Lethal Game (GhostWalkers 16)

“That wasn’t going to happen. I asked if the girls wanted out, but I waited until the last possible moment because I knew there were two girls always fawning on Whitney, currying his favor by ratting on us. Two went with me. We went over the fence and split up. I have no idea if they got away clean. I didn’t have time to create an identity. The cops will realize I don’t exist, and once I’m put in their system, Whitney will know where I am.”

“You should have told me. You know about me. You had to have suspected all along what I was.” He began pacing again, as if he couldn’t keep all of his restless energy cooped up one minute longer, or he wanted to shake her—she couldn’t decide which.

She shrugged. “I liked you. I liked spending time with you. I hoped you didn’t guess I was one as well so I could stay here. It’s the first real home I’ve had. Marie and Jacy feel like family to me, but I can’t stay, not when the cops will be all over the fact that Amaryllis Johnson doesn’t exist.” She took a deep breath. “And, Malichai, sit down. Every step you take is hurting that leg worse. Your bone is going to disintegrate if you keep it up. I think the pressure you’re putting on it is causing more of those tiny fractures. Like stress fractures people can get when they run on concrete.”

He turned his head and looked straight at her. Right into her eyes. Those cat eyes staring at her in the dark. “I’m in love with you, Amaryllis, and I don’t want to lose you. If you give me permission, I can have my team get your identity fixed and in place so that the first time the police search for you and can’t find you will appear to be an error in their system.”

Her heart nearly stopped and then began beating overtime. There was a strange roaring in her ears. She almost didn’t hear anything after he declared he loved her. No one had ever said those words to her. Not one single person. She almost couldn’t breathe. She even felt a little dizzy. Malichai had actually said he loved her. Her. The woman who had escaped Whitney and left behind two other girls. She didn’t know where the other three were.

She burst into tears. She wasn’t a crier. You couldn’t cry if you were one of Whitney’s orphans; that earned you all kinds of really bad punishments. She couldn’t stop though. She found herself with her hands over her face, sobbing. All because he loved her. He couldn’t love her. He just couldn’t.

“Baby, stop.”

Malichai’s voice, as always, was so gentle when he spoke to her. That brush of velvet over her skin, in her mind. Now she recognized it as something else—emotion. Love. She hadn’t known what it was. What it felt like. He had given her that as well, and she couldn’t accept it.

“I can’t. You can’t love me. You just can’t, Malichai. You’re so good and I’m . . . not. I’m just not.”

“Amaryllis.”

He said her name and there was a hint of laughter in his voice. Male amusement, although she knew he was trying to hide it. She glared up at him through her tears. She was spilling her guts, telling him the very worst of her, and he found that funny?

“Babe, there is nothing in your life you could possibly have done that is worse than anything I’ve ever done. I’m a fucking soldier. I’m a GhostWalker. What the hell do you think that means I do?”

“I left those girls. I left them. You would never have left them. You know you wouldn’t have. You’re all about loyalty. I’m not. I’m only loyal to a few people. The rest, I don’t think about. I don’t worry about. It’s just my little circle. I have jackal in me. Jackal. Do you know what that means?” She nearly spat it at him, wanting him to see that those hideous traits in her were never going to go away. They were in her DNA. Deep. And she’d pass them on to her children. She had even worse than that, but she wasn’t even going there.

“Why do you think that’s a bad thing? Jackals mate for life. The young return as adults and help raise the juveniles year after year, forming a tight group. They defend their territory and each other. GhostWalkers do that same thing, Amaryllis. There’s nothing wrong with that. They run like the wind. We’re all made up of many things. Whitney fed you a line of crap to make you think less of yourself because he controlled all of you that way. He couldn’t let any of you think you were extraordinary. God help him if the women rose up knowing they were strong and smart and beautiful inside and out. Fuck him and whatever he told you. There’s not a damn thing wrong with you.”