I was not permitted to talk to the police, of course.
I could only watch from the library as the police and crime scene techs came, collected the skeleton, and left.
“You can come out now,” Branby said. “He wants you to watch him play.”
Of course he did.
What I had thought was just another dense grove of trees turned out to be a large clearing filled with a regulation-sized ice skating rink.
The ice smelled sharp and I stamped my feet against the afternoon’s sudden chill.
Everyone was watching Gabriel skate. He was barely padded, the athletic pants hanging low on his hips. I dragged my eyes away from his ass.
He was an evolutionary aberration; he was designed to look beautiful.
But I couldn’t miss the way the entire audience was oriented toward him, the women’s breath catching every time he skated by.
Because it was almost impossible to tear your eyes away from how he moved like a dark angel around the defenders, light on his feet and deadly.
I knew nothing about hockey, but even I could see that there was an almost diabolical grace in how he moved.
“He’s magnificent, isn’t he?” Lucian asked, coming up silently beside me.
He was looking with pride at his son, the way Gabriel weaved around the defenders.
I bit my lip, hard, as the muscles flexed in the younger man’s upper arms. The sound of his slap shot reverberated through the clearing.
It almost seemed like the barren branches of the woods beyond strained closer, too, like the whole of Ashgrove Manor was attuned to Gabriel.
“He’s always been bigger, faster, more powerful than the other boys his age,” Lucian said with affectionate pride. “He was destined to be a superstar.”
Rage choked me as Gabriel skated by, his dark eyes meeting mine.
He rapped on the glass between us, pointing with a gloved hand to Lucian.
“Back it up,” he warned me. “I told you not so close.”
To my fury, Lucian obeyed immediately.
“You always do what he tells you to?” I hissed.
A cloud crossed Lucian’s face and to his slight credit he looked shame-faced.
“It’s safer to.”
“Fucking chicken,” I spat. “Aren’t you supposed to be my boyfriend?”
“It’s dangerous to cross him.”
“Maybe he should be in jail then,” I said as Gabriel’s cum trickled down my thighs.
There was somuchof it.
Maybe hewasgoing to get me pregnant. Fuck, I needed to get a refill on my birth control pills immediately.
“He’s perfectly safe if you don’t cross him. Perfectly safe. He only lunged at you out of surprise the other night.”
I glared wordlessly at Lucian.
