Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
SANORA
I was already in bed, drifting in the hazy space between wake and sleep, when I heard the front door open downstairs.
The clock read a little past midnight, and the only person who could be coming in at this hour was the man I’d spent the entire night waiting for.
I’d killed time by watching a horror series my mother had recommended last week, taking a break from the grim history of deaths I’d been digging through since I woke up.
The fear—of the characters meeting their demise—gripping me through the screen had kept me company until just before twelve, when I finally abandoned the couch and climbed the stairs to my room.
Now it was fifteen minutes past, and his footsteps were on the stairs, slow and heavy…
heavier than usual. Something in their rhythm snagged my attention, and I sat up, my gaze catching on the book resting beside me, the one Thrax had given me.
I’d borrowed it from the library and it would be due in two days.
I couldn’t really focus on it inside there after his distraction, and as soon as I took a break and ate the food outside the reading area, I couldn’t go back to reading. So I’d packed everything and came home.
I’d barely lasted an hour before I ended up under the covers, chasing the high he’d left in my blood, desperate to wring it out of myself.
It was after then I could think straight.
And no, I did not fantasise about his hand around my neck nor the way he looked at me as if he wanted to swallow me whole while I fingered myself to orgasm.
His door opened and closed, shutting me out of my head at the same time. I bit my lip. Go to him, or sleep?
I stared at my door, and the silence from it was infuriating. It stared me down until I groaned, flopping back and yanking the blanket over my head. I tried to sleep, but my ears were straining for the faint sounds coming from his room.
With a roll of my eyes, I pushed the blanket away and sat up again. What if something was wrong? His steps earlier had sounded…tired. But he’d warned me not to come into his room again before proceeding to drag me out.
My phone dinged, cutting through the chaos that was my thoughts. I reached for it with a sigh, running through the short list of people who would text me at this hour in my head. I came up empty.
Tapping my phone screen awake, I unlocked it, my heart skipping at the three words that glared back at me from the screen.
Unknown
Go to sleep.
My eyes flicked to my door. How did he get my number?
And more importantly, how the hell did he know I wasn’t asleep?
I sure as hell wasn’t buying that thing he said about my heart beat.
He ended up not telling me what my emotions were in the library.
Although it was quite obvious what I was feeling when he played his knife game with me.
Lust.
I started typing to ask if he was okay, but another message arrived before I could hit send.
Unknown
I’m okay. Go to sleep.
My head reared, taken aback by his response to the question I was yet to ask. I sighed, sensing his disapproval through the phone. He didn’t want me near his room. He just told me to go to sleep twice, meaning he was desperate for me to not see him.
Could be.
Curiosity gnawed at me, but I swallowed it. Just for tonight.
I switched off my bedside lamp, the room sinking into darkness, and pulled the blanket over my head, sealing myself away from the pull of his presence.
And from the sound of the shower running outside my door.
I was slowly getting used to waking up to the smell of his food. The moment the scent drifted into my head, I shoved my feet into my slippers and tried not to sprint downstairs after a quick stop in the bathroom. I hit the last step and turned towards the kitchen.
Thrax was standing there, sleeves rolled up, setting plates down. My gaze snagged on his hands, the same hands that had once held a dagger to my nipple and wrapped around my throat.
My gaze fell to his exposed forearms, my stomach coming to life at the sight. Veins curled beneath the skin like shifting lines of a map, and for some reason, my pulse went straight between my legs, beating like a feral animal.
He caught me looking. Of course he did.
“If you’re going to ogle me,” he said, tilting his head towards the stool, “you might as well get a front seat.”
The smugness in his voice was gasoline to my already burning thoughts.
Clearing my throat, I tore my eyes away and walked over, pretending butterflies weren’t going wild just because I got to see him, unlike the day before.
I took a seat directly across from him, and he leaned on the counter, hands braced wide apart, watching me like I was the only thing in the room worth his attention.
Well, I was the only thing around here anyway.
This was his routine. Watching me eat. And hell would freeze over before I got used to the feeling of his eyes on me.
I picked up the spoon. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”
“You’d be shocked.”
I flicked my eyes up at him—and regretted it. Thrax’s hair was mussed in a way that was nothing short of seductive, calling my fingers to it. I cleared my throat. “That what?”
“This,” he said, without missing a beat, “is my favourite thing to do.”
I paused mid-breath, heat sliding up my neck, because the way he held my eyes made me feel like he wasn’t talking about the food at all. My chest thudded against my ribs.
I was about to throw some snark at him when something caught my attention, my chest giving out. There were red claw marks, thin and angry, peeking from under the collar of his shirt.
They hadn’t been there yesterday in the library. I would have noticed otherwise.
I was out of my seat, leaning over the counter, my hand brushing his skin, fingertips traced one of the marks, following it down the curve of his neck when I realised what I was doing. The moment I felt his heat, I froze, but didn’t pull away.
Neither did he.
My gaze lifted to his eyes to see he was already staring at me, and those eyes were darker than they had been a second ago.
He was still, too still, under my touch.
My eyes betrayed me, wandering from his gaze to the hard line of his nose, then down to his mouth—the same mouth that always whispered sin into my bloodstream—and lower still, to the bob of his Adam’s apple that I fascinated.
I swallowed, my voice coming out quiet. “What happened here?”
I ran my fingertip down one of the red lines, following it towards his shoulder.
His jaw tightened, body visibly stiffening. “What are you doing?”
“Was this last night?” I asked, ignoring his question. It couldn’t be. The marks looked healed, like they were older than a week, which only made me want to know more because they weren’t there yesterday.
I let my hand fall away as I sat, but not without feeling the ghost of his heat linger on my palm. “What did that to you?”
He straightened, shoving his hands into his pockets as his chest expanded with a sharp intake of air. “Is that your question for the day?”
“Can’t I ask a free one?” I dug into the food he’d made, and the taste hit my tongue like it had been crafted to ruin me. A blissful sigh almost slipped past my lips. Would I ever get used to anything that concerned this man? “Besides, I didn’t ask anything yesterday. That means I get two.”
He gave a slow nod.
As I ate, I thought deeply about the questions I wanted to ask, one he wouldn’t answer superficially.
I knew the messenger was from The Crater.
I could ask why the message was sent to me and why it tried to kill me.
But he’d told me yesterday that he didn’t know.
And I doubted his “unfinished business” had anything to do with me or finding out what was trying to kill me.
That was a risk I wasn’t ready to take. I couldn’t waste my question on a ‘I don’t know’ response. So I went for something else.
“How old are you?”
Without thinking, he replied like he’d known the question before I even opened my mouth. “I don’t keep count.”
“That is cheating!” The words burst from me in a rush, heat flaring in my chest. “You don’t always know.”
He leaned against the counter, his posture infuriatingly casual. “That is the answer to that question. Would you have rather I lie?”
“Yes. Honestly, I’d prefer that.”
The corner of his mouth lifted in amusement before he said, “Between a thousand and fifteen hundred.”
The age crashed into me like a wave, and I choked on my food, coughing hard enough to feel my ribs protest. As I reached for my glass, his hand was there, sliding it towards me without looking away.
I gulped the water, the coolness doing nothing to steady the dizzy, breathless shock crawling over my skin. He can not be for real.
When I could speak again, I flicked my eyes at him. “No. That lie is an obvious one. There is no way.”
One brow arched. “You think so?”
“I know.” I went back to eating.
“Next question,” he said after a while.
I swallowed, meeting his gaze before pointing my fork straight at his neck. “The claws.”
“It was a fight.”
My brows drew together. “You got into a fight? With...what?”
“Something with claws.”
I rolled my eyes. One more sarcastic response from him, and I would shove my head against the counter. “Obviously,” I gritted out and exhaled a sharp breath. “What creature was it? There seem to be a lot in Nimorran.”
“Creatures that are in love with me,” he said with a wink that was equal parts mockery and confusion. Then he pushed away from the counter, rounding it and going towards the stairs. My gaze followed in curiosity but he didn’t say a word as he climbed up.
When he came down, I was done eating and was by the sink, rinsing the plates. I glanced over my shoulder and stopped, sponge slipping from my fingers when I saw him dressed in his usual black outfit.
“Where are you going?”