Chapter Twenty-Eight Damien
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Damien
It took effort, but eventually, I managed to pry my eyes away from their intertwined hands.
Wren had planned to leave me waiting all night while she gallivanted around the docks with this stranger. Who now held on to her like I was the outsider.
“Who is he?” I demanded, my voice deep. I sounded pissed, there was no disguising it.
Wren and I had worked together this entire time without anyone else involved, and now?
She stood there hand in hand with some unfamiliar noble.
One who wasn’t hard on the eyes, I could admit.
He looked like a bronzed statue, his dark brown eyes appearing outlined in kohl.
The perfect rake whom every eligible man or woman would fall for.
My hands clenched into fists the longer I looked at him. At her.
By some stroke of luck, I’d arrived at her town house early and watched the whole thing play out—her sneaking through the garden before getting into his carriage without a care in the world. I’d planned to knock on her window, hoping she was game to break into the Registry, but she had other plans.
I think I blacked out when I used my last remaining coin to tail them in a hired carriage idling on the main avenue. Throughout the drive, I seethed; angry at myself for feeling angry, and angry that that I allowed myself to be entirely consumed by that anger.
Wren was infuriating. She’d patched me up and slept beside me all through the night, her soft skin and that damned citrus scent of hers invading my thoughts. Sure, I’d been the one to leave, that morning, but…But I didn’t think she would go running off with some other man the second I was away.
This was new to me.
Another reason I never did feelings.
It was arrogant of me to assume she’d be at home, ready for me to knock on her window.
Hell, it made me a self-centered prick. The awareness didn’t make the heat in my chest simmer down, however.
Just picturing her next to him fueled the flames, and I imagined her off on some midnight tryst. She never spoke of suitors, but she could very well be hiding them from me.
How many suckers did she have at her beck and call besides me?
Did she smile at them in the same way, looking at them like a goddess fallen from the heavens?
Did she smack them when they said something stupid?
I wondered if she told them all of her darkest secrets and hopes. Her dreams of traveling.
Fuck. I shouldn’t have been thinking that way, but I couldn’t help it. Aside from Ruby, I hadn’t allowed anyone else in my life, and the woman I stole from had become—
Something.
Something more.
Before we reached the docks, I hopped out and hunted down a messenger on his way into the city.
After I bribed the messenger with a week’s worth of Cap’s drinks on the house—a promise I wasn’t sure I could uphold—he took off for the tavern.
I imagined Ruby would receive the message soon. Backup might be needed.
“Wren?” I demanded when she sat there, watching me, that defiant little chin lifting. I had the urge to grab it, to yank her lips to mine and—
She released a weary sigh, yet she didn’t falter or stumble. “This is Grayson.”
Grayson. Such a nice name for an arrogant bastard.
“And?” I prowled closer, inspecting the highborn man with distaste. When he smiled in reply, my hatred for him swelled.
“And he brought me a clue I couldn’t ignore,” Wren said. “He suspects his father and mine are meeting here tonight. There’s a new ‘shipment.’ ”
Her face relayed no emotion, not like earlier when I’d watched her take his hand, soothing and comforting him.
Shite. Jealousy was not a good look on me. And I felt it in spades.
That unbidden fire burned like an inferno, the kind that felt like more than mere jealousy. An emotion I couldn’t, no, wouldn’t name. I hadn’t even felt like this when she’d danced with Everett. I knew her well enough by now to know she wasn’t interested in him.
Which you shouldn’t care about…but do anyway.
Screw my thoughts.
“You trust him? How long have you known him?” I asked, daring to step closer. Why did Wren have to keep attracting untrustworthy strays? First Everett, then this smiling fool. Grayson could very well be working with his father and luring her into a trap.
All right. The irony wasn’t lost on me. I’d deceived her first, but I was rectifying it, so it didn’t count.
“Just…just trust me for once,” she said. “We have to know what’s in the shipping containers.”
I ground my teeth. I’d like a word with her afterward about the danger of befriending strangers and following them to shady places in the middle of the night, but for now, I let it go.
Call me a bastard, but I didn’t want her dead.
“Fine,” I bit out. “But we wait for Ruby. I sent word for her to come.”
At the mention of Ruby, Wren’s face instantly brightened, and damn it, I’d never been more envious of my friend than at that moment.
“At least someone with sense will be here,” she said, one corner of her lips curling upward into a smirk.
The little vixen was goading me.
I took the bait.
“Someone with sense, eh?” I ran my eyes down her form, a chuckle leaving me. “You could be dead right this minute—”
“I’m right here, you know,” Grayson interrupted. “And don’t worry, I don’t plan on murdering anyone tonight.”
Funny.
“You just like to lure women to the shadiest parts of town without hired muscle in the middle of the night, then?”
He had no idea what could’ve happened if some of the dockside boys had found them.
Wren dropped his hand for a moment, and they exchanged a look. He nodded.
Great, now they were communicating telepathically.
Bounding up to me, she snatched my hand and all but lugged me aside, away from the prying ears of Grayson.
“Damien.” She practically growled my name, her blue eyes storms of fury. “What is it with you tonight?”
I took her by the shoulders, my fingers digging through the material of her dress. Why couldn’t she understand that she’d put herself in danger?
“Whenever you come to the Void, tell me,” I begged. “You could’ve been hurt, and—”
“You always leave before plans can be made,” she said. “One moment you run hot, the next, you’re ice-cold, afraid of even looking me in the eyes. Get yourself together.”
I jerked back, her passion a surprise. An adorable one.
“Besides,” she continued, “I don’t have to alert you every time I leave the house.”
Unable to stop myself, or simply unwilling, I took her defiant chin between my fingers and angled it, my eyes immediately glued to her lips.
“You infuriate me, Wren Hayes.”
“And you drive me mad.”
My fingers twitched as I ran my thumb across her lower lip. When they parted I knew with complete certainty that I’d done the one thing I promised I’d never do—
I’d fallen for a mark.
Or was falling.
Leaning down, I whispered against her mouth, barely a kiss, more like a warning. “Whenever you’re concerned, it’s my business.”
She exhaled, allowing me to taste traces of peppermint and something distinctly her. The memory of her kiss seared across my mind like a brand.
“Are you my business?” she asked, breathless.
“From day one,” came my answer, quick and truthful. “Or maybe when you stabbed me. That’s when…”
“When what?” We were centimeters from touching, from giving in to what had been building like a storm.
“When I…” When I wanted you, I wished to say. That was when she became real. My ward princess. A spot of sunshine in the abyss of my life.
“You can’t even say it, can you?” Her eyes narrowed, and I swore I glimpsed tears lining them in the dimness. “You can never just say how you feel. You’re too much of a fucking coward to—”
I yanked her forward and kissed her.
She whimpered in surprise, but her body fused to mine, those delectable curves all but begging for my hands.
Since we weren’t alone and I couldn’t indulge in my baser instincts, no matter how much my body ached, I pressed my lips against hers and stole her breath instead.
I ran my tongue across the seam of her mouth before invading it, before tangling my tongue with hers.
She moaned softly, and that damned sound, it made it near impossible to pull back. But now wasn’t the time. Or place.
Breaking away with a curse, I held her to me. “I’m sorry I ran,” I admitted. “I would’ve spent all day with you. Would’ve loved it. I…you make me think of things I shouldn’t. Impossible things that will only bring disaster in the end. You and I both know it.”
We were a tragedy waiting to happen, and I’d become a glutton for punishment.
“I want to know these impossible things you speak of.” She rocked forward to nip at my bottom lip.
“You should know by now that I’m not one to care what society thinks of me.
I do what I want, and will continue to do so.
And you, Damien, have driven me mad since the moment I laid eyes upon you.
You’ve enraged me. Comforted me. Made me question if I was going crazy too. ”
“Same, sunshine,” I said, my hand curving around her hip. “I’m not used to the feeling. It’s…grating.”
“Get used to it,” she demanded. “Because I won’t wait for you to decide.”
With that, she pulled free of my hold and strode back to Grayson, his attention diverted to the ships. When he cleared his throat awkwardly, Wren took his hand in hers again and whispered in his ear. He visibly relaxed, and turning to her, he smiled.
He was lucky I didn’t wipe that smile off his face. Tonight, at least.