Page 36 of Gabriel (Legacy of Heathens #4)

Amara

I couldn’t sleep all night.

The cabin was too quiet—unnaturally so. The shadows on the walls stretched too long, like they were watching me instead of the other way around.

I lay on my bed long after my call with Liana, staring at the ceiling like it held answers. It didn’t.

The taste of Gabriel still lingered on my lips, far too vivid for comfort. It was the kind of kiss you didn’t forget.

That alone scared me more than if it had been laced with lies.

Calculated kisses I could survive. Honest desire? This was something else. Something that slipped beneath my ribs and made a home in the softest parts of me.

I got up before the sun was finished bleeding across the sky. I stepped out into the narrow hallway wearing nothing but a simple, two-piece pajama set.

My feet knew where they were going before I did. I stopped just short of his door. The air was cooler this morning as if it warned of something that was about to come.

What the hell am I doing?

A man like Gabriel Santos haunted with his charisma and charm, and when he kissed me, it was like I was something he was dying to taste. And when he smiled… Gosh, my soul shuddered when that man smiled. And then there was the fact that I fucking loved the way he looked at me.

He’d talked about his mother like someone still carrying the weight of her death.

And when he kissed me again, it was with pure need and something far more terrifying.

Hope .

I hated that I believed he was being genuine. Because if it was real, then I was in trouble. And if it wasn’t, I was already caught in the web.

But when I reached the door, I couldn’t bring myself to open it.

Mother Liana’s voice echoed from some long-buried training session in the back of my skull: Never show your throat. Never hand someone the blade they’ll use to gut you.

But I’d kissed him. Was that really handing him a blade? Or was it being impulsive for once in my life, chasing something I wanted and craved?

I’d fantasized about his mouth and hands on me too many times over the past weeks.

“Dammit,” I whispered to myself, then instead of walking into the fire, I turned and strode away.

My feet were soundless against the deck floor as I made my way back into my cabin, where I got dressed and went to the comms bay.

The satellite console buzzed softly, waiting for a purpose. I stared at it, pretending to check weather patterns, my reflection flickering faintly in the screen’s glow.

But I wasn’t here for the weather.

Instead, I stared at Jet’s message, rereading it over and over since we’d kidnapped Gabriel.

To: A. If you get this, follow the coordinates. Snatch Santos. Jet.

Even all these weeks later, it made little sense. Jet left barely a breadcrumb with the coordinates and Gabriel’s name. There was no explanation. Just a cryptic directive I’d obeyed out of blind loyalty.

However, if Jet had apparently warned him away from me—and violently, from the sounds of it—why push him into my life?

Jet didn’t trust anyone, not unless he could use them. Did he intend to use Gabriel? Or was Gabriel the trap, and I was the goddamn bait?

My fingers hovered over the screen, wondering if Elira knew more than she was letting on. They were connected by something tighter than blood, and she’d kept secrets before, but never from me. At least, that’s what I believed.

Now, every glance and word she spoke felt a little too careful. Every silence dragged a little too long.

Alas, we’d stuck to each other like rubber and glue since we started this journey, even before Jet and the explosion in Paris.

We’d been everywhere from Albania to Norway, and not once did I detect any unusual behavior.

She hardly spoke to him on the phone, and when she did, I was right there with her. Right?

I could push her, but my gut warned I wouldn’t like what shook loose.

Something about all of this didn’t sit well with me.

I’d always hated being left in the dark.

And I especially didn’t enjoy this feeling that I was walking into a trap laid out by Jet.

And the glaring mystery: Why Albania?

Kian practically ruled that country, and he’d never allow anything to happen to me.