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She wasn’t alone.
Larkin whirled on the spot, her muscles bunching.
Slow, easy footsteps sounded from within the shadowed area in front of her, becoming louder with each stride. Then a long, lean male, dressed in what was likely a tailored suit, stepped out of the shadows and came to a smooth halt. He fixed his cool blue eyes on hers. “Hello, Larkin.”
She froze. Froze from head to fucking toe. The sight of him was a nauseating punch to her gut. Her demon stirred with a furious hiss.
This was no stranger. This was someone she hadn’t seen or heard from in over thirty years. Someone she hadn’t expected to ever come in contact with again.
As her pulse lost its steady rhythm, her psyche violently lunged for his, instinctively attempting to connect with it. Larkin acted fast, slamming up a barrier that would prevent the anchor bond from forming.
Yeah, he was her goddamn anchor.
Technically, anyway. In practice? Oh, he couldn’t be further from it.
Psi-mates were everything you needed—a friend, a close confidant, a rock, a protector, someone who you could trust to never betray you. But Holt had been none of those things to Larkin. Never would be.
Taking a subtle, steadying breath, she mentally fortified her psychic defenses, bolstering the chokehold she’d put on the mental magnetic pull she felt around him.
Anger surged through her. Anger that he’d hurt her. Anger that he hadn’t stayed away. Anger that fate had unfairly lumbered her with an anchor who felt no loyalty toward her.
“It’s been a long time.” His gaze swept over her, intent and glinting with a possessiveness that made her demon emit another outraged hiss. “You look good.”
She hated that there was such a soothing quality to his low, rich voice. Nothing about the big blond bastard should be soothing. Holt might come across as calm, cultured, and elegant, but a civilized aggression lurked beneath the surface.
He was dangerous. Ruthless. Devious. Powerful for his kind. Cambions—being a hybrid of human and demon—tended to sit low on the power spectrum, and their inner entities could lie dormant. In most cases, they were more human than demon. Holt was an exception to that.
He briefly glanced at her building. “Can we go inside and talk?”
“No,” she said, her voice dead.
He didn’t seem surprised by her response. “Ten minutes. Just give me ten minutes to say what I came to say. Then I’ll go.”
If he truly thought she’d let him into her home, he was high. But she would hear him out, because she knew Holt; knew he’d only come back if she refused. She wanted him gone from here and from her life.
Larkin folded her arms and planted her feet. “You have five minutes. Make them count.”
A slight sigh escaped him. “I don’t blame you if you hate me.”
There had been a time when she’d hated him with a darkly pathological passion. But she had refused to hold onto that black emotion, because clinging to it hadn’t harmed anyone but herself. Nowadays, what she felt toward him was what she considered a healthy anger. It was bright and hot, but not toxic or edged with bitterness.
“I’d hate me in your position,” he went on. “I let you down.”
That was putting it lightly.
“Not a day goes by when I don’t wish I could rewind time and do something different. But I don’t suppose you believe the latter.”
“No, I don’t,” she readily admitted. “Nothing stopped you from trying to fix things. You could have come back at any point.”
He took a slow step toward her. “I’m here now.”
“Why?”
“To do what I should have done years ago. To claim you as my anchor. I want us to form the bond.”
Larkin barked an incredulous laugh. “You’re out of your mind if you think I’d be up for that.” Her demon didn’t laugh. It snarled and flipped him the finger, imagining stabbing that finger right into his eye.
His blue gaze went icy. “Don’t tell me that you can’t feel the bond’s call. It’s like a pull in the back of my head day and night. It never goes away. I know it’s the same for you.”
For a long time, the call had been a low pulse that existed in a deep recess of her mind. A pulse she’d gotten so accustomed to that it no longer caused her the same level of discomfort that it once had. But now that he was here, the call was stronger. More intense. Worse, it was front and center in her mind all over again.
“That doesn’t mean I want to do anything about it,” she said.
A muscle in his cheek ticked. “We’re psi-mates, Larkin. We’re linked by fate itself.”
“That hasn’t been much of a factor for you until now.” It had long ago ceased meaning anything to her and her demon. “I won’t ask what’s changed for you, because I simply don’t care.”
