Page 81 of Burned

My stomach turns.

Lucian moves instantly, arm around my shoulders.

“Carlos is using Caleb to get to me somehow. He wants to draw me out, force me to make a foolish plan that isolates me from you and?—”

“Don’t ever pull that again,” Lucian growls before he lets me finish.

I put my hand on his chest to stop him. I look up at him. “Each time I did something stupid, I was only trying to protect the people I love.”

Begrudgingly, he says, “I know.” He puts his hand over mine, pulling it to his and holding it there.

“But I’m here,” I tell him. “And I’m not leaving.”

The tension in his body changes. Not gone. Softer.

For a moment, we sit there like that as if there’s no one else in the room. Or the world. Just us.

Then Cass yells from the hallway, “Are you all done with this secret meeting?

Because some of us would like to eat our breakfast before dinner.”

I close my eyes. Lucian sighs.

“Your sister,” he says.

“You know she’s not a patient person. She’s difficult.”

He smiles. “Runs in the family.”

Emotion makes my voice even raspier than usual. “We have to do whatever we can to keep her out of this. And to keep her safe.”

“Same for you,” Lucian says.

I look at Isobel. I have no doubt she’s been watching Lucian and me the whole time.

CHAPTER TWELVE

LUCIAN

Red Shutters,with its shutters painted green, is full of armed men. Bayne’s people still move through the trees like the damn Merry men of Sherwood Forest. Mack still stands close enough to the front door to become a wall if needed. Rafe and Blaze are in the library with Lucian, presumably plotting murder in expensive voices. Cass is in the kitchen baking damn cookies the men will devour, and despite the thousands of dollars of toys that were delivered, Gregory is helping Ryan build a cardboard castle out of an old delivery box.

Everything should feel contained.

It does not.

I stand at the kitchen sink, rinsing a mug that does not need rinsing, staring out the window at the pale winter yard. Snow clings to the porch rail. Beyond it, the woodpile sits exactly where it did when we found Erin spying.

Isobel.

Her name crawls under my skin and makes a nest.

I can still hear her voice. Carlos said he bought a replacement.

I hate that I keep replaying the line. Hate that some pathetic part of me is still examining it, turning it over, trying to find a less painful angle.

Erin is the most precious thing to me, and what Isobel said is true. There is no way I can forget it.

In the depths of my darkness, I offered a young woman money in exchange for her virginity. I almost can’t believe that was really me. I don’t know that man anymore.