His broken smile turned into a bitter laugh. “That’s what we have to tell ourselves in order to survive the things we supposedly had to do to survive.”
“Gabriel,” she said softly, reaching for him, but he didn’t deserve forgiveness or redemption, least of all from Jacinda.
He didn’t deserveher.
He told her as much, pushing away her tender touches.
Ignoring his refusal, Jacinda removed the mug from his hands, set it on the end table with hers. Climbed into his lap and straddled him. Took his face between her hands.
“Gabriel.” Her tone was firm and commanding now, and he finally looked up at her, those blue eyes flickering in the firelight, full of passion. Full of fire. “You’ve made your confessions tonight. Now I need to make mine.”
Her hair spilled down over her shoulders, tickling his chest.
“Somewhere between the night I threatened to grind your bones into dust and the night you put me to work behind the bar… Somewhere between you ditching me in the wine cellar after getting me all hot and bothered and me ditching you in a ritual bath… Somewhere between begging you for that first kiss in your bedroom and another one tonight in the Gardens… Somewhere between dropping that first bottle of Bordeaux and sharing the second tonight under the most beautiful stars in the galaxy… I fell in love with you too, Gabriel Redthorne. Madly, terrifyingly, obsessively in love with you. So I don’t care what you think you deserve or don’t deserve, because I’m already yours. I’vealwaysbeen yours, and no ghosts from the past can change that. Now kiss me, before I have to bust out the hellfire.”
It flashed in her eyes, a warning and a promise.
And before him, the child flickered and vanished.
Gabriel slid his hands inside the back of Jacinda’s sweatshirt, pulling her close.
“You meaneverythingto me,” he whispered against her mouth. “Absolutely everything, and devil help the monster who tries to take you from me.”
Then he claimed her mouth, tasting a hint of her smoky hellfire, breathing her in, devouring her, sealing the promises they’d both made tonight with a searing kiss that burned hotter than fire.
But when he finally pulled back to look at her face, to take a breath, to tell her again how much he loved her, the ghost-girl emerged from the darkness once more.
She no longer held her hands behind her back, but out in front of her chest.
And there, clutched in her tiny fists, spilling blood down both her arms, was the severed head of a wolf.
A cruel smile twisted her face, revealing black teeth in a black mouth.
“I told you, vampire prince,” she hissed. “There’s a wolf at the door.”
She turned abruptly and headed for the exit, vanishing the moment she reached the door.
Gabriel slid out from beneath Jacinda and followed the girl’s path, shoving his feet into his boots and wrenching open the door.
Outside, the world was silent and white, save for the cherry-red stain spreading across the snow at the bottom of the steps.
“Gabriel, what’s wrong?” Jacinda crowded behind him, peering out from over his shoulder. “Holy fuck!”
A wolf lay in a pool of blood, its head severed from its body, a light dusting of snow covering its fur. Steam rose up where the blood met the ice.
A fresh kill.
“Cole!” Jacinda cried, trying to push past him.
He wrapped her in his arms and hauled her against his chest. “No. It’s not a shifter. Just a regular wolf. A warning.”
“But who the fuck would—”
A ringing in the cabin, a harsh buzz clattering against the table.
Gabriel’s cell.
They dashed back inside, adrenaline flooding them both. With a trembling hand, Gabriel picked up the phone. Glanced at the number flashing across the screen.
