AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“And if he caught you, do you really think I wouldn’t come after you? That I’d just sit around and let him do whatever he wanted? That I wouldn’t gut him for touching you?”
Louis-Cesare blinked, and I wondered just who the hell he’d thought he married. Did he think Dorina was the only savage part of me? Did he not realize that, on most of my hunts, she hadn’t even been awake?
And there’d been plenty of carnage, all the same.
“I’m a hunter,” I reminded him. “It’s what I’ve done most of my life. I’m good at it.”
“I know.”
“Then let’s hunt him together.” I put a hand on his arm. It was tense, but it had already been that way before I touched him, and he didn’t pull away. I tightened my grip. “I can track him. I can track anyone. Together, we can—”
“No.”
It was flat—and exasperating. And if I’d thought it was coming from a place of ‘me man, you woman, you do as I say,’ we’d have had a problem. And in fairness, I didn’t know that that wasn’t what this was.
But it didn’t look like it. His jaw was hard and set, but his eyes were haunted. Something about the expression made me want to protect him, which was absurd. Louis-Cesare didn’t need anyone’s protection. But it didn’t feel that way right now, and emotion softened my tone.
“We complement each other,” I said. “You can do things I simply can’t, especially now. I can do things you won’t, or wouldn’t think of. And Dorina is my sister. He knows where she is. We find him, we find her, or at least where to look for her—”
“I said no!” The blue eyes, so vulnerable a moment ago, blazed. And he did pull back then, an angry, abrupt gesture.
I let him go. “And you think that ends it?” I demanded. “That you forbid it and that’s it?”
“I think I know Jonathan a little better than you do! If you would listen—”
“I can’t listen when you’re not talking to me.”
“I’ve told you all I can—”
“You’ve told me nothing—”
“Damn it, Dory! Let it go!” He threw out an arm, which happened to be the one cradling the flowers. They went tumbling to the floor and, apparently, the silken ribbon keeping them all together hadn’t been tied properly, because they scattered everywhere. I got down on my hands and knees to gather them back together, and after a moment, Louis-Cesare joined me.
For a moment, we just picked up flowers.
“It isn’t enough,” I finally said.
He didn’t reply.
“Why is this so hard?” I asked. “I thought we were a team—”
“We are a team.”
“But not on this. I want to understand. Explain it to me.”
More nothing. It was starting to piss me off. I felt for whatever he was going through, I really did, but I was going through something here, too.
“Okay, then I’ll explain it to you,” I said, sitting back on my heels. “Dorina is my responsibility. Ray is my responsibility. I don’t know what happened to either of them, but I’m going to find out, and Jonathan is the key.”
“The fey—?
??
“I don’t know the fey. I can’t track the fey. I can track him.” I met his eyes. “And I will—with or without you.”
I had expected anger, possibly even an explosion considering how things had been going. I didn’t get it. Instead, Louis-Cesare looked . . . bewildered, as if he’d never before been confronted by someone he couldn’t simply order around. You, sit there. You, come with me. You, hang out and do your nails until I return.
Assuming I ever do.
