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I turn the duffel bag upside down and dump all of the underwear out on the bed.
“If she wasn’t home, how did you know which bedroom was mine?” I ask, raising a brow in his direction before I start organizing my clothes.
With my house keys and the address, the boys wouldn’t have had any issue finding where I live or getting inside, but Cara’s room is right across the hall from mine. I’m curious if they rummaged through both rooms before realizing which one was mine.
I wish I could have been there to watch their confusion.
“Oh, that was easy. You’d never pick the horrendous curtains that are in her room.”
I pause mid-fold and laugh, recalling Cara’s sheer pink curtains with colorful lace flowers cascading down from the top. She told me she got them from a thrift store downtown, but I secretly think she made them herself. They have personality, but they’re repulsive.
“Touché.” I finish folding the pair of jeans in my hands and lay them aside.
After a beat, Azarius laughs. “I’m kidding.”
“Then what gave it away?” I fold two more pairs of jeans and stack them on top of the first.
He leans closer, shrinking the distance between us, and his voice drops an octave.
“I could smell you.”
My stomach does a funny flip. “You could smell me?”
He dips his head in a nod. “On your clothes. On your bed.” The last word rolls sensually off his tongue.
I look over and his gaze locks with mine, tangible tension settling between us. The longer we stare at one another, heat rises in my cheeks and a distinct flutter erupts in my stomach. I shouldn’t turn into a blubbering schoolgirl with a crush every time he’s near, but I do.
“H-how did your meeting go?” I fumble over my words as I hurriedly try to change the subject.
The smugness in his expression wanes. His jaw tenses and his eyes flash briefly with worry, but he breaks our eye contact and looks at the stack of clothes on the bed to cover it up.
“It went.”
His words are followed by an uneasy silence. One that my undying curiosity doesn’t let live long.
“That doesn’t sound good,” I say, leaning into Azarius’s line of sight and raising my brows at him. “Do you want to talk about it?”
He massages the bridge of his nose between two fingers as though the mere thought of the meeting gives him a headache. Then he sighs. “I’m sure I’ll get in trouble for telling you. But since it concerns you, you should probably know.”
I freeze, trying to discern if I heard him correctly. How did their meeting concern me?
“What about me?”
He hesitates, and I wonder if he’s debating how much he should tell me. I don’t want him to get in trouble with Rafe, but he doesn’t have to worry about telling anyone.
My lips are sealed.
“We didn’t know what the meeting would be about when we got there. I thought Ross was going to ask for more money or more land in exchange for his support, but that wasn’t it,” he explains, carefully avoiding my gaze. “Apparently there’s a rumor going around that a human made it into the monster realm.”
My eyes grow wide.
Someone outside the mansion knows I’m here.
“What? How the hell does anyone even know about that?” I gape.
“It was your blood.” His shoulders sag slightly, and the corners of his mouth follow shortly after. “I don’t know who found it. I don’t even know how wide the rumor has spread, but they seem to think whoever made it through the portal killed the Malev and is still hiding somewhere in the realm.”
“But that’s not too bad, right?” I ask, trying to remain optimistic. “Surely they know a human wouldn’t last long here.”
