I swipe a cheese stick from her tray before she can react. “We enjoy this now, because it won’t last. Nights like this never do.”
“I don’t wanna think about anything else,” she mumbles, mouth full. “I don’t wanna go back to school. I just want to disappear.”
I chuckle, low and dark. “Sorry, Little Fox… Devils don’t run. We hunt. We end threats. And if something’s a problem?” I shrug. “We kill it.”
She goes still, processing that. Then a sly smile tugs at her lips. Maybe sheisone of us.
While she eats, I just… watch her. Like I’m trying to memorize everything before it’s ripped from me. Her laugh. Her defiance. Her softness.
Mine.
The rest of the night drips by in a blur of noise and heat and blurred vision. Somehow we end up in bed, her curled up against me, safe in the crook of my arm, when the door creaks open and Karter steps in.
I don’t have to speak. I just nod, and he knows.
He slides into bed on her other side.
“A girl could get used to this,” she hums, letting herself sink between us like she was meant to be there all along.
“Good,” I mutter. “Because you’re not going anywhere.”
“Yeah,” Karter adds, brushing her hair off her face. “Now shut up and sleep… Brat.”
Her laughter slips through the dark like smoke, and then we’re all sinking into silence, her body warm between ours.
My Little Fox. Ours now. And the world will burn before anyone takes her away.
Chapter Eleven
Karter
Her soft snores should soothe something in me. Should lull me to sleep with the way she’s wrapped around me like a warm, willing vine. But they don’t.
Instead, I lie there, awake.
Restless. Hollow.
Her warmth fills the bed, not the void. That emptiness comes from somewhere deeper. Somewhere pain still has teeth.
And I feel them now.
Wyck’s glare pierces through the dark like a bullet to the chest. He’s not asleep either. He’s watching me watch her. Watching the way I ache for her even in silence.
Our eyes lock, and just like that, he leans in, pressing a kiss to her lips like a fucking claim.
Then he mouths,“Follow me.”
The bed shifts. His feet hit the floor with purpose. He doesn’t break my gaze, doesn’t need to. I press a kiss to her temple, my own mark, then slide out of bed, trailing him into the shadows like a loyal devil answering a summon.
The silence downstairs is loaded. Not the peaceful kind. The kind before a blade’s unsheathed.
I try to guess what’s so urgent he couldn’t wait until morning, but with Athens involved? Logic doesn’t apply. If it’s about her, all bets are off.
Then the smell hits me. Sweet. Warm. Sinful.
Cinnamon. Sugar. Butter and spice.
Maeve’s fucking baking. Again. Does this womaneversleep?
