Chapter Twenty-Five
Ingram
I didn’t feel that much better, but I was used to that. That gnawing sensation inside me never went away. It was this deep pit that nothing filled—not killing, not guiding, not sex.
Well… Yun.
She’d felt different, as though after her guiding, at least a little of that emptiness had filled. It gave me a taste of relief that nothing else had come close to.
And the fact I wanted it again terrified me.
Not because of the corruption inside me, but because of her. It wasn’t just any guide, but that frustrating enigma of a woman specifically. Only she’d made me feel that way, and even if it felt good, I wasn’t sure I liked it.
I’d gotten back to the house to find Kenyon and Yun gone. Kenyon was a healer, so not my favorite choice of guard, but he’d work. I knew he’d do whatever he could to keep her safe, and if he faced off against a civilian, he was more than enough.
If an esper wanted to fuck with her?
Too bad. What do I care?
I was on my feet before I could stop myself. We kept trackers on all the phones, so I could easily find them. I didn’t even have to let them know I was there, after all. I could just make sure no one fucked with them.
Not because I care.
Not one bit.
I headed for the door just as it opened, Yun walked in and nearly ran into me.
She stopped short, only a breath away. And boy did her expression darken.
So much for wondering whether she was mad.
That was the expression of one pissed-off woman, the sort the whole a woman scorned saying was based on.
“Ingram, what are you doing?” Kenyon held two bags and had a smile on his face, as though this were entirely normal.
Of course, Kenyon had never managed to read the room well.
“I was just checking.” Yes, it was a stupid answer, but it was all my brain could come up with. I wasn’t as good as Carter at making shit up.
“Check what?”
“Checking…a noise.”
The look on Kenyon’s face said he didn’t believe me, or rather anyone with half a brain wouldn’t have believed me. I got the sense he accepted it because he assumed if he didn’t understand, it was a him problem, not a me problem. That made dealing with Kenyon easier some of the time.
“Where were you?” I realized just how stupid that sounded, so added on, “not that I care.”
Right, because saying I don’t care is the exact way to actually prove I don’t give a fuck.
It was stupid, and the fact that I made such an idiot out of myself annoyed me more than I wanted to admit. Maybe this was why I didn’t like talking, because it never went well.
“Yun needed to get some stuff from the store.” Kenyon held up the bags as though he needed to show proof.
It made sense, because Yun hadn’t exactly brought many things with her. I wondered what else they’d done. If it were anyone else, I might have thought they’d stopped off for a quickie. Kenyon wasn’t the type to do that, though. The most obvious answer would have been lunch.
And that definitely was not jealousy that hit me at the thought of Kenyon and Yun sitting down for a lunch with just the two of them.
Absolutely not jealousy.
Yun didn’t say a word to me, and I got the sense that was on purpose. Instead, she turned around and put her hands out until Kenyon handed her the bags. She offered a soft thank you before turning around and walking off.
“Did you notice the way she walks?”
“Ingram, I swear, if you’re being a pervert…” Kenyon shook his head as though he could not believe I was saying that.
“Not like that. I mean, she’s walking slow.”
I didn’t deny the entire pervert part because, well, that was fair.
Normally, if I made a comment like that, it was probably meaning something not fit to say in mixed company.
However, in this case, I meant the strange, labored motion of her gait.
Normally, she walked with a smoothness, with an almost gliding nature that somehow girls managed to pull off.
However, this time, each step dragged. That was in addition to the lines etched into her face, the ones that implied she wasn’t feeling all that well.
“I didn’t notice anything.” Kenyon peered past me to take another look.
“Aren’t you supposed to be a healer? Isn’t that exactly what you’re supposed to notice?”
“I notice if she’s sick, if she’s injured. I’m not going to notice if she just didn’t sleep well, or if she’s in a bad mood. That’s more Shear’s department than mine.” He might deny it but concern wormed its way into his features.
“What did she want at the store?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? I thought you went with her?”
“Sure, I took her there, and I kept an eye on her, but it wasn’t like I went through her things. That would be rude.”
“What if she got something she shouldn’t have gotten?” Even as I asked that, I wasn’t really sure what I meant by it. Something she couldn’t have? She wasn’t a child. Still, not knowing bothered me.
“You’re being stupid.”
“Well, you’d fucking know, wouldn’t you?”
Kenyon made a show of rolling his eyes and throwing his arms up as though I were just having some sort of hissy fit, which was ridiculous.
Or, maybe he wasn’t that ridiculous. I had to admit, my actions didn’t make a lot of sense to me either. Kenyon left, headed up the stairs, probably to his own room.
“He might punch you one of these days.” Shear’s voice took me off guard. He wasn’t a stealth specialist like I was, couldn’t sneak up on people the way I could. He still managed to mask his presence most of the time.
“He’s welcome to try.”
“You’d deserve it.” Shear had a way of saying exactly what he thought, as though none of it had anything to do with him. He liked to comment on things like they were all outside his realm, as though they had nothing to do with him. He was just an observer, and I found that annoying as fuck.
Sometimes I wondered what it would take to get under his skin.
I wanted to see what it would take to get him riled.
To see him lose control. In all the years I’d known him, he never seemed to give a damn about anything.
Some petty, childish little part of me wanted to see him get absolutely mad about anything.
I didn’t care if it was anger, happiness or anything else. Hell, I would take him on some aphrodisiac-fueled fuck fest if it meant he seemed like an actual person for five goddamn minutes.
After this many years though, I wasn’t holding out hope for at. Maybe the fucker just didn’t have it in him.
“She doesn’t feel good, though,” Shear said.
“You’re sure?”
He looked at me as though asking, ‘really?’ It was a fair question. I had no reason to doubt anything Shear said. I couldn’t recall a single time when he’d proven himself wrong. If he said she wasn’t feeling well, she wasn’t feeling well.
I frowned for a moment, something else nagging at my senses. It was something familiar, something…something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
When I figured out what it was, the reason it had eluded me became clear. I knew that smell, but never expected it here, not like this, not from her.
It sent me sailing up the stairs, Shear on my heels even if he hadn’t come to the same conclusion.