Page 16 of The Endless Want

“You don’t tell Liam any more than you have to,” she says immediately. “You don’t tell Kellan. You don’t tell anyone in the house. You hold still, and you let Declan hunt.”

I nod. “I’ll have to have you moved.”

She scoffs. “I’d rather not be, but Liam will likely insist now. He probably knows you’re here.”

“It’s for your safety,” I try to reassure, but my tone falls flat. I wouldn’t be too happy about being locked up like a prisoner for my safety either.

“It’s because I’m too close to this one.” Her eyes seems haunted, and I wonder if she’s thinking about her friend.

She heads for the door, shoulders squared. I almost tell her to stay with me—but I know better. This conversation is over for now.

I don’t return to my car. I don’t even call Declan. I walk to the river, because something in me needs to see the shape of the city from where it ends—where the tide steals all proof.

The air is sharp and wet. Fog crawls low across the water like someone dragging a sheet. Out past the cranes and shipping containers, the docks rise in a jagged silhouette.

I lean my arms on the cold metal railing and breathe until my lungs slow. I remember Nadia saying she used to speak to walls, not people. I wonder what kind of childhood teaches you that silence is safer than language.

The thought makes my throat ache.

I hear footsteps behind me. Not rushed. Not timid. Heavy, measured steps that announce the person long before they speak.

“Thought you might come here,” Declan says.

I don’t ask how he found me. He always finds me. He stands beside me, hands in his coat pockets, breath ghosting visibly in the early light.

“Three lines on my hood,” I tell him. “Drawn in the dust under the wax.”

“I know.”

He just raises his brow, and I roll my eyes. Of course he’s watching me just as closely as anyone else. I shiver at the thought and wonder if it’s distrust or some other reason.

“I’m tired of being the chess piece,” I reply. “I want to be the player.”

“You are,” Declan murmurs. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be a target or someone who pisses me off.”

Feeling a little brave in the quiet between night and morning, I say, “I thought there were other reasons I piss you off.”

The light before the morning dawn shining off the water catches Declan’s eyes, and I know I shouldn’t have said it. My stomach churns as he reaches out and slides his hand over a strand of my hair.

“Be careful going back.” Then, he slips away before I feel the cold of the absence of his touch.

My bones are on fire as I make my way back to my car, needing to get back home and sleep off whatever hangover is coming from that interaction.

But even once my skin is scrubbed, I’m in my most comfortable pajamas, and my blackout curtains are drawn, I can’t relax.

I hate feeling helpless and hate the idea that there is evidence out there building against me that makes me look like a turncoat. Even more frustrating is the fact that a man who has made himself my enemy is the only one truly believing me and trying to help.

Or at least, that’s how it appears.

I fall asleep with thought of him and am rewarded with memories and fantasies mixing into one.

Declan comes to my door and slips in my bed, stroking my hair just the same as he had earlier. But the intimacy starts bleeding into something more.

Declan’s mouth is soft and searching against my neck, his thumb grazing my jaw, tentative, as if waiting for me to put an end to it.

The heat flares, hungry and unsteady, but even in the dream my mind stutters, catching on the sense of trespass. My body curls into his regardless, and he braces the length of my spine with his hand, slow and certain, kind in a way I hadn’t expected.

He tastes like whiskey and the shadows, like forbidden things.