Chapter Twenty-Four
Sloane
I stopped by the house to get some clothes the next morning and a few things for Bruno too. He wanted his handheld video game and something to cover himself with, something that wasn’t a backless hospital gown.
I planned to reject the latter request but did tell him I’d bring him his video game. We didn’t know how long he’d be in the hospital, but we might as well prepare for however long it took.
As far as school, I didn’t know about that either. Hell, I didn’t know about it for me. We were off on a holiday today, but I went ahead and had Callum call me in for the rest of the week. I didn’t plan to leave the hospital.
I thought Ares might give me a harder time about that. We obviously hadn’t worked on the project since before the weekend, but he hadn’t mentioned it once yesterday when he came by. He’d been cool, and in any sense, school and his project were the last things on my mind anyway. I was still stressing out about my brother.
Amongst other things.
I kept that all out of my mind as I pulled up toward the house. Upon rolling up the hill, I was mulling over the list of items I wanted to grab, but it all fell out of my head when I realized a car was parked outside of the gate.
I recognized it.
Dorian Prinze had his arm out of the window, his head angled in my direction when I came up. He had sunglasses on, the morning light flickering across his sun-spun locks.
Wetting his lips, he pulled them off his eyes, squinting like the sun bothered him. His mouth pulled into a tight line, and I thought he was about to get out of his car.
Which had been why I pulled on.
I had no idea why he was here, but I didn’t fucking care. My window was still broken from him and his crazier-than-fuck rage.
I cruised on and believed he’d get the hint.
He didn’t.
Right away, the growl of his Audi hit the air, the sports car following behind me. I let him get as far as my garage before I hopped out of the car.
He did too, the thing snapping shut when he came around. He’d returned his glasses to his face, but he tugged them off when I stalked toward him.
He looked like a wreck, and completely different than when I’d seen him yesterday. For starters, he had bags under his eyes, his hair messed about on one side. He worked his shoulder as he strode toward me, and I wondered how long he’d been in his car.
I wondered how long he’d been outside my house.
This begged the question why, and his split knuckles definitely gave me pause when I saw them. They hadn’t been like that yesterday either.
But then again, Ares’s face hadn’t looked that way until I’d seen him the second time. Dorian’s hand was obviously the source of this.
“We need to talk.” He didn’t acknowledge his hand, and his eyes were red too. In fact, they were bloodshot. His throat worked. “We’re going to talk.”
He stated this to me as if it were a command.
The audacity.
He wanted to talk. Now, he wanted to talk, and I was apparently supposed to listen. I cocked my head. “What makes you think I want to talk to you?”
His growl sounded low, deep and predatory. He pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I’m not playing a game with you, Noa,” he said, the only one who ever called me Noa. Like ever. He forced a breath through his lips. “So as much as you love your fucking sass, I don’t need it right now.”
Why would I care about what he needed? I shook my head. “Go to hell.”
I whipped around, but he was fast.
He cut me off before I even hit the garage and had hands on me even quicker.