Page 38 of Freed By Wrath

It’s her.

Valerie stands quietly in the doorway, wearing one of Slash’s oversized black T-shirts, the fabric falling almost to the middle of her thighs. Most of her makeup is gone now, leaving only faint traces around her eyes, as though she’d scrubbed away everything she could but exhaustion refused to follow. Her copper hair is pulled into a loose ponytail, a few stubborn strands framing her face, and the tiny black horns are still perched on top of her head.

For some reason… She kept them. And they make even more—

Fuck.

Don’t go there.

“Can I come in?” she asks quietly. She looks impossibly soft, fragile and even more beautiful and brighter than she did only a few hours ago.

I step aside without a word, my heart pounding against my ribs.

She slips past me into the office, glancing around with the hesitant curiosity of someone entering a stranger’s world.

She… She wasn’t the one who was supposed to be standing there.

Where the hell are those two?

Almost instinctively, my hand rises to the leather mask still covering the upper half of my face.

I never took it off.

Maybe because it was easier that way. Maybe because it’s the last illusion of control I have left. Or maybe…Because I know that the moment I take it off, there’ll be nothing separating Isaac, the cop who knows exactly how badly tonight has gone, from the man who can’t stop looking at the woman standing in the middle of his office and wondering what it would feel like to have her.

“So…” she begins, and her voice is small, almost… uncertain. Shy. Completely different from the one she was using just moments ago in the heat of her moment with Slash and Fabien in our living room.

She’s twisting the hem of Slash’s T-shirt around her fingers without even realizing it.

“Valerie.”

“Isaac.”

Silence settles between us, and she stays close to the door while I remain next to my desk.

Neither of us moves, and I’m too aware of how uncomfortable she is.

I clear my throat.

“Look… about tonight…” The words die before they have the chance to become a sentence.

How do you apologize for kidnapping someone? How do you apologize for failing to stop your best friends? How do you apologize for, besides all that, part of me is envious that they touched her, had her, tasted her and I didn’t?

“I don’t know where to start,” I admit. A sad smile flickers across her lips.

“I don’t think either of us does,” she replies, and I nod once.

“If you want me to drive you to the station…” I force myself to meet her eyes. “I’ll do it.”

Her brow furrows.

“If you want to press charges…” The words scrape against my throat. “I’ll take you there myself.” I continue. “We’re all adults here, and what happened tonight—”

“Hey…“ She stares at me for a long moment but then, slowly starts walking toward me.

One cautious step. Then another. Until she’s standing only a few feet away.

“Do you really think I’d do that?”