Page 6 of Protected from Malice (Blade and Arrow Shadow Team #1)

RAFE

Since we got to the hotel, I haven’t been able to sit still.

Restless energy pulses through me in waves, each one bringing with it a fresh burst of emotion.

Rage.

Impotent frustration.

Worry.

Then back to white-hot fury again.

The second I try to sit down, I’m right back up, pacing around the room. Checking the locks at the door and the impromptu security system I set up with alarms loud enough to wake the dead if anyone dares try to come in.

From the door to the window, I stare out at the parking lot, scanning the rows of cars with suspicion. Wondering if any of them are hiding the person who broke into Eden’s house and cursing myself again for letting them go.

I know staying with Eden was more important. There was never any question. Protecting Eden is more important than anything.

But shit. If I’d only been faster. If I’d… fuck. Done something .

Logic tells me there was nothing else I could do. But logic doesn’t make me feel any better while I’m stuck prowling this small hotel room and Eden is in the bathroom, quietly crying.

She’s trying to hide it. I know she is. But the small sniffles and shaky gasps that keep filtering through the bathroom door are a dead giveaway.

I thought I knew what helplessness felt like before.

Flying back to the States after my mother was killed in a car accident, seeing Indy so hurt back in Iraq, receiving that terrible call about Mandy…

But this is a helplessness I never expected—being forced to listen to Eden cry and not be able to do anything about it.

I know she’s safe. Relatively unharmed, aside from the cut on her hand that makes me want to put my fist through the wall. She won’t be alone and frightened again.

Now that I’m here, I’ll make damn sure no one hurts her.

But it’s not enough.

Knowing she’s safe doesn’t heal the aching emptiness in my chest.

It doesn’t take away this instinctive need to comfort her. To burst into the bathroom and pull her into my arms like I did back at her house. Hold her until she stops crying.

It doesn’t erase all the things I want to say to her.

I’m sorry I wasn’t a better friend.

I’m sorry I let you down.

I’m sorry I wasn’t there.

Please. Don’t cry. I’ll do anything if you’ll stop.

Hearing you cry makes me feel like my heart is dying.

As I make my tenth? fifteenth? twentieth? circuit around the room, a flash of memory hits me.

Last year, coming back to the Blade and Arrow ranch in Texas after helping the team stop that sick monster and his fucked up dark web game, I stood in the background and watched the tearful homecoming.

I remember how Tate threw herself at Erik, sobbing in relief because she’d been so terrified he wouldn’t make it back safely.

I still remember Erik’s expression. So relieved to have her in his arms, but desperate to fix things. To take away her tears. To make her smile again.

Shit. That’s how I feel about Eden.

But Erik and Tate were a couple. In love. Now they’re married.

It’s not close to the same for me and Eden.

And I have no right to hold her unless it’s for her protection.

No right to go into the bathroom, where I might see her naked?—

Fuck.

Don’t think about Eden naked.

Don’t think about her all wet, her skin flushed with heat, brushing her hair back from her face and kissing her damp lips?—

Fuck.

Desire surges, making my pants uncomfortably tight.

My hands itch to touch her. To trail my fingers across her skin, tracing the patterns of freckles that always come out the second she spends any time in the sun.

To cup her sweet ass and lift her against me, feeling her heat pressing against mine.

To hear her soft moans, capturing them in my mouth and?—

Dammit.

I slam my fist on the windowsill; welcoming the flare of pain that follows.

I deserve to feel pain, thinking about Eden like that. Thinking about her naked, about the things I’d like to do to her, when I should be focused on her protection instead.

She’s scared. Hurt. Crying, for fuck’s sake. And I’m out here like a horny teenager fantasizing about his first crush.

“Fuck,” I mutter. My jaw clenches. “Fuck.”

In the bathroom, the shower shuts off.

I pace back across the room, feeling more like a caged animal than human.

My phone is a weight in my pocket, getting heavier by the minute.

It’s a reminder of all the people I should call. Indy. Cole. My boss, to tell him to reassign my jobs since I won’t be leaving Portland until this situation with Eden is resolved.

At least the work part is easy. I pull out my phone and shoot off a quick text explaining I have a family emergency out on the west coast and that I’ll let him know as soon as I get back to Texas.

The other calls?

Eden begged me to wait. On the way from her house to the hotel, she broke her tight-lipped silence to say, “I know you want to call Indy. And I’m not saying we shouldn’t.

But to call him in the middle of the night…

He has nightmares. His PTSD is especially bad at night.

I don’t want to trigger him. Send him into a panic. Can we just wait until tomorrow?”

Already I was rearranging plans in my mind. Maybe I wouldn’t call Indy yet, but I could call Cole. See what he thinks about all of it. Or Dante, who leads the Texas branch of Blade and Arrow.

Then again, what can I tell them when I don’t know the whole story myself?

I do know a truck followed Eden on her way home from work, and that it bumped the back of her car several times. And that she used one of the driving techniques we taught her to get away, which both enrages me and makes me incredibly proud.

I know weird things have been happening , in Eden’s words. Things she’s still hesitant to tell me about. Things she keeps trying to brush off as paranoia.

But what does Eden have to be paranoid about? I thought she was enjoying an uneventful life out here, working, doing her puzzles, going to the gym, seeing friends, possibly dating?—

My molars nearly shatter at the thought.

Eden dating.

I’m not dumb enough to think she wouldn’t. A beautiful woman like her, smart, sweet, quietly funny—any man would be thrilled to go out with her.

But knowing it in theory, while living over a thousand miles away, isn’t the same as facing the cold reality of it.

She could be dating someone right now. She could come out of the bathroom and say she needs to call her boyfriend. Just because Indy never mentioned Eden dating anyone doesn’t mean she isn’t.

Although, where’s this boyfriend , if there is one?

Wouldn’t Eden have called him last night instead of me?

Dammit.

I hate feeling all twisted up like this.

Back at home in Corpus Christi, it’s simpler.

I busy myself with as many jobs as I can take, searching for fugitives in Texas and the surrounding states.

When I’m not working, I go hiking. I take my boat out on the Bay.

At night, I usually stay home watching a documentary on Netflix until I pass out on the couch.

A couple times a month, I head to the bars to satisfy my more primal urges, invariably regretting it immediately after.

I never wanted to deconstruct why those hookups felt so empty.

But I think I know.

Deep down, I always have.

Just as I’m heading back to the door to check the locks again, the bathroom door opens, letting out a cloud of steam.

And from the steam, Eden emerges.

Small. Pale. Achingly fragile. Eyes pink-rimmed but dry.

But, fuck. She looks incredible, too.

Her hair is still wet, hanging in dark waves that frame her delicate features.

The stretchy pants she’s wearing cling to her perfect curves, accentuating hips that definitely aren’t too wide and legs I’ve tried to ignore more times than I’d like to admit.

She’s wearing one of her old Yale sweatshirts—oversized, worn, and on anyone else, it wouldn’t be sexy at all.

But on Eden? It just reminds me of how smart she is.

How hard she worked to get her PhD and all the good she does with it.

I know I shouldn’t want her.

I’ve reminded myself of all the reasons for years.

But it doesn’t erase how I feel.

“Sorry I was in there so long,” Eden says. She forces a tiny smile. “I just… I lost track of time.”

Or, more likely, she was trying to get her emotions under control because she didn’t want me to know how upset she was.

“It’s fine.” As I walk towards her, I notice the fresh gauze wrapped around her injured hand. Already there’s a faint pink stain over her palm, spurring on a fresh surge of anger and worry.

Worry that makes my voice go rough as I take her hand in mine and say, “I told you to keep the bandages on your hand in the shower. You reopened the cut. If that keeps happening, it’ll scar.

” Unwinding the gauze, I inspect the still-seeping wound.

“I still think you need stitches. It’s not too late to go to the hospital. ”

Eden gives her hand a cursory glance before looking back up at me. “It’s fine, Rafe. I don’t care about a little scar. I’ll just wrap it back up.”

The idea of Eden scarred isn’t just wrong. It’s abhorrent.

Not her perfect hand, so small in mine, now marred with a mark of violence.

No, the intruder didn’t hurt her directly. But his actions caused the damage, even so.

As I wrap the gauze back around her hand, I’m only distantly aware that my fingers are trembling. That my heart is racing.

All I can think about are the terrible ways the night could have ended.

If I’d been fifteen minutes later, the intruder could have gotten to her. And I would have shown up to her house to find Eden brutally attacked. Bleeding. Dying?—

“Why didn’t you tell me how bad it was?” I grit out. My voice takes on a harsh edge as I continue, “You never should have been home alone. I wouldn’t have allowed it if I’d known. You said it might be nothing.”

Eden blinks at me. “I wasn’t sure,” she starts. “Just because I thought I was being followed before didn’t mean?—”