Page 103
His words were daggers to my gut.
He steeled himself against whatever expression I wore. “Damnit, Lana, you and I areenemies. I lost my family to your kind.”
“Do you want to know why I like you, even now?” I said.
“You have a bad habit of seeing good in people who don’t deserve it,” Asher said. He made it sound like that wasn’t a compliment.
I wrapped my hand around the vial of his blood. “Because you’re loyal.” I let out a breath. “I was taught that humans weren’t capable of loyalty, not like Infernari. But you are. You defend your family even now. That’s admirable.”
His expression crumbled, his throat working. “Stop, Lana,” he breathed. “For the love of God, please, stop.”
This man burned for his mate.Burned. Another fallacy I was told. That the cold natives here were unfeeling. This man wasn’t unfeeling. Behind his stony façade, he was all fire and heat. His passion burned hot, and his grief smoldered.
Wewereenemies, and yet I feared he and I had it all wrong.
And I feared it would make a difference in the end.
We fell intoan uneasy silence, only interrupted when we stopped for lunch. He ordered a kid’s dish for me, which I assumed was supposed to be some sort of insult, but the joke was on him. Chicken fingers were delicious and I got four colorful crayons out of it.
“I didn’t know chickens evenhadfingers,” I said now, hoisting myself into Asher’s car.
The vehicle dipped with his weight as he got in. “They don’t.”
“Oh,” I peered down distractedly at the crayons in my hand. “Then why are they called that?”
The engine roared as he turned the car on. “Beats the shit out of me.” He raised an eyebrow at the crayons in my hand. “Do you want to make necklaces for each of those?”
My eyes brightened at the idea. “Yes. You are brilliant, Jame.”
I reached back for his rope.
He gave me chagrined look. “It was a joke, Lana.” He snatched the rope out of my hands. “I need that.”
“For what? Killing more Infernari?”
“Give the girl a trophy.”
I frowned at him. “You know, I was told you were the scariest, most lethal hunter out here. And yet since I’ve been with you, you’re the one getting your ass kicked by my kind.”
Asher tossed the rope behind us. “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear,” he said. “Plus,” he eyed me up and down, “I managed to capture you.”
“Give the man a trophy,” I mimicked.
He cracked a smile at that, and his already gorgeous face was now almost painful to look at. My attention moved to his mouth. The mouth that had kissed me...
“We’re about to cross the border,” he said, his smile vanishing. “We need to get you a passport... if I steal one for you, you think you could make yourself look like the photo?”
“A passport? Is that one of those little blue books?”
“Yeah, they mean you’re a citizen. Since you don’t have one, you’re an illegal alien...”
He trailed off when he saw me reaching down my suit, my beads from New Orleans shivering as I did so.
I grabbed the little book and the strange, rectangular piece of plastic I was assigned when I began visiting the United States. “Is this what you’re talking about?” I asked, handing them both over.
“Where did you store that?” he asked, his expression dumbfounded.
I flashed him a bewildered look. “In my outfit. Where else?”
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103 (Reading here)
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156