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I slipped past Kyler to the bunks, checking which one was unoccupied. Instead, my gaze caught on Damon’s form in the one on the lower right. The curtain had drifted open a few inches, and as I watched he rolled from one side to the other, bunching his pillow under his head. His eyes were shut, but I could tell from the brisk movement and his frown that he was awake.
Sleep wasn’t coming easily to him either. Maybe because of what he might be thinking he’d have to do in the possible storming ahead of us?
I eased the curtain a little farther back and climbed in next to him. Damon shifted toward the wall, his eyes opening.
“Hey,” I said. “Do you mind the company?”
His lips curled up. “Never when it’s you. C’mere, angel.”
It was a small space, but we fit all right when he tucked his arm around me and aligned our bodies. I snuggled close, taking a moment to just enjoy the warmth of his breath tickling over my skin. But I hadn’t come over just to cuddle.
“We never really talked about that last fight,” I said, keeping my voice low.
“You mean when I brought out the gun?” His tone was nonchalant, but his muscles tensed.
“Yeah.” I shifted my head back so I could look him in the eyes. “How are you feeling about that? Shooting those people? Or… I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a situation like that before.”
“I’ve had a gun on me a few times before,” he said. “But I never had to shoot at anyone. Never shot at anything other than a target on the range.” He was silent for a moment, his heart thudding where our chests were pressed together. “I really only wanted to stop them from using their magic. Hurt them a little. But if I killed a couple of them, I guess that makes our lives easier.”
He tensed even more as he said that. I didn’t think he was as blasé about the idea as he was pretending.
“I’ve had to think about the same thing,” I said. “Some of the enforcers I’ve hit with my spells… I’m not sure whether I knocked them out or really hurt them. Maybe even killed some of them. It’s hard to aim that carefully when I’m doing everything I can just to block them from getting at us.”
“You’ve done a fucking good job of blocking them,” Damon said.
“It doesn’t feel good though, knowing that I might have killed someone. No matter what they were trying to do to us. I wouldn’t ever have wanted to be a killer.” Saying those words out loud made my stomach ball into a knot.
“You’re not one,” Damon said with a sudden fierceness. He eased his hand around my head to draw my forehead under his chin, his fingers stroking over my hair. “No one could call you that for just defending yourself and people you care about. Nothing you’ve done has changed the way I think about you, angel. Don’t you ever worry about that.”
I breathed in the bittersweet smell of him and let my lips brush the bare skin just above the collar of his T-shirt. “The same goes for you. Nothing you’ve done has changed the way I think about you, Damon. Or how much I love you.”
He swallowed audibly. Then he was tilting my chin up to capture my mouth with his, his kiss searingly passionate. I arched into him as the sensation flooded me. His other hand slid down to my ass, urging me against him.
“It’s been too long since I’ve been inside you,” he muttered against my lips. The words sent a fresh wave of heat through me.
I kicked the curtain completely closed. “There’s an easy way to fix that.”
He chuckled and cupped his hand between my legs, drawing a gasp I couldn’t contain from my throat. My body thrummed with anticipation as he rolled his weight onto me. His thumb flicked open the button of my jeans.
Then feet thumped against the floor at the front of the bus, and I stiffened.
“My mom just texted me,” Naomi called back to us, her voice sharp with panic. “Aunt Irene said something to her—Mom thinks Irene tipped off the Assembly. They might know where we are right now.”
Damon swore. I’d barely had time to scramble out from under him when the air warbled. The bus rocked with a wallop of magic.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Damon
At the first heave of the bus, Rose was shoving past the curtain to run to the front. Even as a jolt of adrenaline rushed through me, a prickle of annoyance ran alongside it. The Assembly assholes really had picked the worst time to launch their latest attack. My body ached with the loss of my woman against me.
But I didn’t have time to dwell on that right now. As the bus swayed again, lurching to a stop, I pawed around the blanket for my backpack. With a yank of the zipper, my fingers had closed around the grip of the pistol. The same one I’d used earlier, although none of the other guys had decided to give firepower a try with the two others I’d picked up. It melded into my hand, leaving me with a weird mix of confidence and trepidation.
Rose’s words, her murmur in my ear just a few moments ago, came back to me. If I hurt people right now, even if I killed them, she knew it was only because I had to. She knew I didn’t like the idea of that kind of blood on my hands.
As long as I had her, the rest didn’t matter.
“They’re not managing to break through the barrier we’ve put up inside the bus,” Naomi was saying when I hurried to join the rest of the group at the front. “The magic in the glyphs is holding for now. But we don’t have anything on the outside to deflect them completely.”
