“Psshhh.” Killian flips him off. “You can’t talk, lover boy.”
We’re walking back through the park when Callan comes skipping up toward us. “Oh, you caught Saskia. I’m so surprised.” If she was trying to hide her sarcasm, it wasn’t working.
I gape at her.
Killian laughs, pulling me in closer and plants his lips onto the top of my head. “Fuck off, Callan.”
Callan huffs, disappearing. It should be a red flag to see how he speaks to Callan, but for the time that I’ve known Killian, he has never sworn at me. I’ve never felt disrespected by him. Even when he was being Killian and tormenting me, I never felt disrespected. Maybe it had to do with the fact that his eyes were always on me, or maybe it was because I’m naïve, but you can’t judge someone’s character based on how they treat another person without knowing the full story.
“Can you untie this please?”
Killian laughs. “Nope.” He pauses, regarding me closely. I try to ignore the way the full moon illuminates every single sharp angle of his face. “Actually…”
He leans forward and unties the bandana from around my wrists.
He brings it to my face and ties it from my nose.
“What are you doing?” I ask, shaking my head.
He chuckles, leaning back and pulling out his phone. He snaps a photo, the flash flicking brightly, blinding me for a second, which isn’t a good thing considering I’m partially blind in that one eye still thanks to Killian’s lack of aim.
I tug his bandana down until it’s resting over my neck. “What was that about?”
He peers up at me beneath his lashes, a dark smirk on his mouth. “Don’t worry about it.”
A loud whistle sounds out behind us and we turn to see Kyrin standing on a picnic table. “Everyone got their partners I see! Now you can all fuck off home and get whatever it is that you want.”
I watch as Killian’s focus starts shifting around the place. It takes him a few seconds to stop his searching. I follow his line of sight until I find Maya. She’s standing alone, rubbing the palms of her hands up and down her arms. She looks lost, confused—hurt, maybe? I watch Killian’s face, gauging his reaction. I know how close he and Maya are, but do the same rules that I agreed to apply to him too?
Killian is a wolf in wolf’s clothing. He’s vicious with what he wants and easily stakes claim on whatever it is that he wants, but he never did with Maya.
Is she still a threat? Should I even have threats?
I hate this part of seeing someone. The talking stage. The sex stage. The stage that can feel like purgatory in every relationship.
His smirk falls and I watch as her eyes slowly come to his. I watch the silent conversation pass between the two of them and suddenly, I want to know their story. I want to know when they first met and how they feel about each other. How they really feel about each other.
My stomach drops. When he’s done with me, will he go back to her, his home base?
Maya starts walking toward us and I step backward, not wanting to be here or anywhere near them both when they’re together. I can feel myself fill with jealousy and I hate it. If I stay here, I’ll for sure display that fact out all over my face too.
“Hey,” Maya says, smiling at Killian.
“You alright?” he asks. I can hear the worry in his tone. It’s not the same tone he uses with me. With me, it’s playful, a little caveman like, but playful. But the way he addresses Maya, you can see that he takes her seriously.
My throat contracts and swells, making it hard to swallow. Their chatting dies out, everything around me fading to black. I didn’t know that I was walking back to the parking lot until I bang into Val. I fucked up.
“Wow!” She reaches for my arms, looking over my shoulder to see where I came from. Her smile turns into a slight frown. “Right, I see you were inconvenienced with KiMay.”
“KiMay?” I ask, eyebrows pinched in confusion.
She hooks her arm in mine and leads me back to one of the SUVs that followed behind Killian and I when we drove out. “Yep. Come on, my driver will take you home.”
I sigh, tension leaving my muscles when I reach for the door. I shut it after Val is in beside me. As the driver pulls away, I catch Killian spinning around to see where I had gone. It took him that long to realize I had left. My insecurities swallow me whole.
“What’s their deal?” I ask, ignoring my phone vibrating in my bra.
“Well.” Val rakes her long blonde hair away from her face as we drive down a road that reminds me of the Yellow Brick Road on the Wizard of Oz. “They were born on the same day, two years apart, so they usually celebrate their birthdays together. Delila and Draya, Killian’s mom, were really close. Best friends. Delila isn’t a perfect mom, not by any means, but one day when Maya was nine years old, Delila up and left Maya with Draya. So they ended up being literally raised together. At Kyrin’s sweet sixteen, she lost her virginity to Kill. He laughed it off afterward and she pretended to too, but Maya was heartbroken. She has always held a torch for him. Always. When—” She pauses, her throat gulping. “I should probably stop. Whatever I was about to say, is not my place to say it, but I will say this: Killian is not as harmless as he looks.” She gives me a side-eye before looking back ahead to the road. “He has dark demons living inside of him that were put there by an incident when he was a boy, and then everything he did for Midnight Mayhem after that only fed those demons.”