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Instead, I found Kit standing inside my place, next to the door, holding the bottle in his hand.
The asshole had caught it. It reminded me why I hated him so much. Or rather, one of many reasons.
“The fuck are you doing here?” I asked.
“I seemed as though you could use a visit.”
“Fuck off. I don’t need some pep talk from you.” By which I meant that he was one of the last people I needed in my business. I didn’t need him to see my pain, to witness the way Hera had thrown me aside—both literally and figuratively in this case.
Kit poured the last of the beer into the sink, then put the bottle into the recycling as if he gave a damn about making a mess in my place. His calmness annoyed me, as it only made my lack of control all the more obvious.
I crossed my arms before I was tempted to do anything more and stared at him. “I’ve been here a long fucking time and you’ve never felt the need to stop by for a little chat before.”
“You’ve never been thrown across the room by the woman you love before, either.”
The words pierced me, more dangerous than Kit’s claws, no doubt. I dropped my gaze, unable to look athim. “Clearly it wasn’t love. Let’s not pretend it’s something it isn’t. We aren’t kids.”
Kit’s steps filled the room, and he took a seat in one of the kitchen table chairs. While the idea of him making himself at home annoyed me, I knew that wasn’t his point. No doubt he sat to prove he hadn’t come for some territorial battle, that he didn’t want to play some dominance game.
And as much as I hated it, it helped. I pulled in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Why are you really here?”
“I can imagine how I’d feel in your place, and I suppose I don’t like to see people in pain.”
“I doubt you give a fuck about me.”
He nodded, as if that were a given. “Fair point. Perhaps it is better to say that your upset would upset Hera, and I don’t wish to see her hurt any more than can be helped.”
“Given what happened, I really doubt she’s all that worried.”
“Then you truly are as stupid as people think.”
And there went that bit of calm I’d found. I nailed Kit with a hard look, wanting to wrap my hands around his throat, to mess up his perfect suit, to watch blood stain his white shirt. He’d always walked around Larkwood as if different or better than the other shades. I wanted to beat that out of him. “I’m gonna give you one warning here—I’m not in the mood for this bullshit, not today.”
“Then listen carefully and you will get me out of your hair sooner. You should know Hera well enough to read between the lines.”
Hearing him mention her again snapped the leash on my temper. I went after him, even knowing it wasstupid. Kit was a wendigo, one of the most dangerous things Larkwood had ever housed, and I doubted any of us had a real grasp on what he was capable of.
None of that mattered. Hell, there was even a part of me that figured if he turned me to dust, who the fuck cared? At least it would stop the pain in my chest.
“Don’t talk about her,” I snarled as I took him to the ground, my weight knocking him from the chair.
We hit the floor, but Kit did nothing, as though he didn’t even notice. “Why not? We’re both bound to her in our own ways.”
“I’m not bound to anyone.” I threw a punch, landing it on his cheek.
His head jerked to the side from the impact, but he made no noise, didn’t seem to feel any pain. “So you’re foaming at the mouth now because you don’t give a damn?”
“She betrayed me!” I yelled the words, the truth torn from my throat. I went to nail him in the face again, wanting to break him, to take my anger out on him.
Except just before I made contact, his form shimmered. Instead of the flesh and blood face I’d aimed for, the bone of his other form, the head of a deer skull, appeared.
I snarled at the pain in my hand when I made contact, because bone didn’t give the way a human face would have.
He threw me off as if I weighed nothing, then wrapped a hand around my throat after pinning me. It was one of those lessons I hated, one that felt like an adult dog reminding a puppy why the adult was in charge.
Not that it mattered to me all that much. I hadn’t gone into this thinking I was on the same level as Kit. Strength wasn’t the only thing that mattered.
“She didn’t betray you,” Kit said, his voice having dropped to his other one, the one from his wendigo form, but it didn’t do anything to me.
