Page 98 of Change

The onmyoji didn’t notice my hand on his. He’d lost his glasses somewhere during the fight, but that didn’t slow him down. His eyes blazed with unbridled fury as Miles held his entire focus.

It wasn’t going to work.

Every second seemed frozen in time, and every movement lingered forever.

I began to raise my hands to cover my head, but I wasn’t fast enough, and I’d barely squeezed my eyes shut, when the blunt force of his fist slammed into my jaw.

The impact threw me off my feet, and I crashed into Miles before falling onto the hard concrete floor.

I couldn’t breathe, and I lost sense of time and place while I lay on the ground, hands pressed against my mouth, in both an effort to hold back the sound of my pain and to make it go away.

Gosh, he hit hard.

“Bianca!” Miles touched my shoulder but, without thinking, I flinched. The weight vanished instantly.

It felt like cotton balls had been stuffed into my ears, and the already heavy atmosphere grew even thicker.

“Fuckingmove.” Damen’s curse sounded loud against the muffled arguments, and arms surrounded me, picking me up off the floor and into someone’s lap. I groaned despite myself, whimpering. My body curled tighter as I fought to keep the nausea at bay.

“Put her down,” Bryce ordered somewhere in the background, tone livid.

But his demands were cut short as Damen’s chest rumbled against my ear. “Don’t even try it right now.”

I stiffened; my dread becoming an almost-tangible thing.

“Bianca?” Damen’s rough, shaking hand pressed against the back of my head.

I was nauseous with fear, but then I felt terrible about feeling this way.

It was an accident.

“Baby, are you okay?” he asked. His voice was heavy with strife and self-loathing, but that did little to loosen the knot in my stomach.

An accident, an accident.

He’d just been angry and didn’t see me.

He’d been so angrythat he couldn’t even take in his surroundings.

Did that happen often?

It was my fault, though. I shouldn’t have gotten involved.

“Let me see.” He cradled me against him, holding me with one arm as he pulled at my hands. “Come on.” His huge fingers wrapped around my knuckles, dragging my hand away from my face.

But what if it happened again?

“Let me…” Rainbow spots merged into concerned gray, and the rest of Damen’s demands fell unspoken into the air.

It was too soon. I hadn’t had time to recompose myself. Heck, it was difficult to think past my throbbing lip and the events leading up to it.

However, watching the confident, yet slightly panicked, expression on Damen’s face shift into something else entirely was enough to distract me.

“Hey…” I meant to sound reassuring, but my voice came out broken and pained—it hurt to open my mouth, and I winced as I spoke.

I could literally see him pulling away—shutting down emotionally. And as his passion fizzled, a cold sweat began to break out on the back of my neck. It was impossible to read him. My weakness had solidified whatever ridiculous thing he was thinking up.

His eyes darkened, attention lingering on my mouth, before he stood, holding me with a gentleness that didn’t quite match his suddenly cold mood.