Page 94 of Hunted

My heart skips, then punches hard. ‘That wasn’t the agreement. You said I had twenty-four hours.’

His mouth tightens as his gaze sweeps the room, lingering a fraction too long on the neatly laid bed. ‘The original agreement did not include you spending a mere hour in Louisiana and frittering away the remaining time on… me time. Be thankful I’m allowing you to remain here.’

‘You’re not allowing me shit. And if the me time sticks in your craw so much, take this as me needing to digest this.’ My voice sharpens because if I don’t say it, I might fracture. ‘You can’t just drop fated mate on someone like it’s a weather report and expect them to, what? Curtsy?’

His eyes cool, the silver from before all but gone now. ‘Your dramatics are noted.’

‘My dramatics,’ I echo. ‘You’re the one spouting fated mates and blood bonds and essential timelines you refuse to explain, and I’m the dramatic one?’

He doesn’t blink. ‘Yes.’

I exhale through my teeth. I swallow the screaming questions.

How? Why? Since when? What does it mean? And the one clawing hardest at the back of my throat.

How can I be a vampire’s fated mate when I am standing right here and he is talking about someone else?

I swallow the questions down like broken glass.

‘I’ll return to the Tower,’ I say, the words tasting like poison. ‘Tomorrow.’

His gaze sharpens, as if he smells the calculation. The way I’m buying myself a night. A few hours. A sliver of breathing room to think and plan and not fall apart in front of him.

‘Tomorrow,’ he repeats, threat wrapped in softness.

‘Sure. Fine.’

He takes one slow step closer, just enough for me to feel the heat and danger of him.

‘You will be there by morning,’ he says. ‘Or else.’

My pulse stutters. ‘Or else what?’

Silver expands in his eyes, a private satisfaction blooming there. ‘Do not ask questions you do not want answered.’

For a moment, I’m painfully aware of the broken glass scattered on the floor, shards catching low light. If I step wrong, I’ll bleed.

Maybe that’s the point.

He follows my gaze, then he blurs around the room.

By the time I complete my next breath, the shards are gone.

The sight is so strange, so domestic and wrong after everything else, that it punches disorientation through me. He holds the broken pieces in his palm as if glass can’t cut him.

As if nothing can.

Another blink and he’s back, having disposed of it.

His gaze flicks to my mouth and I feel the pull like a hook beneath my ribs, that awful magnetic awareness of him. I hate that my body still answers. Hate that I’m standing here thinking about his taste when I should be thinking about survival.

‘You’ve greatly exceeded your welcome, Don Moretti,’ I say suddenly, because words are the only thing I can throw. ‘Please leave now.’

A flicker passes through his eyes. Almost amusement. ‘As you command, little hunter.’ Mockery wrapped in elegance.

Then he’s gone.

A blur of impossible, predatory movement, stealing the air with him. The room is suddenly too quiet. Too empty. Too normal.