Which wasn’t true.
Though…not because of lack of effort on my part.
It just turned out romance was as foreign a concept to me as the economics of other countries and howfootball worked. Getting people into bed was much more difficult than I’d have ever imagined. I recalled all the times I’d heard as a teenager how boys were animals who only wanted one thing, how I had to be careful as a woman or I’d get taken advantage of.
Yet most of these men were not taking advantage of me in the way I wanted them to, no matter how I tried to tempt them.
Not that telling them that would matter. Deception was a way of life here at Larkwood, and weallhad our secrets.
“Don’t fight with me. We don’t have long.”
“I’m not trying to fight,” he assured me, despite the aggressive tone of voice that he used almost exclusively for fighting. “I just worry about you. I’m afraid I’ll open my email and see your name on the North Tower list. I don’t want that.”
To be fair, neither did I. Despite the fact that the North Tower seemed my only real escape option, I wasn’t ready to face that horror just yet. I needed a better plan, more information—anything to give me an edge.
But it wasn’t as if I could admit any of that to Deacon. If he discovered any plan for escape I had, he’d just ruin it to protect me.
So I had to keep that all close to my chest and play dumb.“You don’t need to worry about me.”
He made a soft sound low in his throat, as if he couldn’t believe what an idiot I was. “Of course I do. You’re trouble, Hera, and you attract trouble like a fucking magnet. Don’t forget, I was the one who saved you that night when you changed. I saw it all. I know exactly how much you need someone worrying about you.”
I dropped my gaze at the painful reminder. If it wasn’t for him, I’d have died on that parking structure floor. I’d have bled out because of the man who had slit my throat, the one who had taken my voice.
Instead, Deacon had heard my scream, had come and saved me.
Then he’d brought me to Larkwood…
It was a complicated relationship.
He reached forward again, but he didn’t touch my cheek. Instead, he touched the scar at my throat, the whole reason I couldn’t speak. “You almost died.Thishappened because the world didn’t like what you were. I saved you that time, but I’m terrified I won’t be able to the next, that you’ll do something stupid and end up in a situation I can’t do anything about.” His words were so soft, so sad that they took me aback.
I forced myself to stare into his eyes, to witness the pain and fear there. For all Deacon’s faults—and there were a lot of them—he wasn’t a bad man. He wanted the best for me.
The problem?
We didn’t agree on what was best. He wanted me alive even if it meant losing everything else. I wanted freedom, even if it meant risking my life for it.
It was an impasse I didn’t know how to fix.
“I don’t want to see you get finished off because you want to escape,” he whispered.
I forced my hand up so I could sign back.“I’m not planning anything.”
* * * *
“So, what’s the plan for our escape?”
Knox let out a laugh as he read what I had signed. “You really don’t beat around the bush, do you?”
I shrugged before reaching into his fridge for a water. It was odd to think that weeks before, I’d been so nervous in his place, so afraid of doing anything wrong, of upsetting him.
Now I treated his space as if it were my own, and each time I did? He smiled a little wider.
I held one water out to him, but he shook his head. It gave me the chance to look at him for a moment, surprised as ever by just how handsome he was.
He had a body that could have tempted me even if he hadn’t been the kind man he was. He was lean but strong, and he kept his hair so short it was basically buzzed off. He had on a T-shirt, and while that wasn’t normally the type of outfit to swoon over, he made even it look amazing.
Then again, that was partly due to the general sensuality he had, all thanks to his incubus side. He was essentially a walking billboard offering sex, and while he and I had never fully gone there, it didn’t make me immune to noticing.