cold water settling in her hair. “Four thirty.”
“I’ll meet you around the corner up ahead.”
They reached the door to the apothecary, and he released his hold on her elbow as she rummaged around in her bag for her keys. No matter how clean she kept the darn thing, she still managed to lose track of them. Perhaps it was time she invested in one of those enchanted keychains that would make it impossible for her to ever lose them.
“Four thirty, sharp,” Darien added.
And what if I change my mind?she considered asking.
But by the time she looked up, he was already gone.
