Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
LUCIAN
I have killed men for less than the look on Erin’s face.
Open defiance and challenge.
But the one that hurts is the little flinch she tries to hide when I fail to answer quickly enough.
The way her eyes, usually too bright and too defiant for her own good, go flat with the kind of pain that does not scream because it has survived worse.
If Isobel is alive, what does that make me?
The answer should be simple.
Mine.
Erin is mine.
My woman. My problem. My obsession. My softest weakness and my most dangerous mistake.
But the name Isobel hits the air between us like smoke from a fire I never escaped.
And for one ruined second, I do not speak.
One second.
That is all it takes to wound her.
I feel it happen.
The cabin door closes behind us, cutting off the cold and the men outside. The entryway smells of cedar, smoke, and the faint vanilla sweetness of whatever Cass baked last night while pretending she was not worried about all of us.
Erin pulls her wrist from my hand.
I let her.
That is the first mercy I offer.
It feels like tearing skin from bone.
She walks deeper into the cabin, her boots leaving damp marks on the old wood floor. She usually stops to take them off.
My coat is too big around her shoulders, one of mine even though I’ve bought her a collection of weather-appropriate ones. Before me, she nearly froze herself in inadequate outerwear.
She stops near the fireplace but does not turn toward it. Her back is stiff. Her dark hair is loose down her spine, wind-tangled from outside. I want to wrap my hand in it and tilt her head back until she looks at me.
I want to order away the pain.
I want to put my mouth on hers and force every question out of her head.
I want to lock every door in this cabin and keep her where nothing can reach her.
“What does Isobel make you?” I say.
Erin gives a sharp little laugh without turning around. “That’s the question.”
“No.” I remove my gloves slowly because if I do anything quickly, I may break something. “It isn’t.”
She turns then.
There she is.
My girl with her chin up and her eyes wounded.
God help me, I would rather take a bullet than see that look on her face.
Again.
“You went awfully quiet for a man who always knows exactly what to say when he’s ordering people around,” she says.
“I was surprised.”
“Were you?” Her gaze narrows.
“Yes.”
Her brows rise. “Because she might be alive?”
My voice lowers to gravel. “Because you were standing beyond the boundary after being told not to cross it.”
Her eyes flash. Good. Anger is better than hurt. “Don’t you dare make this about the bloody woodpile.”
I want to laugh. She’s picking up Bayne’s men’s lingo. I don’t. “It is about the woodpile.”
“No, it isn’t.”
I take one step toward her. “You were outside the perimeter.”
She takes one step toward me. “By about three feet.”
“Three feet is enough.”
“For what? A sniper? A kidnapping? A wolf attack? One of Bayne’s charming hill people mistaking me for a deer and calling me lunch?”
“Do not make jokes.”
“I’ll make whatever I want when I’m being treated like a child.”
The words hit too close.
Because I am treating her like something fragile.
Something breakable.
Something I can put on a shelf high enough that death cannot reach her.
And I know better.
I know Erin is not fragile.
I know this woman walked into my life wearing cheap black satin and a warrior’s gaze.
I know she lied to my face, defied me at every turn, and still somehow became the only person who could bring me to my knees without touching me.
I know she held herself together through Caleb.
Through Cass’s blood.
Through the Morettis.
Through a gunshot that should never have come near her.
I know.
But knowing does not stop the image carved into me after betrayal.
Erin, bleeding and pale, after throwing herself in front of Gregory.
I can still feel my hands on her body, trying to keep her in this world by sheer will.
I have survived fire and betrayal, but nothing moves me like the thought of losing her.
“I will not apologize for keeping you alive,” I say.
Her mouth tightens. “I didn’t ask you to.”
“You don’t have to.” My jaw locks.
“That’s the problem, Lucian. You think that because of this mess we’re in, I don’t have any rights. You just decide. You make all the rules and expect me to follow them.”
“Those decisions keep you breathing.”
“Decisions made with me outside the conversation while everyone else talks about my life,” she says.
I move closer before I decide to.
Erin holds her ground.
Always.
Even when she trembles. Even when she is afraid enough to run, she plants those feet and looks at me like she would rather be destroyed than back down.
Most of the time, I love that about her.
Right now, it makes me want to spank her.
“You think I enjoy this?” My voice drops. “You think I like having men in the trees? You think I like knowing Carlos is still alive? That someone used him to dangle a dead woman in front of me like bait?”
Her anger falters. Only for a second. But I catch it.
“You think she’s bait?” she asks.
“Now that I know his true nature, I think everything Carlos touches becomes a weapon used to destroy someone else.”
Her brows peak. “Including her?”
I nod. “Yes.”
The answer is immediate.
True.
Not complete, but true.
Erin’s gaze searches my face as if she is looking for a crack wide enough to crawl through. She asks, “Who was she to you?”
The cabin grows too quiet.
Outside, voices move across the porch. Bayne. Blaze. Rafe. Mack. Men pretending not to listen while absolutely listening. If I opened the door right now, they’d all find something fascinating to stare at in the trees.
I do not open the door.
I look at Erin. “She was someone I loved. But that’s in the past.” I hate myself for hurting her.
Finally, she says, “Right.”
And everything is wrong.
I’m handling this poorly. I’m saying and doing all the wrong things.
I want to close the space between us, but I don’t know how to.
“Erin.”
“No, love. That’s clear.” She nods once, too quickly. “Very clear.”
“It was years ago.”
“Love doesn’t care about calendars,” she snorts.
Her words stop me. Because she is right. She usually is.
Love doesn’t age, does it?
Even if it was the wrong love, it’s still love. Beautiful. Untouchable. Forever there.
Even when you don’t want it anymore.
In my memory, Isobel is twenty-three, laughing in a summer dress near the fountain in the town center. Then she is screaming. Then nothing.
For years, I believed she died because of me. Because I trusted Carlos. Because I loved too openly.
Because I let someone matter enough to become a target.
And I shut down. Closed myself off to love.
Then Erin walked into my apartment with a broken nose hidden behind pride, blue eyes full of challenge, and enough secrets to start a war.
I did not love her openly.
I denied it.
Bought her. Ruled her. Punished her. Tried to keep her nameless even as I memorized every breath she took.
It did not save either of us.
Love came anyway.
The vicious kind.
The kind that guts me and hurts people.
“I loved her,” I say because Erin deserves the truth and because lying to her now would be another betrayal. “A very long time ago. Then I thought she died in the fire Carlos set.”
Erin wraps her arms around herself. A defensive little movement.
I hate it.
She stares up at me, her perfect chin jutting out. “And if she didn’t?”
“I don’t know what happened to her,” I say, unable to say anything more.
She shakes her head, disappointed. “That isn’t what I asked.”
“No,” I say, voice roughening. “It isn’t.”
Her eyes snap to mine. Searching. “What happens if she’s alive, Lucian?”
I close the remaining distance between us.
She doesn’t retreat. “Good girl.”
She tenses. Wrong thought. Wrong moment.
Still, it comes.
My hand rises to her face. I pause before touching her because, for once, I am not certain she will let me. That uncertainty claws at me when she belongs to me. She’s mine. Mine to hold, mine to touch.
Then Erin’s gaze lowers, just slightly, and I know.
She wants me to touch her. Even if she’s angry with me. Maybe even because she is.
I cup her jaw.
Her skin is cold to the touch. Too cold. Rage stirs again beneath my ribs, this time at myself. I should have been watching her. I should have known she’d sneak closer once she heard us speak.
She leans into my hand for half a heartbeat before retreating.
“If Isobel is alive,” I say, “then Carlos kept her hidden for a reason.”
“That still isn’t an answer.”
“What do you want me to say?”
Her eyes snap to mine. “I want you to say I’m not temporary.”
The words tear through me.
“Temporary?”
Her mouth trembles once before she controls it.
“I want you to say I’m not some warm body you bought after your real love died.
I want you to say I’m not the convenient replacement.
I want you to say that if she walks through that door, I don’t become the mistake you made while you thought she was dead. ”
The idea is so absurd, so offensive, so violently wrong that for a moment I can only stare at her.
Then fury breaks free.
Not at her.
At every person, every man, every moment that taught her to ask that question.
I take her face in both hands.
“You listen to me very carefully.”
Her breath catches.
Good.
“I have made mistakes. I have done unforgivable things. And yes, I have loved badly because loving her got people killed.” My thumbs brush the sharp line of her cheekbones. “But you are not a replacement for anyone.”
Her eyes shine. She blinks it back. Stubborn little thing. “Lucian—”
“No. You asked. Now you listen.” I lean closer. “Isobel was my past. A brutal one.
But you aren’t just something that came after.”
I drag my thumb over her lower lip.
Her breath slips.
“You are what came after me,” I say. “After the fire. After Carlos. After every decent part of me burned out. You walked into the ruin and dragged me out and made me breathe again.”
Her eyes search mine. I feel the moment those words land. Not fully. Not enough.
But some of the stiffness leaves her shoulders.
I want to kiss her.