smile. “Yes. Just a little banged up.”
Dee stared at Kat and then whipped around to me. “I can’t believe this happened. How could this have happened? I thought you—”
“Dee,” I warned.
She straightened, cheeks flushing as she received the silent message. Exhaling raggedly, she turned back to Kat, approaching her bed slowly. “I’m so sorry about this.”
“It’s not your fault,” Kat replied.
My sister sat down, perched on the edge of the bed, distraught and seconds from getting up and kicking me, I’m sure, because she thought this was my fault.
It was.
But not for the same reasons as Dee believed. She was upset that I hadn’t gotten to Kat in time, but the truth was, if I’d listened to my own advice and stayed away from her, I never would’ve traced her in the first place.
They started talking among themselves, and I let my eyes drift closed. Tonight had been… There really weren’t any words when it came to the amount of FUBAR that had gone down, and fighting that Arum had drained me. I heard Dee talking about taking Kat home if her mom couldn’t, which probably meant I would be the one taking them home.
Ms. Swartz returned, and although Kat was released, there was a huge accident out on one of the highways. Being the nurse on call that night, her mom couldn’t leave, but Dee convinced her that we would not only take her home but watch out for signs of a concussion.
Thanks, Dee.
To be honest, I was…okay with that. I really didn’t want either of them out there alone right now. Not until that trace was gone. My jaw tightened.
Because if there was one Arum, there were always three more. Luxen were always born in sets of three, so Arum always hunted in fours.
Dee left the ER room to grab a snack, and when I opened my eyes, Kat’s stare was fixed on me, but something was off about it. Her eyes were glassy. Pain meds must be kicking in.
I pushed off the wall, making my way toward her. She closed her eyes. “Are you going to insult me again? Because I’m not up to…pear for that.”
My lips twitched. “I think you mean par.”
“Pear. Par. Whatever.” Those heavy lashes lifted.
The bruises and red marks kept drawing my attention. “Are you really okay?”
“I’m great.” She yawned. “Your sister acts as if this is her fault.”
“She doesn’t like it when people get hurt,” I said quietly, and then as an afterthought, “and people tend to get hurt around us.”
Her unsteady gaze met mine. “What does that mean?”
Dee returned at that moment, grinning. “We’re good to go, with the doctor’s orders and all.”
Thank God.
I moved to Kat’s bed, gingerly getting an arm behind her shoulders, helping her stand. The look she sent me, one of dazed bewilderment, was kind of cute. “Come on, let’s get you home.”
She shuffled two steps and then swayed unsteadily. “Whoa, I feel buzzed.”
I glanced at Dee, who raised her brows and said, “I think the pills are starting to work.”
“Am I…slurring yet?” Kat asked.
“Not at all.” Dee laughed.
Kat hobbled a couple more steps, and I saw this going nowhere fast. Sighing, I scooped her up and then deposited her gently in a wheelchair just outside the ER room. “Hospital rules.”
She just stared at me.
We stopped long enough to fill out some paperwork, but Kat wasn’t much of a help by that point. The nurses thankfully put most of it aside for her mom to fill out later. Once we got to Dee’s car, I picked Kat up and placed her in the backseat.
“I can walk, you know.”
I carefully buckled her in, making sure I didn’t jar the arm that was in the cast. “I know.” Closing the door, I sent Dee a look as I walked around to the other side of the backseat and climbed in. By the time Dee had turned the engine, Kat’s head was on my shoulder.
Stiffening, I glanced down at her and then up. Dee wasn’t looking at me as she was pulling out of the parking spot. Then I glanced back at Kat. This couldn’t be entirely comfortable. It sure as hell wasn’t for me. Taking a deep breath, I lifted my arm and placed it around her shoulders. She immediately snuggled up, like a little kitten, with the good side of her face.
This was weird.
There were more moments of us being total asshats to each other than there were of us being actually decent, but the fact she’d do this and that I’d let her, actually aid in the process, was very…yeah, weird.
Her breathing deepened, and one of her hands fell to my thigh, the fingers slowly uncurling. “Kat?” I whispered.
No response.
“Is she awake?” Dee asked from the front.
“Out cold.”
Dee let out a shaky breath. “She’s going to be okay, right?”
I stared down at Kat, and even in the dark of the car, I could see her scratched-up cheek. “Yeah, she’ll be fine.”
“She said she was going to stay at home… I could still see it,” she said.
“I know.” We’d both known the trace was still there, and no one was kicking their own ass more than me. I paused. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to let anything happen this time. I swear.”
“It’s not your fault. I shouldn’t have said that in the ER. You didn’t know this was going to happen.”
I didn’t know exactly, but it hadn’t come out of left field either. We all knew there was a chance. It was why Dee had tried to convince her to stay home tonight.
“You did something, didn’t you?” Dee asked quietly. “It’s stronger now.”
“I didn’t…mean to.” A few strands of Kat’s hair fell across her cheek. I brushed them back. “It just happened. Shit.”
Dee didn’t speak again until she hit the highway. “Be honest with me. How badly was she hurt?”
“I don’t know.” I watched Kat’s hand twitch against my leg. “I think… I think it was pretty bad. She seemed to have trouble breathing. That Arum was going to kill her.”
“Oh God,” Dee whispered.
Looking out the window, I watched the darkened trees blur past, broken up every few moments by headlights. “We… I just need to be more careful.”
Dee didn’t respond for a long moment. “Adam called. He knew something was up when you left the house. I told him—”
“I know you told him about Kat. He said something tonight.” I dragged my gaze from the window, finding Dee’s in the rearview mirror. “I’m going to have to tell them.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “Adam doesn’t care, but…”
Yeah, she didn’t need to elaborate. Ash and Andrew would most definitely have a problem with it, but I’d killed an Arum tonight. Couldn’t keep the lid on this jar of shit any longer.
We didn’t speak the rest of the way, and Kat didn’t wake up when we pulled in front of the house. She only stirred, murmuring under her breath when I unbuckled her and carefully drew her out of the car, once again in my arms and tucked against my chest.
“I got her purse and keys,” Dee announced, closing the driver’s door. “I’m going to unlock the door. You got her?”
“Of course.”
Dee’s gaze met mine, and I didn’t want to know what she was thinking in that moment, but she whirled around and darted across the driveway, toward Kat’s house. Twisting at the waist, I kneed the car door shut. I turned, shifting Kat in my arms.
She stirred, sliding her hand up my chest to my shoulder. A shiver rushed over my skin. Wrong as hell. Her lashes lifted, and I stopped a few feet from the car as the corners of her lips lifted up, too. Silvery moonlight glanced over her cheek. “Hey,” she whispered.
“Hey.”
Her unfocused gaze drifted over my face. “You…you are really pretty.”
A surprised laugh burst out of me. “Thanks, Kitten.”
Yeah, she was totally high and out of it, but her smile widened as her eyes closed. I wasn’t hig
h or out of it when I whispered back to her, “So are you.”
I’d never been in Kat’s house before, and I don’t even know why it felt weird to be inside. Maybe it was because she was passed out. I hadn’t investigated the house as I followed Dee into a similar foyer and through a doorway to the right. Dee had turned on a lamp, and soft yellow light enveloped the living room.
Books.
Books were everywhere.
Stacked by the corner of the couch, in a neat pile of five, spines facing out. Two were on the coffee table. One had a shiny bookmark poking out of the top. Three more were on the end table. Another was on the TV stand, and it too had a bookmark shoved in it. Was she reading two books at once? More?
I could barely read one at a time.
“I think we should stay down here,” Dee said, sitting in a worn recliner by the window. “Just in case something is wrong.”
Looking at Dee, I turned and stared at the couch, the only other available seating. I carried Kat over to the couch and laid her down. I sat beside her, my gaze crawling up to the slow-moving ceiling fan.
Dee talked for a little while, but she quickly fell asleep, virtually leaving me solely responsible for Kat, which was a bad idea in general, since I was doing a real bang-up job of that.
I dropped my elbow on the arm of the couch and rested my cheek in my palm, watching Kat’s shoulders rise and fall steadily. I could’ve turned on the TV, but I didn’t want to wake her or my sister.
Flicking my wrist, I managed to turn off the lamp without destroying it with a quick zip of energy. As the darkness surrounded us, the image trying to stir formed in my thoughts. I doubted I would ever get the scene of that Arum standing over a broken Kat out of my head or forget the raspy sound of panic in her voice when she hadn’t realized it was me at her side.
Yeah, tonight was going to linger.
I must’ve dozed off at some point, because daylight now filtered through the living room as Kat snuggled her way closer. Her head ended up in my lap, and that wasn’t entirely comfortable. I shifted her carefully, but damn, I may not be human, but I was a guy.
Kat slept soundly, her injured arm curled against her chest and her lips slightly parted. I lifted my head, working a kink out of my neck. It was then that I realized my hand was resting on her curved hip.
Huh.
I had no recollection of doing that. Must’ve been in my sleep. I didn’t move my hand, though. My entire being focused on that hand—which was only slightly better than focusing on where her head was. Through the thin denim of her jeans, the curve of her hip was soft. Warm. I imagined that this was what couples did, though Ash and I were never like this. She could get touchy. So could I, but this? Nah, I don’t think we’d ever done anything like this.
Why was I even thinking about that with Kat?
Lack of sleep was getting to me.
Kat suddenly stiffened, and my gaze flew to her face. Her lashes were up. I couldn’t see her eyes, but her chest rose sharply. Was she in pain? “You okay, Kitten?”
“Daemon?” Her voice was hoarse, throaty with sleep and sort of, okay, really kind of sexy. “I… Sorry. I didn’t mean to sleep on you.”
“It’s okay,” I told her and helped her sit up. Her face was too pale and the purplish bruise around her eye pissed me off. I didn’t even want to check out her neck at this point. “Are you okay?” I repeated, eyeing her closer.
Her gaze found mine. “Yeah. You stayed here all night?”
“Yeah.” Seemed pretty obvious.
Kat looked at Dee and then swallowed. She lifted the arm in the cast but lowered it back to her lap as she slowly refocused on me. I couldn’t zero in on what she was thinking. She looked shocked. Confused. Sleepy. Cute.
Goddammit with the cute shit.
I needed to focus. “Do you remember anything?”
She nodded and then winced. “I was attacked last night.”
“Someone tried to mug you.” I resisted the urge to ask if she was okay yet again.
Her brows knitted. “He wasn’t trying to mug me.”
Hell. “Kat—”
“No.” She started to stand up, but I circled my arm around her waist, keeping her in place. I didn’t want her standing too quickly and falling, cracking her head open, and bleeding all over her precious books. “He didn’t want my money, Daemon. He wanted them.”
Dammit. I stiffened, thoughts racing. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“No shit.” She frowned down at her injured arm. “But he kept asking about where they were and about a trace or something.”
“Clearly the guy was insane,” I said, keeping my voice low while I willed her to brush it off as such. “You realize that, right? That he wasn’t right in the head? Nothing he said means anything.”
“I don’t know. He didn’t seem crazy.”
“Trying to beat the crap out of a girl isn’t crazy enough for you?” I asked, shaking my head. “I’m curious what you think is crazy.”
Her frown deepened. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?” I twisted toward her, careful not to jar her arm. “He was a random lunatic, but you’re going to make it bigger than it is, aren’t you?”
Kat drew in a sharp breath. “I’m not making this anything. Daemon, that wasn’t a normal lunatic.”
Frustration thinned my patience. The thing was, she was right. There had been nothing normal about the “man” who had attacked her, but I couldn’t let her know that. I needed her to drop this. “Oh, you’re an expert on crazy people now?”
“A month with you and I feel I have a master’s degree in the subject.” She glared at me as she scooted away. She swayed a little.
“You okay?” I touched her good arm. “Kat?”
She shook my hand off, good and angry. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
I looked away, tense. She didn’t need my shit right now. Obviously she wasn’t up for a throw-down between us, and I was actually, legitimately worried about her. She looked worn the hell out, but I had to shut this down. “I know you’re probably messed up after what happened last night, but don’t make this into something it’s not.”
“Daemon—”
“I don’t want Dee worried that there is an idiot out there attacking girls.” My jaw hardened and my voice turned icy. “Do you understand me?”
Her lower lip trembled, and seeing that was like taking a kick to the gut. Yeah, I was an ass. I sucked at empathy and sympathy. The whole assimilation into human society the DOD had forced us into really hadn’t worked out that well for me, but that didn’t mean I enjoyed kicking someone when she was down.
I started to get up, but when I lifted my gaze from her mouth, our gazes locked. In that moment, I wished I had the ability to change someone’s thoughts. That was also probably terrible, but I would remove the memory of the assault. Not just to protect what we were and my family, but to also erase those shadows that lingered in her gray eyes. What happened last night was going to haunt her for a long time, I could tell.
From the recliner, Dee yawned loudly, obnoxiously so.
Kat jerked back, looking over at my sister, who apparently had been awake for a while.
“Good morning!” She chirped like a bird and all but slammed her feet onto the floor. “Have you guys been awake long?”
I sighed heavily. “No, Dee, we just woke up and were talking. You were snoring so loudly we couldn’t stay asleep any longer.”
She snorted like a little pink pig. “I doubt that. Katy, are you feeling…okay this morning?”
“Yeah, I’m a little sore and stiff, but overall okay.”
Dee’s smile was forced as she reached up, pushing the disheveled waves of hair out of her face.
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