seeing the wide, haunted eyes, the blood soaking blond hair, staining it a deep brown.
Darby leaned forward anxiously. “Was she okay?”
He nodded again. “She was still alive, by some miracle.” Then his words came quickly. “I approached her to try and help her and she just … screamed. And kept on screaming.” Even now, he could hear the awful sound ringing in his ears, ripping through him.
Darby shook her head, a heaviness settling in her chest. “After you’d just saved her life?”
“I tried to talk to her, calm her down, but she wouldn’t stop screaming. She took off running. She left the park and ran right out into the street.” He paused, taking a breath. “A truck hit her. She died instantly.”
Darby blinked. “You can’t blame yourself for that. She was hysterical, traumatized from what they did to her.”
“She ran into that street because of me.” Because of the monster he was. “I should have left her alone.” He shook his head. “No—I should never have shifted.”
She placed her hand on his knee. Sensation zipped through him at the touch of her hand. He tensed beneath her fingers. She must have felt his tension, for she looked down to where she touched him. With a small gasp, barely audible, she snatched her hand away and buried it in her lap. Color flooded her cheeks, almost the same red as her hair, and he marveled at that. Women actually still blushed these days? Modesty and reticence had long since been absent from his life.
She moistened her lips and he followed the quick darting of her tongue, desire twisting in his belly. The air around them altered, became thicker, heavy with an aching awareness of each other.
“She ran into the street because of the lycans who attacked her. Not you.”
He tore his gaze away from her mouth. “Don’t you get it? It didn’t matter. I looked like them. To her, I was one of them.”
“Looking like them doesn’t mean you’re like them.”
“That was the last time I ever shifted. I don’t need to shift in order to beat them.”
Something passed over her face.
“What?” he demanded.
“Maybe you do … I mean, you needed to do it then to overpower them, and you’ve been hunting Cyprian for a long time. Maybe you would have found them sooner if you weren’t so hung up on shifting.”
Her words struck a nerve. “It’s the way it has to be,” he growled. “I won’t risk shifting again, losing control—”
“You never lost control—”
“Drop it,” he bit out, rising to his feet and moving toward the door again. “You mistake yourself if you think your opinion matters enough to change my mind on this.”
That did the trick. She flinched, staring at him with hurt eyes. “I’m trying to help.”
“You can help by following my lead on this.” He drew a ragged breath and wondered why the way those hazel eyes stared at him affected him so much. Why she should affect him? “And stop asking me so many fucking questions.”
NIKLAS LEFT WITHOUT ANOTHER word and Darby locked the door behind him, noticing that her hands shook. Moving into her small bedroom, she checked on Aimee before stripping out of her clothes and stepping into the shower.
She arched her throat and let the warm water beat down on her body, luxuriating in the wet heat, letting it ease her sore muscles, thankful for being alive.
She envisioned Niklas as he had been tonight, fierce and wild fighting the lycans intent on devouring her, then almost tender as he told her about his past, revealing pieces of himself she felt sure he’d never shared with another soul. Until he shut her down, spoke to her so harshly at the end.
Except she couldn’t forget his eyes.
Her hand brushed her breast and with some surprise she felt her nipple pebble-hard, aroused and sensitive. She released a moan and ducked her head under the spray of water, perfectly aware of the reason why her body was in such a state.
It had been a long time since she’d even been close to a man as sexy as Niklas. His body, his voice, everything about him aroused her.
She wanted him—no, she craved him. She ached just thinking about him. It took all her willpower not to fling herself at him.
The problem was that kiss. Maybe if she had never kissed him, she wouldn’t be so convinced at how good they would be together—how amazing it would be.
She sighed. It was going to be a long month. Especially considering