But Iknew.
“You just what? Saw a stranger and ran? Come on… We’re going to play games, but this isn’t one of them.” Finally, he lifted his gaze to meet mine, and I froze.
“You’re not…” I swallowed hard, my eyes searching the face that I’d seen so many times—a face that haunted my dreams.
Only… it was different. His expression was full of something cold, calculating. Triumphant.
And his eyes…
They’d been dark before—black pits of swirling anger and hate—and now… now they were a pale green, like he’d had contacts in that hid the color of cool spring, the scales of a snake in the grass.
“What were you expecting, Nikki?” He said the name like I was supposed to recognize it, like it was some unequivocal fact that I’d know what he was talking about.
“What?” My entire body ached—my head was still throbbing from the way Hudson hit me, and I hadn’t even had time to get the taste of blood out of my mouth.
I couldn’t think.
And for some reason, under the weight of that pale, vicious gaze… I couldn’t move away.
“Are you…” I swayed forward as he stepped closer, and the panic clawing up my chest was so thick I couldn’t breathe around it, I couldn’t think. I couldn’trun. “Are you going to hurt me?”
He trailed one long, elegant finger along my jawline. When I froze under the touch, the corner of his mouth ticked up in a smile that made me whimper.
“Yeah, little rabbit. I’m going to hurt you.”
“Oh, fuck. Please, I—” It took me a second to realize the sting on my neck was a needle sliding home… and another to realize that the man with the pale green eyes was stronger than he looked, because he caught me as the world went black.
Chapter 2
Otto
Hefeltlighterinmy arms than I remembered—of course, when I knew him before, he was bigger than me.
When I knew him in our past life, I thought he’d always be there to protect me. From the first second his mother brought me home off the street and said she’d found a new brother for the family, Nikki had been by my side. He’d been warm and protective from the time we were young, broad and hot when we were older. He was everything—my brother, my protector, my lover.
My downfall, my betrayer. My killer.
As pretty as he was—as delicate as he seemed—I knew the man in my arms was nothing more than a lie made flesh. I knew the wide eyes were an act, because I could remember them clearly… the same pretty blue, like the sky in winter.
Dead.
Unfeeling.
Staring at me when I drew my last breath.
If it weren’t for the fact that there were plans in place, I might have tightened my fingers around his throat while he was proneand helpless. I might have taken him and kept him for myself, away from Nathaniel West and the facility I called home.
But… that wasn’t the plan. It wasn’t theorders.
I had to bring him back so he could see what was happening to ourbrothers. I had to bring him back so he’d know what hate could do to a person over the span of a few lifetimes.
It was strange, because I couldfeelit pulsing through me—a trembling rage that wasn’t mine, the instincts that seemed to be born into the body I’d been brought back in.
This body had been watching the man that I held, even though he had no ideawhyhe’d been watching him. He’d watched a dozen men before who looked just like him.
He’dkilledthem.
Instinct drove my soul to revenge, even when I wasn’t the one at the wheel.
