Page 109 of Immune

Something in her gaze flickers. Not quite relief, and definitely not trust. Something smaller, more dangerous. Proof.

Then she steps out into the rain.

I wait about three seconds before I end up following after her, but it seems three seconds wasn’t enough. Ten years wouldn’t have been enough. But it’s all I can give her before my instincts start ripping through my self-control and the roofline becomes too open and exposed and easy for a shot from another building.

Dakota stands near a rusted vent, rain pouring down her jacket and dripping from the brim of her hat. The wind catches at the end of her braid, the white-blond rope swaying with every gust that blows past.

“Don’t ask,” she demands, voice cracked and raspy.

“I won’t,” I promise.

Her laugh is short and rough. “That was fast.”

“I mean it,” I assure her.

She turns her head slightly and shakes it. “Everyone says that before they inevitably start asking.”

I shrug. “I’m not everyone.”

“No,” she agrees, but it doesn’t sound like something positive, especially when her fingers flex around her knife. “You’re worse. You act like you understand things you have no business understanding.”

I keep several feet between us as I tell her, “I understand enough.”

“You don’t understand anything,” she chokes.

“Maybe.”

She faces me fully then, eyes sharp. “No. Not maybe, Kaito. Definitely. You don’t know me.”

The words land exactly where she aimed them, exactly where she intended for them to hit hard enough that I’d back down.

“I don’t,” I agree, and her expression falters for only a second. But then I continue. “I know pieces. Not enough to claim anything, and definitely not to decide anything for you.”

Her breathing changes under her bandana.

Rain is running down my face and into my eyes, but I let it, because I know if I move too much she’ll run.

The kiss pulses between us like a fresh wound. I can feel it pulling at us both. My Alpha wants to step closer and cover that pull with skin and scent. My hands want to learn the shape of her jaw, the weight of her hair through my fingers, the places pain hides in her shoulders. The part of me that is less instinct and more man wants to ask what happened to her, who Doctor O’Reilly really was, and why the word immune made her look like the roof had finally vanished from under her feet.

I don’t do a single thing.

That’s the third choice.

And maybe that’s the only one that even really matters.

“Your body recognized something,” I say carefully.

Her eyes narrow. “Don’t.”

“I’m not saying it owns you,” I clarify, keeping my voice steady. When she goes completely still instead of stabbing me with her knife, I continue. “What I am saying is bodies know things before minds are sometimes ready to acknowledge. Fear. Hunger. Pain. Safety.”

Her voice is cold when she asks, “You think you’re safe?”

“No.”

That answer surprises her. Good.

“I think you decide what’s safe,” I tell her. “Not me. Not my Alpha. And not biology. You.”