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“No,” Lilah whines, all pitiful, clutching my shirt. “Back door.”
“I’d love to take your back d—”
“Dude!” Hunter elbows me in the gut.
“Fine, fine.” I stomp into the grass, taking her around back where her sad duffel bag sits alone in the dew.
I liked the idea of banishing her when she was supposed to be some slutty viper spy, but now the backyard seems too dark. The stairs are too steep if she falls. There’s not even a lock.
It’s not safe.
I climb down and find the light switch.
The downstairs is more bunker than basement, and it’s shabbier than I remember. The sheets on the nest bed are dingy grey, though fuck if I remember the last time I even looked at a sheet.
When I set Lilah down, she makes a breathy noise against my throat that gives me a 3D vision of her teeth raking my Adam’s apple. Claiming me.
My cock stands to attention, and I catch a sweet whiff of something impossible.
Caramel?
I sniff her scalp, coming up with nothing but dust and basement mold.
I unbuckle her shoes and tuck a thin blanket over her shoulders, stalling like I’m nursing the bottom of a glass.
The second I leave, I’ll crash from the temporary high Lilah injected into my veins.
I always come back down.
Hunter sets her bag at the foot of the bed, then tugs me away. “Enough.”
“I want to kiss her good night.” I’m praying a taste of her lips is enough to keep away the darkness.
“She’s not a toy.”
Isn’t she though?
I let Hunter drag me into the gym, and reality snaps back like a rubber fucking band.
The empty, yawning nothing.
I can feel the smile bleeding off my face. The color and electricity. All gone.
“Spar or sauna?” Hunter hauls me onto the mats, knowing how close I am to the edge.
Anyone else I’d kill.
The bond humming between us is the only thing that reminds me I’m not already dead.
Though fuck knows, I will be soon.
***
Thirteen
LILAH
I wake up aching and hating myself in a strange bed and a stranger house. Everything that’s happened since the gazebo feels like it happened to some other girl.
