AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m fine.”
“You will stay,” he orders, and there’s something in his tone, a steeliness that brooks no argument.
“Are you...” I lick my lips, and his gaze darts to them.
“I don’t want you to keep arguing with me. I will let you rest,” he finishes abruptly and gets up, the weight of him moving making the bed shift. He gives me a long, lingering look before turning on his heel and leaving the room, the door closing behind him.
“That’s not what I was going to say,” I murmur to the closed door. I lay back down and turn over, staring at the blank wall.
I don’t know why I thought anything would happen. Why I thought he would kiss me? A pinching, aching sounds off in my stomach, just below my ribs, and I cringe, curling up in his bed. I’m ridiculous. Stupid and an idiot and...
But when I close my eyes, I remember his face, his eyes, so close to mine, and that soft, concerned expression.
No one has ever looked at me like that.
And that’s what hurts the most.
Because all he cares about is what I can do for him.
It’s nothing more than that.
19
Hadrion
She’s in my goddamn fucking bed, and I am losing my fucking goddamn mind.
This is the first woman I’ve had in here since... since, well, in a long time, and it’s Katy, and it’s not the way I wanted her here.
She’s not writhing under me, her hands running over my body, her skin slick and her hair damp. She’s not panting and moaning, and her hips not lifting off the mattress to meet mine, her thighs parted, her knees spread wide—
Focus.
I stare out the window of the penthouse, the night dark and glittering below me. After she fainted behind the bar, my whole plan for the evening changed. I had thought about talking to her later. Once the club was winding down for the evening, ask her if she was serious about wanting to find the gate.
And then I was going to impress upon her how it was beyond dangerous, and she was not to even think about it.
We would find another way. Any other way.
Except for this one.
There are other gods, and they can’t open the gate. They don’t have a key. And while a few are strong enough, a few have the power to even try, they do not have the will. But I will figure it out. Never mind that I haven’t found the answer in a decade, I’ll take another decade. Or a hundred.
The thought of my charges, locked away from me, under the control of... the Great Betrayer, is maddening. But I must manage my own feelings.
“You look like shit,” Falcon’s voice is low and gravelly behind me. I don’t need to turn to know his hair is mussed and there’s lipstick smeared on his face. “You should get laid,” he suggests. He stinks of perfume. Who the hell did he hook up with?
“Go away, Falcon.”
“It would make you feel better.” There’s the sound of the drinks fridge in the living room opening, and the clink of bottles. A click, and spray, and he appears at my side, passing me a long beer.
I take it, and he clinks his bottle against mine.
“Cheers.” We both take a swig.
“It wouldn’t help.” It would make things worse, knowing that a woman was in my bed, the way Katy is, but different. I could... never. I haven’t, won’t, take anyone to my bed. There are rules, after all.
Falcon was never one for following any rules except his own, and with them, he was extremely stubborn. I glance over at him, and now I see it, the smear of red down the side of his cheek.
