Page 106 of Whispers of Wisteria

“Baby, are you okay?” he asked.

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 giant fingers wrapped around my knuckles, dragging my hand away from my face.

But what if he lost control again?

“Let me…” Damen began. But as his gaze met mine, his words trailed off.

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

However, watching Damen’s confident yet slightly panicked expression 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 see him shutting down and a sweat began to break out on the back of my neck.

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.

“Here,” he said, pushing me onto Miles. The witch took me without argument, and I fell against him, hands reflexively coming up to cradle my face. “She can’t be with me.”

“D-Damen!” The panic choked me as the pain retreated—no doubt thanks to Miles. But it was enough to help me think clearly.

He couldn’t run away. He couldn’t.

But as he touched the bridge of his nose, my focus remained fixated on his hand.

It was an accident.

Nothing would be the same if we left things as they were now.

Damen ignored my protest and stalked from the gymnasium, slamming the door behind him.

Miles refocused on me. He set me on a bench before he fell to his knees.

“Show me your face,” he said, pulling my hands away.

I let him even as my attention remained at the abandoned doorway.

“You’re bleeding,” Miles pointed out and grabbed a clean towel from a nearby pile. Then he addressed Bryce, calling over his shoulder, “Hand me that water.”

I’d forgotten about him.

Bryce stood still as a statue some feet away, watchingme, and not so much perturbed by Damen’s departure or Miles’s hovering. However, a short moment after Miles’s order, his stoic expression fell, and he sighed as he stalked to the folding table and snatched up a water bottle. He tossed it in the witch’s direction.

“I told you not to do anything stupid,” he lectured.

“I-I’m sorry.”

Bryce narrowed his eyes as Miles touched the cloth against my face, watching for my reaction. My muscles were tense, but with worry, not pain.