“So what do I tell Killean?” Saxon asked.
“I’d like to speak with him,” Ronan said.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Simone watchedKillean as he ran a hand through his brown hair and tugged on the ends of it. When he released it, it fell in a tussled wave about his handsome face. Her fingers twitched with the impulse to run her finger over the sharp blade of his cheekbone before pressing her lips to his.
“Who was that?” she inquired to distract herself from the idea of kissing him.
“Saxon. He’s going to speak with the others.”
She almost asked if they would take him back, but the question died in her throat. She doubted he knew the answer.
After everything he’d done for her, theyhadto take him back.
Her gaze fell to the faint, white scar on his chest again, and without thinking, she leaned across the distance separating them. “Where did you get this?”
Killean recoiled and threw his hand up to knock her fingers away the second they brushed across the circular mark. Memories of that hideous night crashed through him, a snarl curled his lip before he launched to his feet. Only one man had ever asked him about the events surrounding his acquisition of it. That man was dead.
“That’s not for little dollies to know,” he growled as he stalked over to the bags at the end of the bed. Opening one of the bags, he dug through the clothes and pulled out a maroon T-shirt.
Simone’s hand remained hanging in the space between them before she lowered it. He hadn’t bruised her when he knocked her hand aside, but the volatility of his reaction stunned her.
She watched as he tugged on a shirt with jerky movements so different than the fluid grace he usually possessed. She had no idea what she’d done, but once her shock over his reaction wore off, anger replaced it.
“Stop calling me dolly. I’m not a fragile, breakable thing. I survived what many wouldn’t, and I have suffered!” Simone somehow managed to hide her astonishment over her raised voice. She’dneverdone that before.
Killean lifted his head to glare at her. “You endured two weeks of Hell, but I’ve been roasting in the pits for over four hundred years.”
“Oh, you poor, tormented vampire, you.Everyone endures adversity, some more than others, but the strong ones choose not to let it turn them into miserable…” she tried to think of the best way to describe him before blurting, “jerks!”
“We really have to teach you how to swear, dolly.”
Simone lost the composure she always carefully maintained as she launched to her feet. “Just because I’m not some classless barbarian like you, doesn’t make me a doll!”
“Barbarian, you’re upping your word game with that one.”
Her fingers hooked into claws as she contemplated tearing his face to shreds. “Maybe I’ve led a sheltered life and haven’t endured the suffering you claim you have, but at least I’m not a coward hiding behind my misfortune to keep from getting close to others likeyou!”
She knew she’d struck a nerve when his eyes flared red and a vein in his forehead throbbed to life. The murderous look on his face should have petrified her; instead, she found her back straightening while she held his infuriated gaze.
Killean stalked toward her until they stood toe to toe. Simone lifted her chin, and her white-blue eyes blazed with defiance when they met his. She infuriated him, but he enjoyed this sign of strength from her.
“I can handle anything you or anyone else throws at me,” she said.
“Can you, dolly?”
“Yes!” she practically shouted and almost kicked him in the shin. “I’m not fragile, and I’ve seen the worst of what the evil in this world has to offer!”
“You haven’t scratched the surface of the evil in this world. It’s not just vampires who are capable of committing atrocities.”
“I know that!”
“Do you?” He lowered his head until their noses were almost touching. “Do you think it’s only vampires and humans?”
An uneasy chill slid down Simone’s spine as she stared into his red eyes. He wasn’t just angry, and not just being cruel; there was something else in his gaze, something so lost and damaged it made her yearn to hug him as much as it frightened her. But she also didn’t understand who else he could be talking about.
Then she recalled his wrath toward her on the beach, his aversion of her kind, and she decided she didn’t want to hear anything else he had to say. But only a dolly would hide from the cold truths of their world; she refused to be a sheltered, frightened woman anymore.
