Page 109 of The Quiet Witness

She’d only noticed the way she started fiddling with her fingers until a gentle hand closed over hers. Willing her to relax under his touch, she gave in, the rapid motions stilling beneath him. Without missing a beat, Lucien drew her hand into his lap, still caressing her tenderly.

Goosebumps rose on her skin as he leaned in toward her, whispering. “Still not sure what you’re up against?”

Her breath hitched at the touch and she swallowed. He must have drugged her, slipped something in the salad. It was the sole explanation she could come up with, given the direction her thoughts were straying in.

Tilting her chin up, she faced his intense gaze, seeing what looked like longing etched in them. His breath mingled with hers, his touch stilling slightly when on instinct, she leaned in against him. Maybe that reward would come into play after all.

But he glanced away, regaining his composure to continue playing with her thumb.

Her eyes dipped to his scar-littered hand, the same one that held her with such a gentleness, and further up. Her brows furrowed at the even, reddened scars trailing up his elbows. She trailed over the grooves she’d left behind. “I’m sorry for that.”

He fixed her with a stare. “Don’t be, if you hadn’t… you wouldn’t be here right now.”

Gathering his DNA beneath her nails. Her silly attempt at justice. The last thing she did before being knocked out cold was the reason she was still alive.

Her breathing faltered. “How do you do it?”

Lucien tilted his head, the movement reminding her of Ghost. “How do I do… what?”

“You’re always this in control.”

Even when I see you’re slipping up.

“Meanwhile, I feel like I want to, no, need to scream out.”

“Hmm,” he tapped on the piano. “Maybe you just need to feel… light for once.”

“What do you suggest?” She asked slyly.

He got up, pulling her along with him. “Allow me to show you.”

Chapter 45

Smoke That Heals

Isabel had… gone into a coma.

The call had come in while he was throwing punches at the heavy bag. He’d been left grasping for words, unable to ask why the hell they had told him the girl had been doing well, making progress they’d said, officially out of the danger zone.

A life wasted. If he had to trust the doctors words this time around, for the chances of her waking up again were… extremely slim, she might as well be dead already.

He was no stranger to death. He’d been the one who had made many people face the other side. And truly, humans, they died all the time. In his youth, Kate her biological parents and sister, it was a necessary evil of life. But when it came to the girls who should have been under his protection… his gut clenched together into a tight ball.

“What’s that?”

He turned to Kate, choking back a laugh at the panic lighting up her face. The ache in his throat deepened his voice.

“This, my dear.” The lighter clicked to life, the small flame dancing in front of his face as he lit the joint, careful not to inhale the smoke himself. “Is weed.”

“Weed.” She squealed, shifting in her seat on his couch. Pressed comfortably between Ghost and a large pillow, she still looked all but ready to run upstairs like a spooked hare.

Lucien followed her widening stare as her eyes trailed along the curling smoke already blurring the room.

“You smoke… weed?”

“Rarely.” He admitted, watching the orange blaze in the homemade joint flare to life. “But it has some good uses, more than creating a good old chill in the mind. In fact, it has many medical uses.”

And she could use that. Judging from the way she pressed her fingers into her temple to lessen the obvious ache, paired with the audible creak her hip had made when she dropped herself into the couch. And it was evident that she was suffering from her disease. The one he… wasn’t supposed to know about.