His jaw clenches.“This matters.”
“So does my right to have a thought without everyone prying it open.”
Frustration flashes through his eyes, but he says nothing.Just gives me silence and space.Damn him.Damn him for learning that I need both.
I take a breath.Then another.“It might be nothing.”
“It isn’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know your face changed.”
“You study my face often?”
“Yes.”No hesitation.No shame.
Heat crawls up my neck.“Knox.”
“I watch everyone.”
“Liar.”
His eyes hold mine.“Not like I watch you,” he says.
There it is again.That dangerous sincerity.He doesn’t flirt like men in bars flirt.There’s no easy charm.No lazy smile.No practiced line meant to slide under my clothes.
Knox says things like they cost him blood.That makes them harder to dismiss.
My skin prickles.My body leans toward him before my mind can order it not to.He notices.The black flickers in his eyes again, gone almost as quickly as it appears.
He steps back.And I can’t explain how much the retreat irritates me.But it also calms something I refuse to name.
I look away and focus on the sink behind the bar.“There was a symbol.In the place they kept me.”
Knox doesn’t move.
“A circle,” I say, voice low.“A line through it.Three drops underneath.I saw it on the wall and on black wax.Maybe a seal.Maybe a brand.I don’t know.”
His expression hardens until his face looks carved from stone.
“You’ve seen it before,” I say.
“No.”
“Another lie.”His gaze snaps to mine.I laugh without humor.“You’re not as unreadable as you think.”
Something almost amused touches his mouth, but it disappears fast.“I haven’t seen it,” he says.“But Aldron might know it.”
Aldron.The ancient vampire with kind eyes and blood on his hands.The man who gave me a place to stay and never once pretended he was harmless.I like Aldron.That probably says something deeply concerning about me.
“Then we tell him,” I say.
“Tomorrow.”
“Now.”
“No.”The word slams into me.
