Since I heard her with Jack and Ty, I assumed she was still asleep in their room. I don’t want to tell her that I’d been lying awake in my bed, going over every conversation we’ve had since the moment I first contacted her. Sleep has been evading me these past days, and tonight was no different. My mind is fixated on figuring out where, exactly, I made the crucial mistake of getting involved with Skye. And whether I could have preventedthis.
She only has to be near me, and I turn into a complete fool. My words come out harsher than I intend, and I’m always insulting her with my actions. No matter how hard I try, I can’t get it right: not our personal relationship or the business partnership I’m so keen to maintain.
Skye stands and leans against the desk. She moves to the side a little and glances down behind her, then swipes at something lying there.
“What were you doing?” I wonder if she’ll lie to me.
“I didn’t want to tell you in case it didn’t work,” she says, still fidgeting.
“In case what didn’t work?” I demand and take a step closer.
She shuffles away from the desk and points at what’s lying there. “I wanted to see if I could put the GPS tracker back together.”
“What?” I close in on her, getting right into her personal space. “Are you insane?”
She doesn’t step away. “No! I wanted to turn it on, then take it somewhere else so the witches would follow me. Make them think this was just a stop on the way.”
Oh.Oh shit.
I glance down at the broken pieces of the device and know it’s a lost cause. I’d smashed the device with the express purpose to destroy it, and the chip located inside is broken beyond repair.
But Skye has been trying to help us, once again, and I fucking doubted her. I should have thought of this—should have taken the device out of the village and placed it on a boat sailing down the Alaskan coast or whatever. The location of Amber Bay would still have been recorded, but Skye had the right idea. Whoever was tracking her boxes would have thought she’d moved on from here quickly.
I’d acted in rash anger, and we would all pay the price for it.
Skye bends down and examines the shards. “I don’t think I can fix this, though. It’s too badly damaged.” She straightens back up and stares me down, even though she’s half a foot shorter than me. “Great job.”
“Fuck,” I mutter and close the office door. It’s not easy to admit I was wrong, but she deserves an apology. “I’m sorry.”
“What for?” she asks.
Her steady dark gaze pierces my defenses, and I can’t stand there, bared to her in the semi-darkness. It’s one thing to let her see how much I desire her, as I did on that gods-awful night we healed her bones, but she can’t know what she does to my soul. If she did, she might think we have a future.
We don’t.
I turn my back on her in silence and put away the hunting knife. I didn’t even pause before I grabbed it from my room. With that burglary at her cabin last week, I can’t take any chances, but I should have smelled the air. If I had, Skye’s unique scent would have told me she was in here.
For a moment, I think Skye might let the issue go and leave, but I should have known better. Her warm hand touches my arm.
“What are you sorry for, Aiden?” she demands.
I press my lips together, then punch in the code to secure the locker. “Everything.”
“That’s not an answer.” There’s a pleading note in her voice. “I don’t understand. I want to help you.”
I face her again. We’re standing so damn close, the heat of her body beckons me. Her flannel pajamas aren’t cut to be sexy, and the flowery pattern holds so many colors it almost bothers my eyes, but there’s just a hint of her curves beneath them. She could put on a burlap sack, and I’d still think she was hot. I want to taste her lips so badly, I clench my fists at my sides to keep from reaching for her.
“You don’t have to understand,” I tell her. “You can help us best by doing the job I hired you for. I’m not one of your stray puppies. I don’t need your help.”
Lies, all the lies. But I need to get that tender expression from her face, because she doesn’t know what being with me would mean. She’d be scrutinized by every sea dragon—not just the villagers, but everyone who heard about a clan leader hooking up with a witch. I wouldn’t be able to protect her from their prejudice, and she’d have to spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder.
She rears back as though I slapped her. “That’s not—”
“Skye,” I interrupt. “Thank you. But this plan of yours won’t work.”
A stubborn expression of determination settles on her face. “Fine. Be like that. But there are other ways to lead the witches away from here.” She picks up the trash can and swipes the tracker debris into it with one angry gesture, then sets it back under the table. “I’ll leave here and make it known that I’m somewhere else. I’ll geotag myself online or whatever.”
“No.” Without thinking about it, I reach forward and grab her arm. “You can’t go.”
