Page 38 of Daughter of Garnet

“Zoe, honey?” A large hand closes around my ankle. I don’t bother looking up. I know this voice, this touch. It flows through me, warming my soul, but I can’t look in his eyes because I know what the next thing he’s going to say is, and I don't want to lie to him.

“Are you okay?”

No. I’m not.

He left. Dominic left, and he may be an asshole, but I needed him, and I couldn’t tell him that.

A chunk has been carved out of my chest, the chasm filling with echoes of what I should have said.

“Come on, let’s get you up.”

Cliff shuffles closer to me and wraps his arms around my waist, heaving me up into a sitting position. I don’t make it easy on him. My body is dead weight as he adjusts me in his arms.

“I don’t know what happened. You don’t have to tell me. All I need to know is if someone hurt you, and if you need me to get Warren.”

After the weirdness of Warren kissing me, how unnatural being in his arms felt, I don’t want to see him. Especially not when I'm like this.

“No to both.” It takes so much effort to force the words out. Cliff takes what I say at face value and doesn’t ask any follow-up questions. I'm grateful. He's one of those guys who knows how to just be.

He wiggles around, adjusting until his back is against the wall, and settles me sideways across his thighs. One of his large hands presses on the side of my head and pushes my face down to his chest. I can hear his heartbeat through his soft shirt, feel his chest rise and fall with his steady breaths.

It takes at least ten minutes of Cliff stroking one hand along my cheek while the other rests gently on my thigh before he speaks.

“I was on the other side of the library, stocking shelves, when a piece of paper fell off my cart.” He shuffles me a little so he can reach into his pocket. “You may want to see it.”

I lift it from his hand and unfold the white sheet.

She needs you. Eastern back wall.

The blood drains from my face as I scramble out of his lap. “Who gave you this?”

“No idea. I don't know how, but I knew it was about you. Who upset you like this?”

“Dominic, but he didn't write this.”

Cliff's face goes dark. "Dominic? That asshole. First he chases you in his tiger form, and now this? What is that guy's fucking problem?"

"He's an asshole." My words are dismissive. His bullshit is easy to ignore in the face of another note from my stalker. I read it again before folding it into small squares. “Can I keep it?”

“Who did write it?"

There are secrets that I'm forced to keep right now, but this is not one of them. I refuse to burden myself with more than I have to. "I'm almost certain that it's Cameron. The Alpha from the library. The one who⁠—"

"The one who choked me?" Cliff balks, leaning away from me as if I were the one who put hands on him. "That psychopath? Did you see him again? Was he here?"

If anyone else questioned me like this, I'd push back, but coming from Cliff, I can only feel his concern in waves.

"I haven't seen him since that day. He's left me a couple of notes to let me know that he's watching me, but he's been keeping his distance."

"For now." Cliff's words are harsh and sharp. "He's keeping his distance for now. But stalkers escalate, Zoe, and I worry for you if he does."

Until Cameron attacked Cliff, I didn't think anything was too off about him. He seemed a little odd, sure, but I was going to go to dinner with him. I can't imagine the man who left me such a beautiful dress being capable of violence, but it would be foolish of me to ignore his capacity to harm when I saw it with my own two eyes.

He is an Alpha, after all.

Cliff's steady presence has me feeling better after only a few minutes. That tether that I felt between me and Dominic has relaxed; the strain on it has given enough that I can stand. Cliff follows me to his feet.

"Are you sure you're okay?"