Was this how humans felt?
This maddening helplessness?
It sucked.
“It won’t bother you at all to know that I belong to another?”
“I will be . . .” He took a beat to find the right word. “Content.”
“Bullshit,” she breathed, unable to accept he was actually prepared to walk away from her.
“Serra—”
“Look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t want me.”
He refused to be provoked. Worse, that pity continued to shimmer in his dark gaze. “I’m not going to play games with you.”
“Because you can’t do it,” she snarled. “You want me. You’re just too much of a coward to do anything about it.”
“Find another, Serra,” he warned, a muscle in his jaw bulging as he reached down to grab his towel and stepped around her. “Be happy.”
Her heart screeched to a painful halt. “Where are you going?”
He hesitated, but he refused to turn around. “To pack.”
She glared at the broad back covered in swirling tattoos. God. He was destroying her.
Did he ever care?
“When are you leaving?”
“In the morning.”
Not giving her the opportunity for further discussion he simply walked away, his shoulders squared and his head held high.
“Bastard,” she breathed.
Chapter Two
Serra left the gym and headed toward her private apartment three floors below.
Valhalla was the official home for many high-bloods, and by far the largest of all the various compounds that were based throughout the world. Including the monasteries where the Sentinels were raised, and where they were able to use the portals to travel from abbey to abbey.
Located in the Midwest, it was a vast community that had workshops, garages, and a large school spread over several thousand acres. There were also extensive vegetable gardens, a lake large enough to support a fishery, and heavily timbered hills that were home to protected wildlife.
In the center was a massive building constructed in the shape of a pentagon with a large inner courtyard.
There were few visitors who could claim to have ventured beyond the official offices on the main floor or the formal reception rooms, although they did have a few guest rooms for VIPs. Absolutely no one who wasn’t a high-blood was allowed to explore the nine levels of private quarters and secret labs that were dug deep into the earth.
Leaving the gym, Serra took the elevator to the lower floors and stomped her way down the long corridor.
The thick-skulled, tattooed lummox.
He wanted to scurry back to his monastery and forget she existed?
Fine.
More power to him.