AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Easing back another step, I pulled my hand free of his grasp. “I don’t know.” Anything. Everything in my life was upside down. “What the hell am I supposed to do with that information?”
“Whatever you wish. I didn’t tell you the truth for any other reason than to keep you safe.” His gaze dropped to my neck with a longing so deep I felt a tug inside me. “What you hold in your hand and wear around your neck holds the power of a demigod. We should be able to use it to send the shadow back, but if the creature gets its hands on it first...”
“Yeah,” I whispered. My world would be in a heap of trouble.
He dipped his head. “That makes it a very dangerous thing to keep on you right now.”
Disregarding the grudging tone of that statement, I let my hand fall away from the pendant. “You want it back?”
“No.” The force of the word nearly had me backing up another step. Instead, he was the one to put a little more space between us, though from the look on his face that was the last thing he wanted to do. “It’s yours. I will never try to reclaim it.”
“Again,” I added. Because he’d taken it from me once.
A little of the tension lifted from his worried face. “Again.”
We stood there staring at each other for gods only knew how long, but it was Lily who cleared her throat and broke the spell.
“That wasn’t nearly as much fun to watch as I thought it would be.”
I shot her a glare. “I’m sorry it didn’t meet your oh-so-high standards of entertainment.”
She smirked over her mug at me before settling her gaze on Hook and narrowing her eyes. “How do you plan on keeping her safe?”
“Whoa.” I held up a hand. “I can still take care of myself, thank you very much.”
“I’m pretty sure I saved your ass in the alley,” she shot back.
“It was a team effort, thank you very much. How are you feeling, by the way?” I really should have asked earlier, but the day was already turning out to be something else.
She rolled her shoulder without setting her mug down. “A little stiff, but fine otherwise.”
“Good.” I meant it, even if it came out sounding a smidge on the jealous side.
“There are perks to being a shifter.”
“Yeah, you mean like not being laid up in bed for three days after a fight?” I asked.
“Three days? Girl, you should have been laid up for weeks,” she said, doing nothing to hide her amusement.
“You were injured?” Hook asked, moving closer with his hands out like he intended to soothe something.
I gave him a shrug. “A little, when we got back and figured out Matty wasn’t exactly Matty anymore. The shadow went for the pendant that first day, but it didn’t seem like the best idea to let the bastard have it.”
Hook’s attention swiveled to Leo, the tension between them rising as he seemed to grow an inch taller where he stood. “You let her get hurt?”
Leo’s expression was pure defiance. “I fought the shadow off. We all did.”
I laid my hand on Hook’s arm, drawing his attention back to me. “I’m fine.” I motioned to myself. “See, still standing.”
His tongue darted out, wetting his lips. “How bad?”
It was kind of amusing the way he went a little primitive when he was upset. Usually, he was all fancy words and old-world charm, but when he got worked up, he lost a lot of civility.
“It stabbed her in the back with her dagger,” Lily said, so nonchalantly that she might have been telling him the time.
I honestly couldn’t tell if she was trying to help or if her intent was to torture Hook.
“And, like I just said, I’m fine.” I pulled up the hem of my shirt and turned to make my point. “Didn’t even leave a scar.”
