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“I’m not everyone,” he says softly.
I close my eyes a moment and let out a sigh. “You are exhausting, Blake Blackstock.” Then I step back and gesture for him to come in.
He strides straight for the dining room. Nessa shoots me a look and walks down the hall to give us some space. When Blake steps through the doorway, he freezes. I walk past him into the room, over to Luciana.
“Tamsin,” Blake says slowly, “Why do you have four demons in your dining room?”
“Because they used to be supernatural beings, witches and such.” I look down at the body next to me. “And this one is my sister.”
His eyes move from my face down to the body on the gurney beside me. “That’s Luciana?”
I take a deep breath and nod. “The Night Guild did this to her because I turned down their job offer.”
The look of rage that passes over Blake’s face makes me take a step backward, even though he’s nowhere near me. His magic pulsates, and his eyes turn yellow as his inner wolf claws to the surface.
And then, abruptly, he spins and stalks out the back door.
My heart ricochets in my chest for several moments as I stare after him, at the wake of swirling blue magic he’d left behind. Is he angry with me? It’s not like it’s my fault a sinister criminal organization targeted my family. I already have enough guilt from my fractured relationship with Luciana and the fact that they’d used her as bait. I sure as hell don’t need my ex judging me, too.
“I’ll be back,” I call loudly to Nessa, and I stride to the back door.
By light of the moon and stars, I can see Blake striding across the moor. He’s already a good distance away from the house. I pick up a jog and run after him. In my shock and frustration, I realize I’ve forgotten my coat, and the wintry air slices into me like knives. It’s also begun to snow since I went inside before dinner, and a crystalline coat of it shimmers like diamond dust across the land.
I wrap my arms around myself as snowflakes land and melt on my sweater, my boots crunching in the cold, frozen grasses. When I get about a dozen feet away from Blake, I yell his name. My breath comes out in a white puff that floats off into the night sky.
He doesn’t turn around, so I put on a burst of speed, catching up to him as he passes the stone wall at the edge of my horse pasture. I grab his arm. He’s wearing nothing but a T-shirt, as usual, even though it’s got to be twenty degrees out. “Blake!” I snarl.
In a move too fast to follow, he spins, lifts me, and presses me up against the wall. My vision spins, and my breath whooshes out. He stares down at me, blue eyes glowing.
“What the hell?” I snap. “First you insist on seeing what I’m hiding, and then you run off without saying anything?”
“I did not run off,” he growls. His magic flashes into me, a pulse of heat that makes me forget the cold.
“Then what was that? What just happened?”
I lean forward into him, my anger making my own magic stir beneath the surface. An emerald- green glow forms at my fingertips. He has me pinned against the rough stone, his hips digging into mine. His huge hands are still wrapped around my biceps from when he’d lifted me. My movement brings our chests even closer together, and Blake lets out a growl.
“I left because I’m going to go back to my house and break the other kneecap of that sniveling spy the Night Guild sent here to find you,” he says, his voice a low, deadly rumble.
My heart accelerates. “You—you broke some man’s kneecap?”
“Not some man,” he says. “A man who came here with the intent to harm you. Or give others the information to harm you, which is nearly the same.”
A rush of emotions moves through me. On the one hand, he’s not wrong. That man chose to work for the Night Guild, and he certainly doesn’t give a flip about my safety. But still… Blake broke his leg? It seems so brutal. Lawless.
And he did it for me.
“You should be thanking me,” he says, as if he can read my thoughts.
“Should I?” I shake my head. “I just… things are so different. You’re not the Blake I remember.”
No, the Blake I’d known before had pretty much still been a boy. But the one standing before me is all man. I hate the idea of violence—I’m a doctor, after all, I heal people. Yet the idea of Blake taking such extreme action on my behalf sends adrenaline shooting through my veins. Adrenaline and lust. I can feel cracks running through the blocks of ice I’d placed around my heart all those years ago.
Blake releases the grip he has on my arms and slides one hand down to the small of my back. Something shifts in his eyes. “You’re right,” he says, and his voice has gone wolf. “We’ve both changed. But you still want me, Tamsin. I can taste it.”
His words make my nipples go hard, and the corners of his lips turn up in a dangerous smile. The snow is falling heavily now, glittering against the black sky. All I can see is Blake and night and snow.
“You’ve turned into such an arrogant prick,” I say. I try to sound tough, but it comes out breathy, and another shiver runs through me.
