What would he let them do tohimin her place? To stop them. To keephersafe?
Who was keeping him safe?
She placed her hand on his chest, over the thick muscle, to feel the steady beat of his heart beneath. Because she was just as protective as he was. She wanted him to know that he wasn’t without a family now.
‘Iwill protectyou,’ she promised.
Thanks to the Wake, she had to keep smothering herself and herfeelings. Keep her fear burning into the dark hours of the night as she thought about the thousand ways they could take her family. Keep her running through paintings and scenes in her own life, searching for the moment they could have possibly discovered her. Reality and art blurring until everything had taken on furious brushstrokes, slashing through the canvas of her thoughts. Spattered with blood; crackling with fire.
She was so frustrated.
She was so angry.
She was soscared.
And one thing her mother had written about in her books was how dangerous a scared hunter could be.
And how vulnerable.
‘Come with me,’ Kyan said.
He stepped back, and she mourned the loss of his closeness, her body reeling. Kyan shut and locked the window as Nicole tried to corral herself back into some semblance of civility, some level of placid human feeling. She went to gather her papers and cardigan when Kyan stopped her. He blew out the candles, took her hand, and, ducking out of the room, led her down the quiet corridor.
She heard Remi’s music mute as she activated a soundproofing device so she could keep playing, and the soft sound of Bells’ breathing as she slept. The others were still on the roof.
Kyan opened a door wider and Nicole stepped into his bedroom.
It was exactly as she’d imagined: dark and cosy with an enormous four-poster bed of glossy wood, the base carved with Celtic symbols and oak leaves. At the back of it, like a headboard, was a waterfall of navy fabric.
One small light burned beside the bed. The other side was lamp-less, as if he never had anyone there.
Her bag had been put on a side chair by Biróg.
‘I’ll just shower and change,’ Kyan said. ‘Climb in.’
She glimpsed the adjoining bathroom, done in dark brown marble with low, moody lighting.
Hesitantly, Nicole climbed up into the plush bed that sank luxuriously beneath her and a sigh filled her as the crisp, slightly cool sheets fell over her bare legs.
She curled on her side, trying to ignore the steady pulses throughher body, how needy and hot it was in certain places, enough to make her restless. She forced herself to listen to the stream of the shower, to not think of Kyan only a door away, stripped of his clothes.
Nicole distracted herself by running her fingers over the Irish details of the bedframe.
When he re-emerged, scenting of steam and a woodsy, bergamot soap, he was clad in pyjama trousers, but shirtless.
Her mouth went as dry as unoiled pigment.
After everything, she hadn’t had a real moment to let herselflookat him. To feel like everything in Estwood hadn’t been a figment of her imagination. She had no photos, only sketches she’d done afterwards that felt like they lacked … everything. If it wasn’t for the fact she was irreparably different and their lives were irreparably different, she might think he had been nothing but a fantasy.
Now, she took in his honed warrior’s physique. The thick planes of his chest. The deep grooved, hair-shaded muscle that would have been nicked with countless scars, stab wounds, and the silver lines of claw and bite marks had he not been an Empyreal. The wide, heavy shoulders. And somehow, most deliciously, his wet hair which had curled up in the steam. No longer in its previously shorn style, that one feature proved his rebellion, his character. He was allowing himself to want and need again.
She wanted to fist her fingers into it with a surprising ferocity.
For a moment in the luxuriant gold lamplight, he was so regal, so powerful, she felt briefly overwhelmed.
‘You have a tendency to ruin my T-shirts,’ he explained, draping the one she’d ripped on a side chair.
Nicole’s smile was almost a wince. ‘Sorry.’
