Page 42 of From Hell

“Your hands are a mess, and you’re a surgeon. Come inside, I’ve got a first aid kit.”

What am I doing?

Jaxon gives me a look and then shifts the car into park. He follows me inside, waiting while I kick the bottom panel to make it open. He has to duck his head in the hallway because he’s that tall.

“Kitchen is through here.”

It’s strange having Jaxon in my cottage. In his dinner shirt and suit pants, he looks out of place, larger than life. His bow tie has long since been discarded. I make him sit at the kitchen table while I rummage around for the first aid kit. All the student accommodation has one. Finally, I find it gathering dust at the back of the cupboard.

Jaxon watches me clean his hands with disinfectant and then apply an anti-inflammatory cream to reduce the swelling on his knuckles. “This must make you happy,” he says as I apply a bandage where I can.

“What?”

“That the roles are reversed.”

“You helped me. It’s the least I could do.” Now that I’ve done my duty, nerves tremor underneath my skin, and the scent of hospitals lingers as I put everything away. I can’t look at Jaxon, so I busy myself with menial tasks like making a pot of tea. Because…When in doubt, make tea.

While making it, I’m hyper-aware of Jaxon’s dark eyes, observing my every move. I feel like Red Riding Hood, letting the wolf inside her house, and I don’t want to stare into his jaws and ask how big yet. Moths, not butterflies, swish their furry wings in my stomach like they’re trying to fly to the moon through my throat. If I had to place my finger on it, it’s Jaxon’s presence. It’s unsettling. There’s always been a darkness to him—I knew it at school and in the pub. So why do I keep letting myself be drawn to him?

Because I’m just as full of darkness, and like attracts like.

“You don’t trust me, do you?”

Suddenly, the hot water kettle whistles on the stove, making me jump. I pause before I fill the teapot with hot water to catch my breath and turn around. “You deleted the photos. I can’t forgive you for that.”

He eyes the hot water kettle in my hand. “You will. Once you realize you need me.”

“Need you,” I scoff. “You were the one who disappeared.” Without warning, my cheeks heat. Dammit, I didn’t mean to bring up the past. I got over it. I got over him.

Jaxon smirks and my chest pulls tight. I turn back to what I’m doing—making tea—but shaking so hard it spills. Steaming hot water scalds my fingers. “Fuck!”

Jaxon is behind me, his hand around mine, taking the kettle away. “Put your hand under the cold tap for a few minutes. I’ll finish it.”

“No, I can—”

“Laine.” The way he says my name has no room for negotiation. I stick my hand under the tap while he finishes making the tea, and then he makes me sit while he brings it over.

“You’re a nightmare,” he says, pouring and placing a steaming cup before me. “How you’ve survived all these years, I’ve no idea.”

My face is still flushed, but I glare at him. “I’m not a damsel.”

He snorts a laugh. I notice he doesn’t pour his tea for himself. “Aren’t you? You keep finding your way into trouble.”

My eyes track to the room with my killing board—the urge to come clean about my late-night hobbies claws at my throat. When I look back at Jaxon, he’s staring at me intently. Like he knows what’s behind door number one. A thrill sparks in the base of my stomach as the air in the room sucks right out of it. I’m alone with the big bad wolf again, only I invited him into my house, and now he will eat me up.

But I’m a wolf, too.

I straighten my spine and take a sip of my tea.

“I don’t mind rescuing you,” Jaxon says, silver-gray eyes locked onto mine as he sits across from me. There’s a tilt to the corner of his lips like he finds that hilarious. “But if I’m going to keep on saving you, breaking bones in your honor, you’ll have to tell me what you’re fumbling around in the dark trying to achieve.”

I nearly choke on my tea, the hot water burning the back of my throat like acid. Breaking bones. What the hell did he do to Christian? “Did you fight with Christian?”

His smirk widens, curving across his lips as he leans back in his seat, utterly at ease in my tiny cottage. The shadows spread and lengthen around him, making him even more intimidating, and my body reacts, burning up under his scrutiny.

“I wouldn’t call it a fight.” He doesn’t elaborate, leaving me to imagine all kinds of evils one person can do to another. “Now, answer my question. Why did you break into the archives?”

You’ve done worse.