CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Myra
He was seething as he pressed me harder into the wire mesh protecting the window in the door, but his anger couldn’t cow me. He didn’t get to be the angry one, especially since he’d gone AWOL.
I notched my chin higher and cocked my head. “I could ask you the same.”
Rage burned so bright in his eyes it cut through the shadows surrounding us. “I am stopping you from slipping your head in a noose and handing the rope to someone eager to hang you with it.”
“And I am stopping you from fucking me over,” I countered as I strained forward against his punishing grip. “You must think I’m the dumbest bitch alive—”
“I didn’t until just now—”
“—and maybe I am, because it took me way longer than it should have to figure out what you’re really up to.”
“What I’m really ‘up to’?” he asked with the audacity to sound confused. “And what would that be?”
I stared at him for a moment, taking in the way his expression gave nothing away. “You’re using me to get close enough to the answers you need about your sister, only to cut me out and find her on your own so you don’t have to honor our deal.”
That practiced neutrality quickly devolved to incredulity. “Except you would have helped me get to that point, so the deal would still be binding.”
“Not how you worded it,” I snapped at him, “which was not an accident, I’m sure.”
“What’s gotten into you?” he asked as he assessed me for a moment, eyes narrow and harsh. “Where is all this coming from?”
“I don’t know, maybe it’s courtesy of you and your shady nature, or the fact that you don’t want me to ‘cozy up’ to Dreven but won’t say why, or that you went no-contact for days when I normally can’t get you to leave me alone, for starters.
Throw in how you worded your little bargain, and it definitely paints a certain kind of picture. ”
“You sound paranoid, love.” His head dropped down so close to my neck that my body tensed at the proximity.
The tip of his nose grazed my throat as he inhaled deeply, and my eyes slammed shut as a shiver shot through me.
I opened them as he pulled away, and I found a ghost of a smile on his face.
“You sure you’re okay? Your pupils seem awfully dilated, and there’s a strange herbal smell buried deep in your skin.
You didn’t smoke something earlier tonight, did you? ”
“Maybe—”
A low little laugh escaped him. “Little mermaid… are you high right now?”
Shit.
“I don’t see how that matters.”
“Oh, but it does,” he said with a mischievous smile. “It matters greatly since it would explain so much about our current situation.”
“High or not, it doesn’t change the fact that I’m right.”
“I beg to differ there.” His amusement was maddening. “Tell me, exactly how long have you been spiraling about this?”
“Since Curtis got me stoned on my way into work—on my day off.”
His fucking smile widened. “I’ve never wished I’d spent a day at The Riff Raff more in my life.”
“Make fun all you want, but I’m not wrong,” I argued with a little less heat as my confidence began to fade.
“A notion you probably should have kept to yourself, love, lest I turn out to be an unscrupulous sort who might use your revelation against you.” Yael leaned in closer, and I wished I had some way to avoid his piercing gaze. “But I have no intention of betraying you. I never did.”
I exhaled hard in both relief and embarrassment. “You can hardly blame me for thinking it.”
“Maybe, but I have to ask: have you always been this suspicious and cynical?” That familiar note of mischief tainted his tone. “It’s not healthy.”
At that, I shrugged. “I guess you could call it a by-product of living in this godforsaken place,” I replied, “and a history of betrayal.”
Something about my words made him bristle, and his hold on me fell away. “That’s the most reasonable thing you’ve said tonight, sad though it is.”
“I don’t want your pity.”
“Good, because I feel many things for you, love, but pity has never been one of them.”
The weight of his stare was sobering me by the second, and all I wanted to do was get out of the alcove that seemed to be closing in around me. But it was clear from the way his body coiled when I moved to push past him that escape wasn’t an option.
“I imagine it’s hard to have room for much beyond your contempt and superiority when it comes to me,” I said, letting my frustration bleed into my cold tone.
His shoulders stiffened before he clasped his hands behind his back. “Your words, not mine.” Before I could fire back, he stepped out of the alcove into the street, headed back toward the heart of the Devil’s Playground. “Are you coming?”
Knowing it was a rhetorical question, I kept my mouth shut and followed behind him.
“Tell me something,” he said as we walked side by side down the middle of the road, “did you at any point consider that there might have been a reason why I hadn’t contacted you, or did you just assume the worst right off?”
With the clarity our interaction had afforded me, I cringed at the thought of saying it out loud. “Next question.”
“I’m afraid not, love.”
“Can I just blame the new kid’s special stash?”
“Nope. All that did was blow your suspicions meteorically out of proportion.”
“Ugh, fine. No, I didn’t. But can you really blame me? You treat me like a tool you can use, then discard when you’re done with it. You order me around like a tyrant to do your bidding, then just up and disappear for days, so I thought—”
“You thought I’d fucked you over.”
I exhaled hard. “Basically.”
“I see.” He was quiet for a moment as we continued on.
“Then for the sake of this agreement and your waning sanity, I’ll do better at keeping you in the loop moving forward.
I can’t exactly afford to have you turn into a paranoid addict to cope with my absences.
” He shot me a sideward glance, and even in that sliver of his eye, I could see the twinkle of delight it held.
“You should be careful, though, little mermaid. One might think you were hurt because you’re starting to like me. ”
“Ummm, no,” I scoffed, shrugging off that ridiculous idea. “One would be very, very wrong if that’s the conclusion they came to.”
“Would they?” he asked, stepping into my path to better assess my expression. I nearly bounced off his chest, and I stumbled back a step to keep my distance. His satisfaction was instant. “You do look a little flushed at the moment. Was I standing too close to you? Making you nervous?”
“That’s just fallout from Curtis’ dragon weed.”
The back of Yael’s cool hand stroked my cheek as his eyes searched my face to find some kind of reaction. I fought to keep the sudden rush of heat it sent through my body from showing. “Are you sure?”
“It’s not from you, if that’s what you’re implying,” I said, pulling away from his touch.
“Not everyone is as enamored with you as you are.” Undeterred by my jab, his devilish grin appeared, but it held a note of something else this time—something that promised all kinds of trouble—and the longer I looked at it, the more inviting that trouble seemed to be.
I quickly dug my fingernails into my palms to snap myself out of those devolving thoughts.
“I barely tolerate you, Yael, and spend most of my day delighting in the fact that I’ll be rid of you soon. ”
His facade didn’t even falter. “That’s a lot of time thinking about me, love. Should I be concerned about how obsessed you’re becoming?”
“No. You should be concerned about what I’m thinking about doing to you right now.”
“Maybe.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “Or maybe I’m excited at the prospect.”
“I do not have the mental capacity to play these games with you tonight,” I said as I pushed him away.
“Games?” he said in a curious tone. “I don’t think anything about us is a game.”
“That’s funny, since it feels like all you do is toy with me in one way or another.
This deal… our fake relationship… your flirty behavior that can turn at the drop of a hat.
Most of the time, I can’t tell if you hate me, think I’m a total joke, or if maybe some twisted part of you really does want to fuck my brains out. ”
“Do I only get to choose one?” he asked as he shifted closer.
I fisted my hands on my hips to keep from swinging at him, and that fucking grin only widened at the sight.
“That would be a shame, because I do love to poke fun at you sometimes.” All levity fell away from his expression, leaving an intensity in its wake that left my heart in my throat. “I’d hate to give that up.”
A gust of wind blew down the road, tossing stray hairs around me wildly, and he took a step closer still.
His fingertips grazed my jaw as he tucked them behind my ear, letting his hand linger longer than necessary.
Deep green eyes raked over me, and when they landed on mine again, there were unmistakable lines of black swirling through them in a mesmerizing pattern.
His body tensed, and he slammed his eyelids shut for a moment. When they opened, all I found was forest staring back. He retreated a step and smoothed his coat as his familiar mask of indifference fell back into place. “Perhaps we’ll have to call it a draw for now.”
The cold I felt at his withdrawal was as immediate as it was confounding, but it was short-lived.
Heat fueled by bitterness and anger stoked deep in my belly as I remembered who I was dealing with—another man who promised a good time that would inevitably end in disaster because he couldn’t, and shouldn’t, be trusted.
“Fine. Now, do you maybe want to tell me what’s up with Dreven? ”
“I was actually on my way over to tell you before your whole cloak-and-dagger attempt went south. I’ve been working to track him down since it appears he’s away from his business at the moment. That’s what I’ve been up to.”
“And so busy you couldn’t text an update? Wow, that’s impressive.”
“Maybe I was somewhere that texting doesn’t work.”
“Not a lot of places like that in the world,” I argued.
“Not in this one, no.” He stared at me, waiting for realization to dawn.
“The portals…”
“Precisely. And now that I know his comings and goings, I can pin down his schedule and figure out when it will be best to get what we need from him. Luckily, that won’t be tonight, since you’re not in any shape to attempt it at the moment.”
I definitely couldn’t argue with that.
We rounded the corner next to the bar, and my pace slowed.
“I should probably go back in and apologize to everyone. I kinda bailed at the peak of my paranoia,” I explained, leaving out the part about Curtis and my need for a chaperone.
“I’m surprised they haven’t sent a search party after me already.
” At the thought, I pulled out my phone and cringed when I saw the multiple missed calls and texts confirming their concerns.
“That bad?” Yael asked with a wry grin.
“Possibly worse.”
“Then you should get in there and start groveling.”
I forced a smile and headed for the front door. The absence of his footfalls caught my attention, and I turned to find him still standing in the road, watching me walk away.
“Are you coming?” I asked. “It would probably make the girls’ night.”
“As much as I hate to disappoint, I think it might be better if I leave you to it for tonight. I’ll likely be around tomorrow,” he said, turning to walk away. “Get some sleep tonight, love. You’ll need to be prepared for our visit with Dreven when the time comes. I doubt it will be easy.”
“Sounds fun,” I said, giving a thumbs-up over my head that he didn’t look back to see.
Instead, he crossed the street and disappeared into the shadows, along with the answers to questions like who this mysterious Dreven was, how were we going to get close to him, and why he thought interrogating him wasn’t going to be easy.
I didn’t like the sound of anything about that.
Turns out, I had good reason not to.