Chapter One
Every man on the planetcan tell when a woman is pretending to be asleep—except Fin, apparently. I kept my chin tucked to the side against the ugly blue gingham of my hospital gown. He couldn’t see all of my face, just my cheekbones and the blood crusted hair around my head.
His breathing echoed around me, and I didn’t dare move as he stared at me. I didn’t know why he was hanging around me... and I didn’t care. Considering the way he’d practically ran over me to get out of the helicopter earlier, he’d made it clear where I stood in the hierarchy now.
Fuck him.
I kept my face relaxed, but what I really wanted to do was clench my jaw and throw a punch. Even a verbal one might make me feel better right now. The sound of his fingers tapping on a tablet probably meant he was checking my medical charts. Or rather, the notes one of the nurses had scrawled while another one stuck an IV into my arm.
If I were awake, I would slap that tablet out of his hand for violating my privacy. I clenched my fists tight and hoped he didn’t see them beneath the soft blanket they’d thrown over me. Talking to him right now might result in a lot of things being said that shouldn’t be spoken aloud.
I risked a peek out from under my lashes. He stood a few feet away, his honey brown hair gathered in a hasty knot at the nape of his neck. His brows were pushed down under his furrowed forehead and the urge to smooth it flat again with my fingers overwhelmed me.
Fucking hormones. Obviously. My body hadn’t learned what my brain already knew: he didn’t want me.
The second I could physically leave this house, his palace, I would be hightailing it back to my apartment so I could start my own hunt for The Black Mage.
A sniffle coming from his direction caused me to freeze up. I kept my gaze low until I could manage a quick scan of his face. Big fat tears glistened along his stupidly devastating cheekbones. Some tiny part of me melted at the display of emotion. Another part hardened to it. I wasn’t going to forgive him over a few well-timed tears.
He came around to the side of the bed I was facing. I schooled my sleeping face and relaxed my clenched eyelids. A shuffling sound told me he threw himself into the chair on that side. Shit. If he was staying, I might have to go to sleep for real.
Another sniffle and my tough exterior cracked. Damn him. I wouldn’t feel sympathy right now. He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve me.
Fear spiked through me. Maybe the Captain hadn’t made it through the bullet he’d taken to the face. Maybe that was why Fin was sitting at my bedside blubbering. A pang in my chest followed. The Captain and I had only just started easing toward being on the same page. It would be a while yet for his overbearing tendencies to wear down for me, but I’d felt a connection when we’d gone to save Fin.
No. If he’d died, someone would have woken me, told me.
You’re not fucking asleep, Zoey.
The Captain had to be fine. He was no doubt already bossing his men around from his immaculately hospital-cornered bed. I wouldn’t put it past him to get back to his old self fast, even without most of his face.
I let myself giggle on that and then sober up. The pain meds were making me a bit loopy. It would explain the soft feelings blooming inside me at the sight and sounds of Fin crying.
Hormones and pain meds—every badass woman’s kryptonite.
The monitor by my bedside beeped, and even though they’d sponged me down, I still smelled pine needles with every inhale. It had to be wafting from Fin. The scent made my gut churn until nausea threatened to overtake me.
If I puked, Fin would know I was fake sleeping. Not an option, because then we would have to talk.
“I know you’ll be all right,” Fin said.
I stilled, fearing he’d caught me.
When something rustled beside me, I risked another peek from slit eyelids.
He’d doubled over, his head cupped in his hands, his nails digging into the back of his head. “Zoey, so help me, if you die on me, I’ll raze the Earth until I kill Esteban. I promise you that.”
His words cut into me, hammering away at the resolve I’d barely started building against him.
What kind of woman could keep her shit together when a man sat there crying, professing unyielding vengeance over her death? Not this one.
I shifted and opened my eyes to look at him fully. His gaze locked with mine, the heat there zipping through me, until he shuttered his expression to something more reserved.
“I’m not going to die, you idiot. It’s just a flesh wound,” I whispered.
He didn’t even blink at my joke. The silence stretched as we stared at each other.
“Are you going to say something or are we going to sit here awkwardly?” I asked.
With a huff, he shoved out of the chair. With his back to me, he swiped at his face, removing all traces of moisture, before turning back. “How are you feeling?”
“Like someone tried to dissect me while I was still alive.”
Not even a smile at that one.
Maybe drugged-up Zoey thinks she’s funnier than she actually is.
“How is he?”
Fin shifted and then gripped the bar of the gurney. “He’s fine. The doctors stabilized him, and I healed him the best I could. He’ll be brand new in a few days.”
“I’m glad. Truly. He and I were connecting there about five minutes before all hell broke loose. I think we made a breakthrough. When he wakes up, he better not have amnesia. That was a lot of work I put in.”
No smile there either. He sucked in a gust of air and gripped the bed so tightly the steel creaked under his palms.
I shifted in the bed so I could see him better. He looked not at all like the polished princeling I’d come to know.
“What’s the problem?” I asked.
“What were you thinking?” he said, his tone somewhere between anger and threatening.
I waved at him. “What was I thinking? I was thinking my boss, the dumb ass, went off half-cocked with no backup to take out the most powerful mage in existence. And you know what, I wasn’t alone, so don’t fucking get pissy with me. In this situation, only one of us did the stupid thing. And I’ll give you a hint—it wasn’t me.”
My voice was rising the angrier I got, but I couldn’t stop it. By the end of my tirade, my ribs screamed, and a dull throb had taken root at the base of my skull.
So much for the fuzzy pain meds I’d been enjoying.
I didn’t have to deal with this. I’d given him back his money a long time ago. That last mission had been more about the Captain requesting my help than Fin. If he wanted to yell at someone, he could do it to someone he paid to stand there and take it.
I shoved back the covers and swung my legs to the edge of the bed. The room swam around, so I gave myself a second to get orientated.
“What are you doing?” Fin asked from behind me now.
I gripped the IV needle in my arm and jerked it out. The sting only lasted for a second, then I gripped the handle of the bed and shoved over the side. My knees buckled under my weight and I fell about a foot, having to use the bed for support.
He put himself in my path. “Get back in bed. You’re not going anywhere.”
I shoved him hard, but it didn’t move him an inch. “You’re not my boss anymore. I don’t answer to you and I don’t have to sit here and listen to you berate me for something that was one hundred percent your fault.”
He narrowed his eyes, and I knew I’d pushed him too far. The tingle of magic filled the air before my entire body locked up in front of him.
NO! He promised he’d never make me submit to his magic like this.
“Get back in bed,” he said with a growl.
With his magic choking my will from my body, I had no choice. I walked back to the bed, climbed inside, and threw the covers over my legs.
A hot buzz started in my ears and cascaded through my body. Molten anger boiled along my veins and I glared at him since it was the only expression he’d left free.
I could only watch while he eased the IV into a different spot and then smoothed a fresh bandage over the wound.
Tears rolled down my face. He’d just violated everything I held dear. My mind. My body. My free will.
And when the bastard wouldn’t look at me, I knew that he knew he’d fucked up by forcing me with his magic again, especially after promising me he wouldn’t.
“It’s for your own good,” he whispered, and then he walked out of the room.
I strained against the magic that bound me to the bed with any strength my battered body had left, but his magic held me flat in the bed.
When I got free, I would skin him alive.
I will never forgive him for this.
With no other choice, I closed my eyes, and I waited for my strength to return. When I felt like I could try again, I began to slowly fight my way back. I wiggled my toes. Then my feet. Eventually, with more strength than should have been necessary, I got movement back into my hands and torso.
Once I’d managed to buck his magic, my entire body shook from the effort. I jerked the fresh IV from my arm and dropped off the side of the bed.
It was pitch black outside the window. The chill in the air told me the time must be early morning hours, but I couldn’t be sure. No one prowled the halls, not even the guards the Captain kept around like Pez dispenser people in the hallway.
I hobbled toward the front of the mansion; the door hung open as if waiting for the next rush of people in need of medical attention. A car sat in the driveway, the same SUV, and the same soldier, who’d given me a ride previously.
I opened the passenger side door and climbed into the front seat.
He started from a doze to stare at me in shock. “Shouldn’t you—”
“If you want to keep your balls where they are, you won’t finish that sentence,” I said.
He nodded, and I waved at the steering wheel. “Drive. Take me home. My job is done and I’m ready for a hot shower and my own bed.”
He glanced back at the house and then unhooked his walkie from his vest. I gave a little shake of my head and he clipped it back on, then walked away, down the long drive.
We travelled in silence, and I cursed Fin for living so far from civilization. Then I resolved it was better this way, since him living in the middle of nowhere would mean crossing paths in the city would be less likely. I never wanted to see that bastard again.
The worst thing about the entire situation was the dull ache in my chest. We’d both known we were on the brink of more. Of doing more and being more together. I didn’t sleep with clients, but I’d found myself thinking about him that way. Now I would never know what would have happened, if we had let ourselves.
The driver shifted behind the wheel, and I stared at him from where I rested my face against the door.
“You okay? Not going to die on the way to my house, are you?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Ugh... don’t call me ma’am.”
“Yes, ma’am—I mean, I’m fine.”
I faced out the window as the city lights come into view. Maybe it was time to seek out Hawk again. Go see the chief. Hawk had made it seem like the old man actually missed me.
Unlikely, but the chief would never admit that he missed me to my face, so I would never know.
We pulled up outside my apartment and I climbed out. The driver came around to help, but I waved him away. “Go home, Junior. I have a feeling they are going to need you there more than I do.”
“But I should...”
I levelled him a glare. “Just go. I’m no longer on your boss’s payroll, so you have no obligation to stay parked outside my house.”
He didn’t look convinced, but he still got back into the SUV and drove away.
The trek inside my apartment was excruciating. Who knew stairs weren’t easy to navigate with severe head trauma?
I made it inside and kept the lights off. Every beam seemed to burn my eyes. Even the shimmering streetlamps slanting through my blinds caused a deep ache in my temples.
For about five seconds, I debated on taking a shower to scrub the blood from my hair, but I decided against it. The hot water might put me on my ass, and then I would have to call an ambulance and end up as one of those stories they told during the holiday season to their families.
No, thank you.
I lowered myself onto my bed and lay out flat. The room spun around me as the pain meds sloshed through my system. Some tightness along my ribs had eased. Fin must have shoved some healing in me when he forced his magic on my body.
The thought drew a fresh wave of anger through me. If Fin so much as breathed near me, he would earn an elbow to the nose.
For now, the soft sounds of the city outside my window and the heady mix of medical grade painkillers lulled me to sleep with a pocket watch clutched so tightly into my palm I’d almost forgotten it was there.