Even as fear locks my mouth, an ache spreads through my chest to reach out to the man beside me.
I focus instead on the impressions of my original Byron lingering in my body. His firmly assured presence, the low cool voice that could steady me or inflame me with the right words, the crisp fresh scent I wanted to lick off his skin.
The last memory sets off a flash of heat low in my belly, but I summon a specter of that Byron’s presence alongside it. I can imagine him glancing from me to this new Byron and back with a wry smile.
“He’s still me, Precious, no matter how different you were here. He wants to get to the bottom of this conspiracy and solve the problem, whatever it takes, foryou. Leaning on him, showing you could use his help—he’ll appreciate it, not resent it. You know how much I like mastering a tricky situation.”
And what will this Byron think if I keep holding him at a distance? Is he assuming like Salvatore has that I’m disappointed with the matches fate gave me?
I don’t dare touch him even in the empty hallway, but I meet Byron’s eyes and smile with all the fondness I have inme. I’ve jerked him around a lot in the past month, mostly inadvertently, but still…
We’re in this together now. Whatever details might be different, he’s proven he’s still the commanding, confident, honorable man who stuck by me the moment our bond marks formed.
I want this version of him to know I’ll count on him and that he can count on me too.
I pitch my voice similarly low. “I didn’t want to ask about The Eclipse in front of the other guys—I know the whole club is supposed to be secret. Did you find out anything at all?”
Byron steps a little closer, possibly so we can hear each other better, but his hand twitches at his side as if he’s held it back from touching me. “Not a lot, but… I gave Grady a bit of a test, and I don’t think he and his friends know anything about Kenneth. He was talking a big game, though—acting as if he was above even the club now.”
I knit my brow. “Did he say what’d changed?”
“Nothing specific. He left early to do something apparently more important—he was picked up by a woman I didn’t recognize. I’ve stopped by the club a couple more times since, but he hasn’t been back while I’m there.”
My breath snags in my throat. “A woman? What did she look like?”
Byron smiles crookedly in apology. “I only got a glimpse of her. Middle-aged, I think—dark hair with a little gray in it. Fairly pale skin. That’s the most I could tell you. From her coloring, it could have been a relative of his.”
It could have been. Except that description also fits the woman who surreptitiously handed off a package to Kenneth the day before he tried to stab me.
The woman whose image has haunted my mind since I watched Salvatore’s pilfered video.
Grady was talking about getting “elevated” and all that.Kenneth’s grades went up. Are the Tadroses the key to everything?
Byron is studying my expression again. “Do you think it’s something else? Could she be tied to Kenneth too?”
“Maybe. See if you can find out more about what he’s doing with her.” Salvatore will expect to share his discovery with the others the next time we all meet, but I don’t want Byron going after this woman directly. I’d like to be more sure who we’re dealing with first.
This is one trail I do have to go down alone.
Which means it’s better not to linger on that topic. I grope for a change of subject, and my mind veers to the last time I saw Byron. “That first supplementary combat session was pretty crazy, wasn’t it? I hated every second of it. Did you get through it okay?”
I have to state my own discomfort first, or he might think I’m looking to needle him. Instead, his dark eyes flicker with concern, which wasn’t what I was going for either.
“I just had to get used to the shock waves. This school is always putting us through one hell or another.” He eases even closer, his gaze traveling over me like a caress. “Areyouokay? I thought you stumbled in the middle of the course—if you were hiding that you got hurt…”
I was, but not the way he means.
I risk touching him, just a brief graze of my fingers against his chest, in an attempt at reassurance. “No, I’m fine. Believe me, I’m not so stoic I’d go around injured just to look tough.”
A different sort of warmth has flared in Byron’s gaze, but concern still tenses the corners of his mouth. “It looked like you had a bit of an argument with your friends afterward… I didn’t see Stella hanging out with you at lunch today. Is everything all right there?”
The fact that he cares enough to ask, even if it’s partly todo with our investigations, turns the ache inside me into a lump in my throat.
“I’m not sure yet,” I say honestly. “I’m not so worried that any of them are out to get me anymore—not in a murderous way, at least—but I was pretty harsh.” I pause. “I didn’t say anything I didn’t mean, though. There’s so much they don’t even see… I don’t want to keep pretending I agree with them. Especially when I have more important people in my life now.”
I lift my gaze to meet his again. The affection that shines back at me takes my breath away.
“I’m glad to be one of those people,” Byron says. “I mean, if I’m not being too presumptuous.”
