to be flippant.”
The dimple vanishes—though that gleam in his eyes, a combination of assessment and enticement, pulses brighter. “Well. The boy wonder picked himself quite a spitfire, didn’t he?”
“Who?”
The gleam softens. Just a little. “Nothing,” he says softly. “Just a nickname from long ago.”
From long, long ago, you selfish bonsun. The fury, overriding me like bloodlust on behalf of the family he has subjected to fourteen years of grief, makes me long to give the lion the fight he deserves. And the smell of his own blood. And the scars of my scratches across his serene face.
Which would do what for you? Or for Cassian?
The logic makes my stomach churn, my mind spin. I feel thrust onto a jetty in a storm, rooted on solid rock but buffeted by waves of mind-jarring force, threatening to blast me away.
Remember your rock. What would Cassian do with the waves?
Force them back. Part the damn sea. Strip everything away, until the damn sea obeyed…
I bind the thoughts to me, drawing in more strength—until they reveal a surprising shore. Clarity. “Wait,” I murmur, gaze narrowing at Damon—or whoever the hell he is. “Have you just been lurking—and how long have—and exactly how did—” I stop my stammering to peer around, senses doused in feedback. The din of the media mini mob. The squawks of the radios from Doyle’s added security guards. The added electricity in the air because of it all, despite the ten-foot-high wall bordering the entirety of the complex. “How the hell did you get in here?”
He jogs his head at the back wall. I cannot acknowledge it as an answer, despite the scuffs on his hands and clothes confirming his validity. “Just up and over.”
I pull in a sharp breath. “You are a liar.”
Well, not technically. Cassian pulled off the same move yesterday—but that was before Doyle’s new-hires started patrolling the back wall along with the automated security cameras. Cassian also owns the place—not a claim this lunatic can remotely make. The only thing he has proven accurate is his sneakiness.
“A valid point,” he finally responds, all too coolly, to my allegation. “And true—about a variety of subjects. But not this one.”
“So…you scrambled up and over?” I let anger cover for my incredulity. “Sweet-talked the cameras with your humility and good looks?”
“Well, there were those,” Damon counters. “But mostly it was my training.”
“Of course.” I spread my hands, shrugging. Sorry-not-sorry. “Your ‘training.’ As…part of the circus you ran away with? The rogue aliens who forced you to pilot their flying saucer for fourteen years? The mob cartel who kidnapped you?”
That one makes him chuckle. “The mob. Good one. That comes the closest.”
“To what?”
“To the CIA.”
My jaw wants to fall. Begs me to let it simply plummet to the ground—since once more, every shred of my intuition bellows about how ridiculously, incredibly, right he is. “The…”
“CIA.” He repeats it as if just relaying he belongs to a book club or is allergic to chocolate. “It stands for the Central Intelligence Agency. We’re an organization dedicated to protecting our country’s security interests throughout the world—”
“Creator’s toes.” I drop my head, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I know what the CIA is.”
“Then you also know what I’m about to tell you could get me killed.”
“Good. Then your mother and brother will not have wasted the last fourteen years grieving for your sorry backside…” Ass nozzle. How I yearn to borrow the “endearment” from Vy to finish off the slam, for nothing in Arcadian comes close to fitting. But I choose the higher road, dammit, falling into fuming silence.
“All right. What I’m about to tell you could get you killed.”
Long growl—before a prickled retort. “Then do not tell me.” I could not mean anything more. Prove it by spinning on my heel, with the full intention of calling security the moment I get back inside—then locking myself in a room to weigh out what in Creator’s name I plan on doing with this landslide of revelation. How I will be able to look Cassian in the eye, or ever hear another reference to Damon again, without telling him what I now know about the man…
“Fine. Then it might get Cassian killed.”
So much for that dilemma. Or for any of the tiny prickles in my nerves. All of my skin freezes—then bears witness to it in the lengths of my limbs, which stop me totally in place. The only warm thing in my body is the core of my heart—and the beats my spirit has