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“I’m so sorry, Hark, Dragon. Whatever your name is.” Burning waves of acid lick the back of my throat closing off my esophagus. Pain. Regret. Anger. Hurt. It’s all there in the pit of my stomach.
I can’t keep the tears out of my voice. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. I didn’t think it all the way through when I saw that clip of you on the news.”
I mentally berate myself for being so stupid.
“Mmm.” He shifts on the bed. “That answers one of my questions.”
“Of how I found you?”
“Yeah.” His voice is tired, groggy. Kind of sexy in a way.
I snag my lower lip between my teeth. “You should have died that night. I thought you did. You and your handler.”
“A lot should have happened that night.” He stares at me for a long moment and I go to pull my hand from his. To do what, I don’t know. I don’t exactly have a way off this property or a place to go. I hear heavy footsteps on the upstairs floorboards which signals I have a limited amount of time before Hark’s buddies are down here.
I shift from one aching foot to the other only now realizing how cold my toes are on the tiled floor.
“I was. Dead. For about forty-five seconds I felt a pure sereneness I’ve never felt before or since. And then the Reaper or God or whoever the fuck shoved me back to my hell. Here I am.”
From the way he considers me with eyes half-closed, it is clear he has reservations of his own about that night.
“The Druid. Seeing him tonight fucked you up, didn’t it?” It’s not a question, but an observation.
His eyes go distant. My stomach churns and I almost drop to my knees to beg for forgiveness. But then I remember, it took both of us that night to do what we did. I wasn’t the only one in the room saying yes.
That’s my reasonable voice in my head. The one whispering in my ear says the exact opposite. He was just fine until I invaded his bungalow and begged for him to take my virginity. That voice grows louder by the minute.
“You’ve been alive all this time? I don’t understand, Hark.” I’m stating the obvious but to put the words out there not only helps me digest them better but the rage I had before awakens. And that’s what I need most right now. A buffer between me and old feelings overpowering my good sense. Because my heart only recognizes one of its sole reasons for beating. I see the balm to all my heartache in front of me and deep down I want to fall into his arms.
But I can’t. Not now. Not ever again. I no longer have the luxury of thinking of only myself.
“If you call sucking air and doing the motions of not dying. Yeah, I’m alive. What more is there to understand?”
My vision flashes red but I keep my tone level. “I see. So you’ve been no more than twenty miles from me for forty-eight months. And it never occurred to you I might want to know you were still alive?”
He exhales, giving me a sad smile. “It’s not that simple.” Stone is more legible than his rock-hard expression.
Well, too damn bad. “I would have been happy with a simple postcard. A secret note passed between the fucking books I checked out of the library. A three-worded note left on my coffee order. Anything.”
He eyes me and opens his mouth but nothing comes out. It is clear he doesn’t understand my rage. It’s in the way he backtracks and presses his lips into a fine line as though some cone of silence magically descended from the ceiling and he can no longer speak, much less hear me. Otherwise, no sane man would clam up with a woman as pissed as I am this close to surgical tools.
I almost feel sorry for him.
Goosebumps sprinkle over my exposed skin. Men. They always think they know best. Or, at least the ones in my life do. Like the one-time crown on my head blocked my ability to think for myself.
Damn fools.
I grab the scalpel from the nearby tray. He might fill out a pair of black jeans like nobody’s business, but tonight proves he still bleeds. Hark remains unflinching when I press the razor-sharp tip to the tender flash over his heart and lean in until there’s nothing he can see but the fury in my eyes.
Like jumper cables connected to the source of power, I feel the heavy thudding of his heart through that one point of connection. A drop of blood pebbles in the small compression.
There are no grunts or fighting. He just gives me an infuriating lift of his dark brow.
Ah. Not getting your attention? Let me try a little harder. I might be a featherweight compared to his massive size, but even one-thirty—okay, one-forty—pressing on a blade should make a man take a moment to consider his options.
My internal voice says to cut a little deeper, draw more blood. He’s lucky I don’t pay attention to the dark voice calling for vengeance as much as I should.
“Every last man in my life has made the mistake of underestimating me. If I were anything like my father, I’d already have your heart on a platter.” Each word comes out punctuated with years of grief I needlessly suffered. And a little more pressure on the blade I hold over his heart.
