A second later, the knife was gone from my throat and cold ocean air blasted in from the open door. A moment after that, it slammed shut and he was gone as if into thin air.
Without missing a beat, I peeled away from the curb and hauled ass back onto the Sea to Sky down to Vancouver. I wanted to go into my house, hug my dad, kiss Lou’s belly, feel Cressida’s hand in my hair and King’s laugh in the air. But I didn’t, because somehow, I’d become an unintentional threat to my family.
I desperately didn’t want to be alone in my apartment, but I needed to get Hero and ditch the car in case anyone was following me. The dog was waiting at the door and he growled when he saw the state I was in. After I locked the door behind me, I allowed myself to drop to the ground and bury my face in his fur. I clutched big handfuls of his silky tresses and cried into his neck for a long time. He let me, whining occasionally in empathy, licking at my face when I finally pulled away to soothe me.
“I’m never leaving home without you again,” I told him soberly, cupping his sweet face in my hands and looking deep into his chocolate brown eyes. “Danner might have to get a new dog.”
Hero yipped softly in agreement and wagged his tail.
I laughed wetly then dragged in a few deep breaths to center myself. I’d just been held at knifepoint in my car, I’d had to kill a man in my own apartment, I couldn’t go home because my family was under threat and I was a big part of that.
I didn’t have many safe places left.
But I had one fortress, one impenetrable safe haven that I hadn’t used in years and if there ever was a time to give in, it was then. I packed up Hero’s stuff and a bag of mine then called a taxi to take us to Danner’s.
He lived in a small house in Kitsilano of all places, a tidy well-to-do neighborhood that didn’t exactly suit his persona of a badass biker. Seeing the little shingled home made me miss the ranch-style house he had on a plot of acreage back home in Entrance.
I had to take a few fortifying breaths before I could get out of the cab into the dark night and walk to his door, but Hero kept close, brushing against my thigh with every step and I took comfort from the fact that he would protect me until his dying breath.
I reached the door without incident, which given my life lately, seemed like a minor miracle.
When Danner opened the door, he was smiling, and I loved that. He wasn’t a man who smiled often, but he did a lot of it around me and always had. I loved that I gave him lightness to combat his somber spirit, that he weighted my wild impulses just enough to give me cause to think before I acted. We were such opposites, but so beautiful paired.
I hated when the smile dropped from his face and crashed to the floor between us. Before I could lie and tell him I was fine, I was wrapped up tenderly in his arms and he was lifting me and my big bag easily over the threshold into the house. I could hear the sounds of Hero following as Danner locked the door behind us, armed an alarm and then walked with me into a little living room off the kitchen. He sat us down with me straddling his lap, my bag forgotten beside us. Hero jumped up on the couch next to him and let out a contented groan.
I held my breath as Danner gently unwound my arms from around his neck and then tipped my chin down with his thumb so he could look into my eyes.
He had a way of looking at me that seared me to my very soul. It was as if he could read every thought I’d ever had, every feeling I’d never been able to correctly express in the blue of my irises, as if he would happily drown in the blacks of my eyes. He looked at me as if his world began and ended in my gaze.
I swallowed thickly as that look hit the well of emotion at the heart of me and tears sprung forth. “Lion.”
“Rosie,” he breathed, the thumb at my chin gliding up the angle of my jaw over the shell of my ear and then the hair over my temple with the rest of his fingers. “My Rosie, what happened?”
My body needed to cry. I could feel the lava-like burn of it behind my eyes, the pressure of it in my nose, tightening my throat and clenching my gut.