Chapter 5 #2
He stood, the movement abrupt, almost violent. I flinched.
I stood as well. “Daughter of Declan Calloway.” I said it to his back, a plea as much as a confession.
He turned slowly, his eyes narrowing.
“King of the Eastern Wolves.” The words came out broken, desperate. “I’m so sorry.”
He took a step toward me, then another. I tried to shrink back, but there was nowhere left to go.
He reached me, his breath warm against my skin. I couldn’t stop shaking.
“You know how dangerous it is for you to be here.”
“Yes.” It was barely a whisper.
“You know what will happen when they find out.”
The fear rose, drowning me.
I nodded, unable to speak.
“You think you’re leaving?”
A tear slipped down my cheek.
“I think I have to. I’m trying to,” I said. “It’s not working.”
His hand brushed against my hair. The touch was enough to break me.
“Don’t.” He said it like a command, but his voice was gentler than I’d expected.
“Don’t what?” I asked shakily.
“Don’t try.”
“I can’t stay.” My words were so soft I wondered if he’d heard them.
He answered by pulling me closer, the way I’d dreamed he would.
I buried my head against his chest, dizzy with relief. With his scent.
“Honey and roses,” he said, his breath stirring the loose strands of my hair.
“What?”
“What I smelled that night at Pearl’s.”
I drew back enough to look at him, heart in my throat. His face was softer than I’d ever seen.
He held me for a long time. I felt his strength seep into my bones, mending the parts that had been broken.
But the truth was too heavy for one person to carry.
I pulled back, fearing what might happen if I kept him close.
I had already risked too much by staying.
He didn’t let me get far, just enough to look at him.
This beautiful man, his hazel eyes molten.
I wanted to remember him like this when I left.
“I don’t want to run anymore,” I said, my voice trembling.
He smoothed my hair away from my face.
“Then don’t,” he said.
“You don’t understand.” I put a hand on his chest, a final touch. “You don’t know what I’m bringing down on you. I don’t know what I thought. Going with you to the school. Sitting at that piano. Trying to act like I could have a real life.”
Menace’s eyes narrowed, focused. “Tell me what I don’t understand. What do you think you’re bringing down on me?”
I took a step back, everything aching.
He sat me next to him on the couch; the world reduced to the distance between us. He watched in silence as I tried to find words, words that would only hurt him.
“It’s more complicated than you think.”
“Try me.”
I drew a breath, every part of me tight.
His assurance would have been comforting if it hadn’t also been dangerous.
“My mother… I don’t know how she stands it. All of it. She begged me to be careful. Told me I needed to find my fate.”
“Looks like you found it.” Menace’s words were sharp and determined.
“Yes.” My voice cracked.
His fingers stopped drumming.
“I feel it too. But it gets worse.”
His voice was serious. “Tell me.”
“The man he promised me to is Dominic Madison.”
His face drained of all of its color. “The King of the Midwest?”
“And that’s why I said I cannot stay,” I barely whispered, tears streaming down my face.
“And I’m telling you, you’re staying.” He was emphatic.
The finality in his voice sent a shiver through me.
“He won’t let me go.”
“Neither will I.”
“But…”
“But what?”
I swallowed against the growing tightness in my throat. “He’ll never stop hunting for me. He made a deal with Dominic. When you saved me from that lab, I guess I just forgot. I felt something stronger than my father’s wrath the moment I first saw you. I think it was hope.”
“You’re staying.”
“You could die for this.” My voice was thin and desperate.
He brushed his fingers across my cheek, sending a shock through my skin.
“Then I’ll die,” he said.
“Menace.”
The word was a prayer and a plea.
“Savannah.”
Hearing my name on his lips sent a shiver through me.
“Don’t run.”
“You’re asking too much.”
He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“It would be easier for you to just let me go,” I said, everything raw.
“No.”
“Please.”
He pulled me to him, crushing. Consuming.
The force of it left me breathless.
“You can’t do this.”
His grip tightened, leaving me helpless and comforted. Leaving me exactly where I wanted to be.
“Yes,” he said. “I can.”
He kept me there, unwilling to let me slip away.
We stayed like that as the night surrendered to dawn, as my fear gave way to hope.
I felt the warmth of him against me, felt the tremor in his breath. He wouldn’t let me leave, not even for a moment.
The rising sun caught in his hair, a burnished light that made him glow.
I’d never seen anything more beautiful.
“Not gonna lose you.”
I shook my head, overwhelmed by the force of it.
“You’re risking too much.”
His hand traced a path down my back, sending sparks down my spine.
“That’s the point,” he said.
He moved us to the bedroom, each step careful and measured.
“Don’t know what I’d do,” he said, his voice a low rumble, “if you left.”
He laid me down, as gentle as I’d ever known him. As loving.
“You’ll have to find out,” I said, a last attempt to sound strong.
He grinned, the tension in his eyes softening.
“Or not.”
I laughed, and it felt like freedom. It felt like we had all the time in the world.
The sound of it echoed against the walls, a promise as solid as his hold.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, knowing it was true.
He lay beside me, an anchor. A salvation.
“You can’t,” he said. “Not anymore.”
I buried my face in his shoulder, breathing in his scent.
“I was afraid.”
“I know,” he said, stroking my hair. “Don’t be.”
It felt like a command.
It felt like love.
He stayed with me as sleep finally pulled me under, as the shadows disappeared with the coming of a new day.
He stayed.
We stayed.