“Don’t worry about me.” Natalya leaned back, getting her face under control. “I’m just relieved you’re safe. It’s nothing more.”
Evie looked at her warily, brow creased and her teary eyes narrowed. She could tell Natalya was hiding something. This woman knew Natalya too damn well. She saw things too keenly, and she cared so much about others that she would insist on Natalya telling her. She’d be angry if she didn’t. She’d worry.
Any other night that’s what Evie would have done. But right then, she was too exhausted. Too hurt and shaken from what happened.
“Varro’s not going to stop,” she said with sudden realization. “He won’t. Not ever. He’ll keep coming for me.”
“I won’t let him.”
“That doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter at all. He’s too strong. Too powerful, and he doesn’tstop. He doesn’t want me back because of what I know. He wants me back just so he can torture me. So he can kill me.”
Natalya held Evie’s chin, careful not to touch the wound there. It halted her panicked ramble.
“Listen to me,” Natalya said, command making her voice hard. She needed Evie to believe this. “He will not get that chance. I will make sure of it. We are drawing his soldiers out in just a few weeks when the East Coast get their people into position. We’ll topple him. I’ll kill him before Ieverlet him touch you again. This I promise you. I swear it.”
A tremble raked through Evie’s body, and her eyes filled with tears. They spilled over as she started weeping again. Relieved. From a promise made by a demon.
Natalya had never promised so much to another before. What good was the vow of a fiend? Of a monster who delved in Sin and who thrived on destroying lives?
She had never wanted to be an honest creature. But Evie made her want to be. She made her want to be better.
It was true that Evie had hard eyes for the world. She was scared of many things, had been hurt too many times. But her eyes weren’t hard for Natalya. For her, they were as soft as dewy moss.
She wanted to stare into those eyes until the world burned to embers. She wanted Evie to want that too. Natalya knew it couldn’t be. That it shouldn’t.
Evie was a Purple, and then only because the Court didn’t allow them to live as they did without her having the symbol around her neck. She wouldn’t want more. She needed her own life, not the life promised for the Claimed of the second most powerful creature in the Court of Chains.
Natalya could have focused on the connection between them. Sensed Evie’s emotions and thereby known how she felt. She didn’t dare. Not when she was afraid she wouldn’t find what she was looking for.
She pushed down the hope building in her chest. She pushed down the longing, the adoration, and the love, hoping that by ignoring it, it would go away.
Just like when she’d ignored Evie before, it didn’t work as intended.
Chapter 37
Evie glanced back at Natalya, who was pacing the floor of the apartment, on the phone and visibly irritated. Her shoulders were tense, her face twisted with annoyance, and her whispering into the phone sounded a lot like hissing.
Evie couldn’t stop looking at her. Longing. Sighing. Like a lovestruck teen.
Things had been unusual in the weeks since she was almost taken. She had never experienced Natalya so tender. So doting and sweet. When she held Evie, which she did whenever they spent any significant time alone, it was gentle. Her touches were soft, almost unnoticeable. Her kisses so brief and light they were mere flutters against Evie’s skin. When they talked, her eyes shined with strange wonder but just as much with worry. For almost three weeks, she had been so sweet, so gentle, and so, so careful. In that time, it was like Natalya’s purpose was to care.
For most of those three weeks, Evie had been so unbelievably horny she was close to losing her goddamn mind.
“Something wrong?” Lily asked when Evie stared longingly at Natalya again.
“Nothing’s wrong.” She could tell how unconvincing the words were as soon as they left her lips. Lily frowned, looking concerned. Then her lips tensed as she tried to keep a smile from forming on her face.
“Oh.”
Evie scowled. “Oh… what?”
“I know that look.” Lily lost the fight of trying not to grin. “I’vewornthat look.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you don’t.” Lily glanced at the pendant around Evie’s neck. “Dry spell?”
Evie considered keeping up the ruse. Before, she would have. Before the vampires and the Courts and Natalya. Then she would have kept something as embarrassing as this to herself.
