I pulled my knees to my chest. “You’re afraid,” I whispered.
He turned slowly.
Leaned a shoulder against the frame, half-lit by moonlight. A wolf made of marble and memory.
“Not afraid,” he said. “But cowards created me.”
The words hit harder than I expected. I didn’t respond. The silence that followed wasn’t sharp this time. It was soft. Lingering.
Then he spoke again, voice low, tired. “You wonder why I told you to stay that night?”
The night before we arrived here, when my nightmare had driven me from my room and found him in the living room by the bar, still awake.
“I do.”
He looked at me. Not past me. Not through me. At me.
“You’re affecting me.”
My breath caught. “In a good way or a bad way?”
“In a way no woman ever has.”
The air changed. “I want to trust you,” he said. “But betrayal taught me better. From those closest to me. Family. Blood.” A pause. “And now you.”
He turned back to the window, exhaling smoke into the night.
Leaving me burning with questions I had no right to ask.
I stood and moved to my bag. I needed something to anchor me.
Jewelry.
My fingers worked on my latest design, the intricate metal and stones calming the war inside me. The one he kept triggering.
The second day. I didn’t see much of him. He left for meetings while I stayed in the room. I made more jewelry. Read. Prowled the walls like a caged animal. When night came, so did the cold. And the ache in my spine from that damned chair.
He returned late. Said nothing. Didn’t even look at me.
I wrapped myself tighter in the blanket. A burrito of resentment and half-buried heat.
I must’ve dozed off because shouting woke me. Voices downstairs. Arguing. One of them, Vladmir.
I bolted up. Tripped over the blanket and fell right into him. Hard chest. Warm hands. Strong fingers gripping my arms like I’d fall through the floor if he let go.
His breath hitched. So did mine.
I looked up. Mistake. His eyes, those glacial, silver eyes, burned down at me like a curse.
“You drive me mad, Luna,” he said, voice rough, cracked with something he didn’t want me to hear. “You are... undoing me.”
My mouth opened. Nothing came out.
His thumb brushed my lower lip. Barely there. Possessive. Sinful.
I jerked back, but he pulled me closer, hands pressing into my spine. “What are you doing to me?” he growled. “I can’t think. I can’t focus. And it’s only worse when I try to stay away.”
His words coiled around me like smoke. My skin tingle where he touched me. God, I hated that I wanted more of it.
