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RAY
Telling her to stay away from me, I couldn’t offer Ilsa the same courtesy.
A man had almost died, and it would’ve been my fault. What would I have done if Ilsa wasn’t there? I froze on the spot. I had been so sure of my motivations, of my actions, and when she had warned me about potential collateral damage, I was able to brush the warnings off without a second thought.
Not once in my entire—and considerable—lifetime had I questioned myself.
But I was all shades of questioning right now, and I didn’t like it. Not one little bit.
What the fuck was I even doing on Earth?
Was she right? I was no one to be deciding who was and wasn’t innocent.
But I wasn’t condemning anyone to death, I was simply setting back those who were doing the wrong thing—taking away their clubhouses, their labs, their places of dodgy business.
How could that be wrong?
A man had almost died.
But the key point was he hadn’t.
But still, she had gotten into my head, this tough army chick. What was in this for her anyway? Some self-appointed vigilante. I liked her occupying my mind even less than I liked questioning myself. Because when I’d kissed her, it had been for several reasons. Distracting her, obviously, and secondly, because damn, why the fuck not? She was gorgeous and resisting me at every turn, and lastly, I just plain wanted to.
Tormenting people was what I did best. It was all I knew. And kissing her tortured her because she knew what I was and because it turned her on as much as it had me. I could feel her arousal when I touched her flaring up under my fingers.
Then it tormented her more because she didn’t want to be turned on.
What I wasn’t counting on was the distraction it would cause me. Because I let the kiss drag on longer than it needed to for the purpose I had initially instigated it. Because I let her take control of the kiss, and I liked the feel of her arms splayed on my back. She tasted amazing, and I wanted more.
Obviously, I should’ve given in to that part of my desires a lot sooner, allowing the people I seduced to fuck me or let me fuck them, then perhaps a single human wouldn’t have infiltrated my thoughts so much.
But instead, here I was, creeping outside her apartment building.
She hadn’t given me to the cops, which had only increased my curiosity about her. Why track me down, research me, handcuff me even with the threat of handing me in, only not to provide the information to the authorities when given a chance?
What was I to her?
There wasn’t much to her apartment, and as I scaled the fire escape up the side of the building, I largely ignored the way it ground and creaked against the walls in protest to my speed until I was closer to her floor. Only then did I move with a little stealth, not wanting to alert her to my presence. This wasn’t about confrontation but about me observing her.
Humans were at their most natural when they thought no one was watching.
Ilsa didn’t seem the type who would like being watched, but my giving-a-fuck factor was pretty low about that. She stuck her nose into my business first.
Unable to see her, I pressed my nose against the glass, trying to peer around the sides of the window into the other rooms. It wasn’t a large apartment, but few around this area were. However, it was clean and tidy with everything in its place. A separate living area and kitchen already made it more spacious than many of the places I had seen, but it was sparsely furnished. I wondered how long she’d been here.
The window rattled in its frame with the force of her punch, and I almost toppled backward off the edge of the fire escape railing, clutching onto the ladder. Recovering my foothold, I glared at her through the glass. She had popped up in front of me, having been crouched on the floor under the windowsill. Rubbing her knuckles with her other hand, her eyes darkened as she watched me, lips pressed together in a thin line but not saying anything, not even showing satisfaction at being able to catch me off guard and making me jump. We simply looked at each other for a while before she unlocked and slid the window open.
As she slammed a hunting knife into the wooden windowsill, I stepped backward. She left the handle wobbling from the impact. Her message was clear.
My space.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi,” she responded through gritted teeth. “Why are you here, Ray?”
“You intrigue me.”
“That’s great. Get away from my home, please.”
“Nice of you to say please.”
Her eyes narrowed, and she asked again, “Why are you here? I already lied to the cops against my better judgment.”
“I never asked you to do that. I was wondering why you did.”
Ilsa sighed, flicked the knife’s handle, and sent it rocking again, the wood around the blade’s point splintering slightly. “I don’t know. You confused me. Why don’t you kill people?”
“It’s against the rules.”
“What rules?”
“Our rules. I wouldn’t last here long if I killed humans.”
Her shoulders dropped, and she pursed her lips as though she was hoping for a different answer. I don’t know what she wanted me to say, but I wasn’t going to lie to Ilsa.
For some reason, it would feel wrong to lie to her.
“Is that the only reason? The rules?” Ilsa held my eye contact for a long moment. I felt like a child being scolded for some wrongdoing, and it took more willpower than I was willing to admit not to shuffle the toe of my boot against the grating and look at my feet.
