And he lost me. “Isn’t that the same thing?”
“No, Drew, it’s not,” he said, sucking in a breath, and his shoulders slumped. “I didn’t plan on telling you, since I didn’t plan to remain in your life for it to be an issue.”
His words were like a knife to my heart, and I winced, hugging myself. “Well, you have to now,” I hissed, looking away. “Since you might have to stay in my life for a little longer, even if you hate it.”
“I don’t—” Lucien began, his tone snappy with anger, before he paused and asked, “What do you mean by that?”
I swiped my phone open and looked at the still-open messages from Thayer. “My older brother is flying in from Seattle today to visit me at my apartment,” I said, angry at how perplexed he sounded. “We haven’t spoken in a year since we had a huge fight. No texts. No calls. And yet he tried to reach out to me earlier today and insists he needs to talk to me in person about some letters he received. His messages allude to the fact he thinks I’m in danger.”
I turned to glare at Lucien, who in return seemed to become as still as a statue. “He can’t possibly know about you or the agents,” I said with a scowl, “so this must mean there is something else.”
Lucien sat back, a horrified kind of realization settling on his face. “Yes, there is something else,” he murmured, and before I could ask what the hell he meant by that, he put the car into gear and raced down the road. “We need to meet your brother. Together.”
My eyes widened. “What?”
“I thought there might still be time,” Lucien said, and there was fury in his voice now. “Time for me to make it seem like you’re not involved in anything. But it looks like my calculations were wrong. They must be onto you.”
“Who are you talking about?” I asked persistently, before I paused and realized it myself.
With Chase and Avenor chasing us down, and our ambush on Mack, Alby, and Dianna, the most pressing matter had completely escaped my mind.
The matter of who physically tried to kill Lucien.
Lucien himself said yesterday that his attacker might be after me, too, by mere association. That whoever they were might’ve also seen Lucien and me when we fled from my apartment and Chase.
Slowly, I turned to look at him. “You were resolute yesterday,” I said, trying to wrap my head around this whole thing, “about the fact I might be in danger from your attacker. And yet you said I was no longer in danger and asked me to go back home and be ‘safe and sound.’”
He must’ve heard the sarcasm in my last three words because he visibly flinched.
My suspicion grew. “It has something to do with me being your Eteria.”
He didn’t even bother hiding it, judging by the way his lips curled down. “I intended to station guards near you, just out of sight, so they would protect you.”
That infuriated me, but I forced myself to focus. “Lucien,” I hissed, hands curling into fists, “what the fuck aren’t you telling me?”
He drove faster, so much faster that I had to hold on to the upper handle for support. He didn’t seem to notice his foot was pressing the gas pedal for long periods. In fact, there was an odd look on his face that made him seem cornered.
And then he let out an unnatural, animalistic growl that made me stiffen and the short hairs on my body stand on end. “I’m the real danger, Drew,” he said in a guttural voice. “I’m trying to protect you from me.”
Chapter 17
A Court of Glass and Threats
I was still reeling from what he’d just said, still trying to understand what the fuck he meant by all that, when my phone went off.
Angered by the interruption, I looked at the screen and saw it was a number registered toRemi. I didn’t know a Remi.
But then I remembered the man who brought us the car. Lucien’s cousin. Lucien must’ve saved his number in my phone.
I showed him the screen, scowling. “Your cousin’s calling.”
Lucien stopped growling, and his entire body visibly relaxed as he took the phone from me, put it to his ear, and answered with a calm and irritatingly relieved voice, “Je te dois ton putain de milkshake préféré. Quoi de neuf?”
Without any idea what he was saying, or continued to say, as he spoke to Remi, I looked through the window at the view, feeling my fury refusing to abate.
I might not know Lucien that well yet, but he hadn’t struck me as the type to avoid uncomfortable topics. With him being an Alpha, it made no sense he would be.
But something about my being his Eteria set him off and made him squirm in a way that seemed uncharacteristic.
