“Settle down, for Christ’s sake. How did I get here?” Had he been hauled over the back of a horse? That little spitfire had probably smirked all the way back at the sight. It shouldn’t matter. She was merely a woman, a tenant, shrouded in doubt.
“Without dignity.”
Drake sighed. So his worst damn nightmare, then. “You always did have a gift for understatement.”
“Be grateful I’m sparing you the details.”
“If you’re about to scold me, you may as well begin.”
Maxen’s gaze did not soften the slightest. If anything, it darkened. “Your wound was cleaned and restitched.”
Drake deduced as much. The room smelled of spirits. “Much obliged.”
“Don’t bloody give me that. You were damn stubborn tonight. What the hell happened?”
“Apparently I offended a fop in London.”
“Just a bloody fop?” His gaze deepened. “It appears to be a hell of a lot more than that, Drake.”
“What can I say? I have a habit of calling disasters by lesser names.”
Maxen’s whole face turned murderous. “They tried to kill you. Apparently, it’s not the first time.”
Damn it. “I see Reaper ran his mouth.”
Maxen scowled. “He did not.”
Bloody fabulous.
“I deducedthatall on my own.”
Drake slanted an arm over his eyes. “I didn’t want to worry you, that’s all.”
“That’sall? Consider me concerned.”
He lifted his arm to raise a brow at his brother. “Wouldyouhave bothered me if you were in my shoes? Given all that we already have to deal with? You know—our wayward uncle.”
His brother sneered but said nothing.
“I should have told you.”
“But you didn’t.”
Maxen must be angrier than he thought. “About the refuge lodgings—”
“You do not have to explain yourself to me about that,” Maxen forced out. “I know why you kept it a secret. The woman must be important to you, then.”
“Not in the way you might be imagining,” Drake denied.
He could not afford attachment. Attachment was rot. Attachment gave enemies leverage and fate a handhold. Having experienced firsthand what loving the wrong person cost his mother, how devotion had become a weapon used against her, and how she had been abandoned and scorned, Drake had spent the better part of his life ensuring neither had a hold on him.
Whatever stirred when Violet’s eyes fell on him, whatever dangerous satisfaction that sparked, it had to be contained. Crushed, if necessary.
Men like him did not get to have desires without consequence. His brother was the only exception. But Drake knew Maxen paid for it daily. In worry. In obsession. In silence.On the other end of all this, Drake would hate to be the reason Violet suffered for believing him to be no danger to her.
He was. He always would be. The first kiss was the first crack. Everything from there was a gross lapse of judgement, and had allowed more tiny cracks to spread. Another could absolutely never happen. Violence did not de-escalate by itself. The same went for desire. There was no easy returning to the fate of before.
He’d failed himself.
