Page 29 of Harvest Maze

“Ivry—”

“Back off, cugino,” Ivry said with a bite, pushing past him. “He’s not a threat.”

Lucian reached to grab her arm, but I gave him a shove.

“Don’t,” I warned.

The don glared at me.

“Don’t ever touch her,” I clipped out.

We gathered our food, but Ivry kept shooting wary glances where the don had wandered off to talk to the manager of the maze. I found us a spot on a hay bale bench and pulled her next to me.

“He owns this little seasonal adventure,” she explained, viciously ripping the paper wrapping off the sticky apple. “He’s here to check up on it.”

“Hey, he’s nothing,” I murmured and rubbed her knee.

Ivry bit into the apple, but it stuck in her teeth. She wriggled it, pulling and yanking, and finally tore her teeth out of the fleshy trap.

“Do you want me to cut that for you?”

She snorted. “Nearly loosing teeth is part of the fun.”

I grimaced. Pulling adult teeth out wasn’t fun. It hurt people. I should know. I’d done it to several targets for information extraction.

“How did you know? About Lucian?” Ivry eyed her apple, trying to figure out how to bite a piece off.

I took a deep breath. “That’s a story for another time.”

She shot me a side glance. “Did someone send you here?”

Svätých, she was good. There was no point lying to her. Our relationship wasn’t going to be built with mistrust.

I nodded, slowly. “But I quit my job.”

“To be with me,” she sighed, but it was a happy noise. “Oh, I’m so relieved! You wouldn’t want to go up against the Ravellos. So don’t ever let them figure that out.”

This woman was nothing short of incredible. She learned the worst about me, and instead of running away, instead of going to her family and telling them, she accepted me. Her trust meant more than every dollar in my bank accounts.

Still, a trickle of unease crept through me.

The don was too suspicious. He was probably going to be watching my every move. I would have to be careful not to give him a reason to upset this blossoming relationship.

Because if he did that, I would kill him.

Taking a deep breath, I tore off a bite of the funnel cake. Sticky. Sickly sweet. Instantly addictive—just like my sweet kráska.

Chapter 13 – Ivry

Ifelt sick.

In the best way possible. There was a way the stomach churned after consuming “fair” food that was satisfying. It was something bad for you that felt oh so good. The trick was not to eat too much of it.

Demyan was parked in the back row. Since I’d come with Sara, I bid my friends goodnight when they came out of the haunted maze and hurried my boyfriend out of the fall venue. There had been a few questions from certain people in my friend group, but I gave them vague answers. Demyan and I needed to talk. Which we would do all night.

Naked and tangled around one another.

But as we approached the end of the row of cars, my blood turned cold. “Lucian! What are you doing?”