Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Harris
The next morning, I woke up alone. I didn’t like that.
With everything happening, I needed to know where Camilla was.
Yes, I realize that’s stalkerish and mildly controlling.
Fine, a lot controlling, but could you blame me?
I finally admitted to her that I loved her, and she had to understand how precious that made her to me.
I could respect her bathroom privacy, but she wasn’t in there, the door was open, and I didn’t hear any noise.
I grabbed some pajama bottoms, not bothering with anything else.
I then raced to the other rooms on the floor, not finding her.
Now that the curse was lifted, there was no distance limitation, and she could be anywhere.
Uncomfortable tightness in my chest made me move faster.
I knew it wasn’t realistic to think she’d remain joined at the hip with me, but I did expect her to talk to me first. She was smarter than that.
I batted away the unsettling feeling that she could leave now that she was free.
I’d put a lot on her in the last several days.
It hadn’t even been a week, and I’d told her everything about my stalking, she was here when I killed someone, and I’d told her I loved her.
I was impressed that she didn’t seem to back away from me after learning what I did to the warlock.
Not to mention her ability to handle my dark side.
I’d asked Paulo to hold her until I regrouped, but it turned out to be a good idea to have her see all sides of me.
She could handle me, and that pleased me more than I could express.
Sam was right about my waiting too long.
Perhaps I should have approached her after I took control of the business.
I’d underestimated her ability to handle the life. To handle me.
I’d told her I would never let her go. Was that too much?
I mean, it was the truth, but maybe I shouldn’t have said it out loud.
But she should know she was mine forever.
I told her that was a non-negotiable, and she seemed fine with that.
Or maybe she was too scared to disagree.
No, she wanted to be with me. Didn’t she?
When I descended the stairs to the main level, I found a female guard in the kitchen drinking water.
I didn’t mind them moving around freely, especially with the shadow creature issue, but at that moment, I found it irritating that she was not my Camilla.
“Where is she?” I growled, feeling slightly more panicked than I wanted to appear.
The guard looked at me with wide eyes, standing straighter. She pointed toward the deck. “She’s on the beach.”
I immediately raced to the deck, slid the glass door to the side, and went down the stairs and onto the beach, where I found Camilla sitting on a large beach towel under an umbrella.
She was wearing a white knit cover-up over a patterned two-piece swimsuit, and I sighed in relief that she looked relaxed instead of packed and ready to leave.
She looked up at me with an amused look on her face. “I don’t think that’s beachwear.”
I sat down beside her, suddenly feeling mildly silly for being so panicky. This wasn’t a good look. “I was eager to catch the sun.”
“Suuree,” she said with a snort.
I refused to be embarrassed and shrugged. “You can’t leave without letting me know.”
She tapped my thigh with a patient smile. “I’ll leave a note next time, so you don’t run out of the house barely clothed again.”
I gave her a curt nod, looking away. We sat quietly, watching the ocean waters with only the sound of a few birds.
My property was private, so we wouldn’t have too many people walking this far down on the beach.
Not that they would see us anyway under the ward.
It was just the two of us, in our own private bubble, enjoying the shared silence.
Enjoying the nearness of each other. I wanted this with her for as long as I could have it. Again and again.
“I feel bad, Harris,” Camilla began, breaking the silence.
“About the warlock? Don’t. He wasn’t a good man. If he weren’t so efficient, I would have cut ties with him a long time ago.”
“It’s not that, although that makes me feel a little less bad on that account. But I meant I feel bad about exposing you to this shadow creature. If the warlock doesn’t know anything about it, then maybe it’s here because of me. I’m putting you in danger by being around me.”
“We don’t know if the warlock was really lying. And it could be another enemy of mine. I’m not an innocent, Camilla.”
“But it seems to just want you out of the way. So, you could be safe if I weren’t here. Or at the very least, we’d learn who it’s really after if we separated.”
Irritation crowded my mind, filling my chest like a vice. “No. If you are trying to leave me, figure out a different way.”
She placed her hand on top of mine, a patient look in her eyes. “I’m not trying to leave you, Harris, but eventually we are going to have to separate. I have to go to work. Back to my place.”
I wrinkled my nose, not liking that idea. “You’ll move in with me.”
She raised a brow. “You say that like a command, not a request. We talked about this.”
We did, and I could have kicked myself. It was like I couldn’t help it. Still, the thought of letting her spend one night apart from me, alone, with that thing after her, made me sick. “It’s too dangerous right now for you to be alone.”
“And it’s too dangerous for us to be together if that thing wants you dead because of me.”
I growled. “We don’t know that.”
“Yes, but separating will help us find that out. Or maybe I could just deal with it head-on. Open a portal for it to come through and ask him what he wants.”
I’d forgotten how stubborn she was. “You aren’t going through a fucking portal. Not with this threat out there. Understand?”
She leaned back and glared at me. She was pissed with my tone.
I sucked in a deep breath and tried to reset.
“Look, I don’t care what he wants. If I see him again, I will find a way to kill him.
He’s not invincible, and if he’s growing in strength, that means, at some point, he will be solid.
I’ve had my people give me a report on these things.
They were a menace to society in the past. That’s why they were rounded up and expelled to stay only in their realm.
If one is getting through, I need to get rid of it. ”
“But what if-”
She was going to give me a heart attack with her reckless thoughts.
“Woman!” I shouted, cutting her off. I twisted and moved on top of her, settling my legs outside of hers and linking her fingers in mine above her head.
She yelped, her eyes widening in shock. “We aren’t going to talk to that thing and reason with it.
You have no idea what it is capable of. I can give you the file I received on these things.
They are not to be fucked with. It will wrap around you and drain you to death.
Leave you until you’re nothing more than a husk.
And that’s assuming that is all it wants from you.
Because they have done other things. They have raped, they have enslaved, they have bred.
He could use you up until your mind and body are broken.
Is that what you want? Because if that fucking happened, I’d find that realm and annihilate it. I’d start a fucking war for you, baby.”
She shivered under me, despite the heat, her mouth open and eyes filled with tears, face a mix of fear and anger. “I don’t want that,” she whispered in a broken voice.
I relaxed my shoulders, feeling like shit for scaring her. Control through fear. That’s what my father did. I didn’t want to do that to her. “I’m sorry to scare you, baby.”
She closed her eyes, shaking her head. “No, you’re not.
You didn’t show me this information you got on these creatures.
You shut me out and plan things with your people instead of looping me in.
You don’t want me to be by myself, fine.
I can go home. I can get protection from a coven.
They need to know about this thing anyway.
Kaylor could help. Things don’t have to be just your way. ”
I wanted to yell. Tell her that I knew all of this and that whatever she was going to suggest couldn’t be better than what I would come up with because I knew this world, not her.
I knew violence. She was art and beauty and peace.
She didn’t need to fight. I was the darkness, and she was the light.
It was the way it should be. I couldn’t have her change because of me.
And I was confident that she was in this position because of me, despite what she thought.
I released her hands and hung my head, my loose hair partially blocking my vision.
“I’m not trying to keep you out of the loop.
I just want to fix this. I don’t want to be the one to taint you with having to be mixed up in this violence, and I don’t want you to leave me.
” Shit, I sounded vulnerable, my voice weak.
I didn’t like that. I wasn’t supposed to be weak.
She raised her hand, pushing through my hair to find my cheek. “You stubborn jerk.”
She didn’t say more, and I chuckled. “I was expecting you to say something else.”
“I don’t think there’s anything I can say that will matter.”
I moved my head to nuzzle where her neck and collarbone met like a damn cat.
She smelled of coconut and vanilla, her skin almost satiny.
My dick twitched beneath my pajamas despite the seriousness of our conversation.
I was weak for her. I both hated and loved it.
She was finally mine, and she’d been worth my patience.
“There’s plenty you could say. To start, you could say you’ll never leave me. ”
She snorted. “I think I need a ring for that.”