Page 29 of Glimmer and Burn (Unity #1)

She pursed her lips. “It’s misaligned. It’s happened to me a few times.” She hovered in his face, his eyes barely open because of the sun and pain. “Just focus on me and it’ll be fine in a moment.”

Shit. He knew what she was going to do and he steeled himself.

In a flash, she adjusted her body and applied pressure at just the right angle until his shoulder gave with a horrendous pop . He doubled over, but the radiating agony was subsiding. He started to catch his breath.

“You’ll be sore for a bit,” Miranda added. Devin kept his eyes on the ground. As the pain subsided to a dull, but tolerable roar, his senses began to clear. His club was gone. Ruined. Beyond repair. Everything he’d built, gone in a blink.

“Devin, I’m so sorry,” she offered, and pity and concern replaced her normal fire. “Maybe there’s a way to repair the damage.”

He could hear the crackle of flames taking root fast. The loss was more devastating than she could realize.

She could lose her house and still have her place in the world, her wealth.

This wasn’t just his livelihood, this club was the proof that he had something more to offer than drinking his life away and a fruitless hunger for revenge.

“It’s time you went home, Miranda,” he said, standing upright.

In the sting of daylight, with so much devastation heaped on him over a single night, he had nothing left.

The servants and his security had been gathered outside by Jack.

They were mingling just ahead, near a different exit.

Together they could keep the flames down and maybe save the structure, if not the contents.

“But…” She reached for him, and he pulled away.

There was nothing more she could do aside from confusing his already frayed sanity.

He didn’t want comfort. He wanted to lay down and not get up.

He wanted to throw and smash what was left, because what was the point?

More than anything, he did not want to hurt Miranda or let her see that he could fracture, too.

It was getting very difficult to hide his weakness.

He wasn’t about to allow himself to fall into her arms and let the warmth of her soothe his desolation.

She had to leave. He was going to break.

“Of course, you’re not going to listen,” he said, voice gruff and harsh, “Fine. Don’t listen. I’m not your keeper.” He walked past her and tried to ignore the hurt in her eyes that pierced him like a spear. He kept walking.

“What is wrong with you?” Her voice followed him, a harsh yell that drew attention. Jack twitched like he'd heard, but kept directing those left with water and sand toward the fire.

Devin stopped. “Does the princess take offense to being ignored? Pissy about not getting your way for once?”

He regretted snapping the moment he’d done it, but it was too late.

“Fuck you,” she spat, getting in his face. “You’re a miserable, self-destructive, asshole hiding behind bravado.”

Fine, if she wanted to throw around harsh truths, he had a few of his own. “And you’re an entitled pain-in-the-ass who can’t handle not being in control of every situation.”

“Why do you work so hard to ruin everything?” She was getting closer, so he stepped away, determined not to let his body’s draw to hers pull him back into her clutches. Her hands were working with her temper, fists clenching, hands slicing through the air to enunciate her words.

“You knew what you were getting into, sweetheart.”

“Forgive me for thinking you could grow up for two seconds.”

“Grow up? That’s a laugh coming from you, who’s never left her own backyard until a few days ago. What do you know of growing up, Miranda? Of hardship or suffering? Ever hold a dying friend as their aura snuffed out?”

Her jaw tensed. “No. I—their what?”

“Of course you haven’t. You’re protected and sheltered. As it bloody should be. You don’t need to debase yourself with lowlife’s in the Fells.” You deserve better than tarnishing your light with my darkness.

She growled, reaching for his face like she wanted to squeeze the life from him.

“I can’t believe I was starting to fall for—” Her jaw snapped shut, but Devin’s anger pivoted on her last words.

She stood straighter, raising her pretty chin in that way she did whenever she wanted to be braver than she felt. “Forget it.”

His jaw hung open, because there were very few ways to finish that declaration. He must have misheard her. Miranda turned away and ran.

Devin watched her without moving. Speechless. Until he felt Jack nudge him with an elbow.

“You’re fucking stupid, boss,” Jack said, his tone droll.

Devin glared at him.

“Just saying. If a girl that gorgeous was willing to be alone with me in a dark room, I’d not blow it the very next morning, you know? Savor it a bit.”

Jaw clenched, Devin said through his teeth, “You’d never find a girl to be alone with you, Jack.”

Jack nodded. “Yeah, that's fair.”

“Put out the fire and take an assessment of the damage. And shut up while you do it.”

Jack chuckled, no humor reaching his face as his features retained his signature scowl. “Yes, sir.” He mock saluted and disappeared. Or, rather, he moved so silently and quickly it often appeared that way.

Devin turned away from the club, away from Miranda’s retreating form.

Was he an idiot ?

Maybe he had just lost something that he was only starting to realize he wanted to keep.

But that was exactly the problem. He couldn’t keep Miranda.

And now his damn heart was starting to pine for something completely unattainable.

The moment his walls threatened to crack in her presence, he’d pushed her so far away she might never come back. It was better that she was gone.

She was out of reach.

Forbidden.

She was seeping into every fiber and facet of his being and there was nothing he could do about it.