Her expression cycles. Hurt. Guilt. The start of anger. Her lips part.
Percy is in my hands before she speaks. “Nyssa is dead. She saw you with me and now she’s dead.”
Her hand flies to her throat. She pales as the full weight of my words land.
Shoving Percy into her arms, I lean close. “Nowhere is safe for you except at my side.”
Chapter Twelve
MIRO
His hand closes around my arm, and he hauls me from the room, Percy clutched against my chest. The corridor sweeps past at a pace I have to stretch to match. His grip is immovable without being painful, but falling behind isn’t an option.
Nyssa’s face is front and centre in my mind. One second in the entertainment quarter. That was all I’d had, and now I’m trying to reconstruct it. Her smile keeps coming back, the one that hadn’t reached her eyes, but the rest of her features slide away every time I reach for them. I remember the bruised wrists though. And what I’d said to Zavin. Impressive. You even document the damage.
I’d said that to him about a female who is now dead because she passed me in a corridor. My presence in this House is a contagion and she caught it by breathing the same air.
Bile rises into the back of my throat. I swallow it and keep stumbling beside him. He doesn’t let go of my arm. He doesn’t slow down.
His head turns at every junction. Left. Right. His eyes track the shadows. He’s sweeping for threats and I’m supposed to feel safer for it, but the biggest threat already saw me. I thought silence was safer than confession. Now Nyssa is dead and I’m being dragged throughthe Warrens by a male who isn’t going to stop moving until I’m behind a door he controls.
His quarters aren’t far from where he’d put me, to my surprise. The door slides open silently and he hauls me inside.
There are books. Real books with cracked spines stacked on a low shelf. They’re the only things in the room that look touched. The sleeping platform through the archway is made. Tight corners. No indent in the pillow. Personal items on a shelf: few, chosen, arranged precisely. Nothing out of place. The room smells like cedar and dry stone underneath the standard environmental filters, but under that, him. One person’s scent in a space that barely shows he exists. This is where he lives.
“These are your quarters.” He doesn’t deny it. He drops his grip from my bicep but his eyes that see everything lock on me. “I’m not staying with you.”
He doesn’t move. Just draws in a deep breath. His nostrils flare as he breathes out. “There’s nowhere else.”
“There’s an entire House.” I hug Percy harder. I can’t stay here. Not being so close to him. When he said ‘by his side’, I didn’t imagine this. And now I have a second reason to squirrel through my blind panic, I’m starting to panic even more.
“This is the only one I can secure. The only space I trust.”
I take in the room. It’s smaller than I expected. The quarters he gave me were larger. My eyes snag on the one and only bed. “I’ll go back to the Splits.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” he snarls.
“At least I have my own bed there.” Probably not. I’m sure someone took over my room within the hours of him hauling me away. He’s done the same again.
Resh is still standing by the door, silent, watching our exchange. I forgot he was there. That’s not like me. I duck my head, hating the way my cheeks heat.
Zavin speaks over his shoulder, body still angled toward me. “Find my father. Tell me exactly where he is, who he’s with, and, if he’s in the Warrens, which sector he’s in and what he’s doing there.”
Resh nods and steps through the door, closing it behind him. But not before his eyes flick to mine, sending me an undefinable look I don’t know what to do with.
I pluck up my courage because Zavin is right. I’m compromised and it’s not safe anywhere here. I know that, but I also know that I still feel his kiss on my lips. The kiss I ended and shoved him away for.
“You can’t tell me what to do or where to go,” I say, panic making me reach for any words that come to mind.
He steps toward me, looms over me. He’s so much taller than I am. The top of my head only reaches his shoulder. He has fangs. Claws. A tail. I only have a battered sense of survival. “I’m not only telling you where you’ll go. But this time I’m ensuring it.”
His scent washes over me. That delectable masculine spice. His hair flows over broad shoulders, and cascades down his back. His high cheekbones flash in the low light. Smooth scales reflecting like tiny jewels embedded in his skin. Even in his rage, he’s stupidly attractive.
Or maybe I’m just plain stupid for noticing. “How are you going to ensure it? I have Percy. I know your systems. It’s nothing for me to break out whenever I want to. You can’t watch over me all day.”
His eyes flash, a warning I pay no heed to. I’m going numb. Standing outside my body and watching myself make stupid mistakes. Like arguing with a crime lord, but I’m past logical thinking, operating on pure adrenaline now.
He plows his fingers through his perfect hair. “Female, you will do as I say to keep you safe or—“
