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The officer gave him a humorless smile. “I’m going to need you to come down to the station.”

Darien sensed Loren tensing in her seat, but he kept his focus on the officer. “Am I being arrested?”

“Not if you cooperate.”

“What’s going on, Officer?” Loren leaned forward to make eye contact with the prick. “I don’t see what the big deal is. He’s just helping me study.” In the corner of his vision, Darien saw her gesture to the book spread open on her folded legs—the gorgeous legs that had been braced on either side of his own minutes ago.

Fuck this guy for wrecking this hour.

The officer looked at her for a beat longer than Darien preferred, taking in every inch of her as if she were an object, not a person. The cigar nearly crumbled to a pulp in his hand as his grip on it tightened, his other fingers curling around the steering wheel so hard the leather groaned.

“Everything’s fine,” the warlock told her. “I just need to have a word with Mister Cassel here.”

Darien looked him over. He had to give the guy credit for not shrinking under his stare—the stare that made most people scamper away with their tail between their legs. But as useless as Angelthene’s law enforcement may be, anyone who trained for the job had to have balls of steel if they wanted to last so much as a day on the clock.

Darien flicked open the ashtray and ground the smouldering end of the cigar into the ashes. “Give us a minute,” he told the officer without looking at him.

The officer nodded, and he was about to walk away when he paused and bent back down to look in the car. He gave Loren a little smile that was nothing short of condescending. “I bet you were able to get a lot of studying done with your book upside down.”

Darien’s head snapped up, his cold gaze zeroing in on the officer. Loren’s heartbeat picked up to a sprint, the sound filling the car. He didn’t need to look at her to know she was staring at the officer, a deer caught in headlights.

The officer gave her a wink. “Just saying.” When he looked at Darien, a taunting grin spread across his face, the gum in his mouth showing.

“If you’re smart,” Darien began in a low voice, “you’ll walk your smug ass back to your car. I’ve been in my line of work long enough to know what I can get away with, so don’t fucking test me.”

A cold laugh rose in the warlock’s throat. “So the rumors weren’t lying. Good to know.” He patted the inside of the window with two firm, prompting slaps. “Make it quick.” He walked back to his car before Darien could say anything else.

Or before he could pull the officer through the window and crack his thick skull open on the gearshift.

Darien took a steadying breath and turned in his seat to face Loren, who was watching him with a pout on her face, the space between her eyebrows scrunched up.

“What does he want?” she whispered.

He flicked the button on the window, and the water-streaked glass rolled back up with a squeak. “I don’t know.” He jerked his chin at the academy. “Go back inside, sweetheart, and I’ll see you later. Okay?”

Loren slapped her book shut. “Okay.” Her frown had deepened, and pink dusted her ivory skin. Seeing her upset kindled emotions in him that he was still getting used to, still figuring out how to identify.

“Loren,” Darien said softly. With reluctance, she lifted her eyes to his face. “Everything will be fine, I promise.”

Those big eyes searched his face. He didn’t look away from her—not once. Anything she needed from him, anything to make her feel okay about this situation, he would give it to her, even if it was all the time in the universe. Fuck the warlock and whatever he wanted. He’d break off the gearshift and shove it up the guy’s ass if it would make Loren happy.

Darien nearly laughed. That would be a sight to see.

“Okay.” Loren sighed again, her slender shoulders sinking with the exhalation. She gathered up her things, taking care to keep them from slipping out of her arms as she leaned across the car, her ocean-blue eyes—framed in thick, dark lashes—fixed on his mouth. “Thanks for the ride,” she teased.

Darien met her halfway and stole the breath from her lungs with a deep kiss. His hand came around to the back of her head, her sun-bright hair soft under his palm. He felt her tremble against him as he parted her heart-shaped lips with his tongue. When she whimpered into his mouth—a breathy sound that reminded him of the little noises she made when they were fucking—a groan climbed up his own throat, his hand tightening into a fist in her hair. The way her tongue teased his, the stud in the center rubbing in a way that promised pure ecstasy on a much more sensitive body part, made him hard all over again.

When he broke the kiss, they were both out of breath. The tension between them had returned, somehow stronger than before. He couldn’t wait until they were alone again, so he could bury himself in her and forget about the world for a while.

She pressed her forehead against his and closed her eyes. “Later, then,” she whispered, her breath caressing his mouth.

“Later.” He loosened the hand in her hair and kissed the tip of her nose. He hated how cold he felt when she pulled away from him, the space between them expanding. Sometimes, it was so unbearable it hurt like a knife piercing his heart. She was his sun, his silver lining, and when she wasn’t around, everything in his life grew darker. Colorless and cold.

Loren reached for the door handle and pulled it open. She carefully balanced her books in her arms as she stepped out into the rain that was finally dying down to a mist.

She was about to close the door when she stopped. “Oh, I almost forgot.” Darien watched as she fumbled around in her purse. When she found what she was looking for, she bent down to see him in the car. “I made this for you.” She handed him a keychain.

Darien held it up between his thumb and forefinger. Attached to the gold chain was a glass dome, no bigger than a quail’s egg. Inside the dome sat a tiny succulent, sparkles floating around it like fireflies.