Page 165 of Blake

Draven was still struggling to believe she was really here. She nodded, but the smile she’d tried so hard to wear never came.

That’s when he noticed the rest.

She was thinner than he remembered. Her shoulders were hunched, and her hands trembled slightly at her sides.

The light that had always been with her seemed to have disappeared. In its place was something he recognized all too well.

Fear.

Draven’s instincts sharpened. He climbed the steps, then stopped a few feet away.

“Rachel, what are you doing here?”

She glanced toward the street.

The movement drew his attention to the side of her face. A fading bruise surrounded one eye, its dark center edged with sickly shades of yellow and green.

His blood turned cold.

“Who did that to you?”

She immediately looked away but said nothing.

Draven clenched his jaw, his fists balling tightly at his sides. Someone had hurt her, and in that moment, he wanted nothing more than to hurt them back.

He wanted to demand an answer. Wanted to know who’d dare lay a hand on the woman he’d once loved more than anything in the world.

But the way she stood there, looking as though she might shatter at the slightest wrong move, kept him from pushing.

“Okay.”

Her amber eyes lifted. “Okay?”

“We don’t have to talk about that right now.”

Something flickered across her face.

Relief, maybe? Or perhaps it was disbelief. Try as he might, Draven wasn’t sure which.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?”

She shook her head, but he wasn’t sure he believed her.

“Does anyone know you’re here?”

Her gaze darted toward the street again.

He didn’t like that answer, either. “Rachel.” He softened his voice. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”

She looked at him for several long seconds, then her beautiful eyes filled with tears.

“I’m sorry.”

It was barely a whisper.

Draven frowned. “For what?”

“For showing up like this. Especially after all these years.”