Dangerous Lovers (16 page)

His eyes widened in alarm. I laughed. “Just kidding.”

He blew out a heavy breath and shook his head again, but I saw a small smile turn up his lips. That goofy-happy feeling swelled in my chest. I liked making him smile. I liked it a lot.

He returned to cleaning my forehead, and I clenched my teeth. It actually did sting. The pain was but a token of payment for the view, though. His golden eyes examined my wound with such intensity that my breathing grew shallower and shallower as he continued his work. He was so perfect. The most glorious man I had ever seen. His dirtyblond hair hung in his face a little bit, the same color as the short whiskers covering his strong jaw. Before I knew what I was doing, I reached up and brushed his soft hair gently to the side.

His eyes met mine, and my heartbeat rivaled a hummingbird’s wings. For a moment, I thought I could see desire lurking behind his gaze, but a second later he looked away and grabbed a clean piece of gauze. Covering it in more alcohol, he returned to his work.

“Are you mad at me?” I blurted out.

His eyes met mine again, and a look of surprise came over his face. “Why would I be mad at you?”

I looked down at my hands. “I don’t know. It’s just… Why have you been avoiding me then?”

A guilty look came over his face, and my earlier anger at him returned. “See? You
have
been avoiding me. Why? Was it because of that day in the clearing? Because, honestly, I think I had every right to react the way I did.” Even though I still felt stupid about it.

He dropped his hand from my forehead and sat back on the coffee table in front of me. I wondered at how it held his weight.

When he just sat there, I threw up my arms. “Alright, whatever.”

Standing up, I said, “Thank you for saving my life, I appreciate it. But I’ll take it from here.”

When I went to move toward the door, he caught my arm. The touch almost made my knees go lax. “I’m sorry, Alexa. Don’t… leave.”

I eyed him warily, but if I was being honest, I didn’t really want to leave either. I really liked being around him. I really liked
him
. I worried that I was starting to get addicted to the way he made me feel. I sat back down on the couch.

When I opened my mouth to speak, he held up a hand. “I’m sorry about how I treated you that day. You were right. I had no right to tell you that you shouldn’t fight. It was none of my business.”

“Then why did you?”

He hesitated. I blew out a frustrated breath.

“I just wanted to give you a chance to realize what you were walking into. You’re so young. You have your whole life ahead of you. I thought you should be given a chance to choose something other than… this,” he said, gesturing to my forehead.

I looked down at my hands. “I guess I just don’t get why you would care,” I said, my voice barely a whisper.

He reached up, calloused but gentle fingers taking hold of my chin. My lips parted slightly as my breaths grew short again. “I don’t think you understand just how special you are,” he whispered.

I held his gaze for a moment. Then I looked down at my right arm. “I don’t think this makes me very special. Actually, it kind of just makes me mad.”

He ran his fingers over my wrist then trailed them up my arm. His strong hands led chill bumps as they ascended. My chest rose and fell. I was sure I’d lost my poker face.

“No, that’s not what makes you special,” he said, in a hushed, deep voice. “You’re brave and strong. You care for others more than you care for yourself. You risk your life for what you think is right, and you would willingly die for those you love. That’s what makes you special.”

I flicked my gaze back up to his, and what I saw there made my breath catch in my throat. I could tell that he was struggling with something, and if I hadn’t known better, I would say it was desire. For a moment, I thought that he might kiss me.

He didn’t.

Instead, he stood up rather abruptly. I slumped back against the couch and rubbed my hands over my face. This was all I needed, falling for a guy who obviously did not want me in that way.

I exhaled slowly. “I need a cigarette.”

He looked over from where he was now standing by the fireplace.

“You smoke?”

I nodded. “Don’t suppose you have any?”

He grew thoughtful for a second, and being the smoker that I am, my eyes lit up with hope.

He laughed at my expression. “No, I don’t. But… I guess we could go get some, even though I don’t think you should be smoking. Those things will kill you.”

I rolled my eyes. Never heard that one before. “Doubt it. I’m pretty sure that something else is going to kill me long before the cigarettes get their chance.”

He laughed at my morbid statement, and the sound of it warmed me. I loved his laugh. I loved making him laugh. I was definitely losing my mind.

When he looked back over at me, I put on what I hoped was a charming smile. “Um… please?” He narrowed his eyes and I grinned. “Oh, come on. It’s okay for me to fight men twice my size, but it’s not okay for me to have a cigarette?”

He muttered something and shook his head. “Okay, but we have

to be careful. I’m not sure if it’s safe out there yet.”

I jumped up and threw my arms up in triumph. “Yes!”

He shook his head again and laughed at my stupidity. “There’s a small store just outside of the forest. I think we can get there without being seen.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The man at the store didn’t even charge me for the cigarettes. When he saw the marks on my arm, he just gave them to me, saying something about how he was just grateful I had finally arrived.

Kayden was sitting on the back porch of his cabin with me as I smoked.

“What was that about?” I asked, blowing out a cloud of wonderful poison.

He shrugged, eyeing my cigarette with mild distaste. “There are some who believe you have come to serve as their savior.”

I thought back to Scar’s words to me just before my fight with Daniel.
Who knows, you may be the one who will save us all.

“Why would they think that?”

He was silent for a moment before saying, “Who knows?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. I was pretty sure he knew something that he wasn’t telling me. His expression had turned guarded, though, so I decided that I would definitely be looking into this later.

I groped for a change in subject. “So what do we do now? Was it the queen they were trying to kill, or was it me? And why would someone try to kill me? I just got here. I doubt I pissed anyone off enough… yet, to warrant a dagger to the head.”

His expression went dark. Unsurprisingly, it made me think he was even more attractive. I was seriously deranged.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “But I’ll find out.”

I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts of Kayden-filled fantasies. I needed to concentrate. This was no time for daydreaming. Alarm shot through me as I realized that I hadn’t even thought about Nelly the whole time I’d been here. This worried me. Nelly was always my biggest concern, and I hadn’t even checked to make sure she’d gotten out of the Council building safely.

“Do you have a phone I can use?” I asked.

He stood up and went into the house. A few moments later he returned and held out a cell phone. I reached out to take it, but he pulled his hand out of my reach.

I gave him a confused look. “What?”

“Who are you going to call?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Ghostbusters?”

He didn’t laugh, but I saw a smile behind his eyes. Instead, he just waited for my answer.

I sighed. “Jackson, why?”

His face went back into that unreadable expression that I was beginning to hate. I realized that I had gotten used to him being a little more open with me over the short couple of hours I’d been here. I also didn’t miss the fact that when I’d mentioned Jackson, something else flashed behind his eyes. For a brief moment, I thought it might be jealousy. Then it was gone.

“I just want to make sure he and Nelly made it out of there okay.

But, if you’d rather I just go and check on them myself…” He handed me the cell phone.

I punched in Jack’s cell number, and he answered on the first ring.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Jack, it’s me.”

“Oh, thank God! Alexa? Where the hell are you? Nelly and I have been so worried.”

I glanced over at Kayden to see that he was staring straight ahead.

What was his problem?

“I’m… somewhere safe. Where are you guys? What’s going on?”

“All the students are on lock-down in the dorms until the Warriors can sort out this mess. Everybody’s really freaked out. Here.

Nelly wants to talk to you.”

“Alexa?” Nelly’s voice was full of relief. I felt bad for not thinking to call earlier.

“What’s up, Nell?”

“Oh, thank god! I’ve been so worried. Where the heck did you go? I looked for you when we made it out of the Council building, but I couldn’t find you. Then Gavin told us to return to our rooms. He said he’d look for you, but he hasn’t come back yet. Jackson and Daniel stayed with me because I was freaking out. Where are you?”

I looked back over at Kayden, who was now staring at me. “I’m… safe. I’ll head back soon. I was checking to make sure you were okay.”

“Okay,” she said, slowly. I could never fool Nelly, she knew I was keeping something from her. But, she trusted me, and I was thankful when she didn’t push for more details. “Okay,” she repeated. “But hurry up, you’re not the only one who worries about people, you know.”

I told her I would be there soon and then hung up. Kayden was still staring at me. I looked down at the cell phone in my hand to see if it had a camera on it. I flipped it to that setting and snapped a picture of myself smiling stupidly.

I handed it back to him. “There. Now you can look at me whenever you feel the need.” When he just kept staring, I raised both eyebrows. “What? What’s your problem?” I didn’t mean to sound rude, but his gaze made me feel a little self-conscious in my form-revealing black dress. I felt somehow inadequate.

I waited for an answer that never came. I stood up and stretched, completely aware of his eyes on me the whole time. “Fine, forget it,” I said. “We need to head back to the dorms. I think it’s okay now. Apparently, they’ve got everyone on lock-down, and Gavin is looking for me.”

“Not anymore,” said a gruff voice near the side of the house.

Kayden and I both turned to see Gavin standing about twenty feet to our left. He was wearing his black warrior uniform and had an expression on his face that said he wasn’t too happy.

I broke the silence first. “Hey, Gavin. What’s up?”

His face remained unchanged. “I would ask you the same question, Warrior,” he said, darting his eyes from Kayden to me.

I propped a hand on my hip. Who did this guy think he was—my father?

“Obviously, not what you think is going on,” I replied.

Before Gavin could respond, Kayden spoke up. “Someone tried to kill her. I brought her here to make sure she was safe.” He said this very matter-of-factly.

“How noble of you, Wallace,” Gavin said, his tone dripping sarcasm. “I see you’ve taken good care of her.”

He was looking at my hand, and I glanced down to see that I was still holding my cigarette. I brought it up to my mouth and inhaled deeply. Exhaling, I said, “No one needs to ‘take care’ of me. And you can stop with the accusations because he’s telling the truth. You’ve found me, good job, but I was just heading back anyway, and I’m pretty sure I can manage the walk without getting killed.”

I knew my tone was clipped, and I had even grown to like Gavin, but I was not about to let him stand there and accuse me of something that I didn’t do. Just because I might have
thought
about it didn’t make me guilty. Even if I had thought about it a lot.

“I’m quite sure that you can,” Gavin replied. “Because we’ve found the assassin.”

That shut me up. That was
not
what I’d been expecting him to say. The pleased smirk on his face told me that he knew he’d caught me off guard. I shot a look at Kayden, who had a suspicious look on his face.

“You’re sure?” he asked.

Gavin raised an eyebrow. “Quite. He’s admitted to it.”

When I remained silent, he continued, “Your sister was quite worried about you, Warrior, so I told her I would look for you. When I noticed Wallace was missing as well, I decided to come check his cabin, on the off chance that you two might be together. Seems it wasn’t too far off.”

I gave him a smirk of my own. “Seems like.”

Beside me, Kayden whispered, “Watch it, Alexa.”

I shot him a look that I hoped conveyed my frustration. Turning back to Gavin, I asked, “Who was it?”

He grinned. “Let’s go see.”