Page 45 of Problematic

He was angry.

He was furious.

He was also waiting.

Nobody waited for girls like me. They moved around us. Over us. Through us. They decided what was best and called it protection if they wanted to feel clean afterward.

I swallowed.

“No,” I said, and my voice shook enough to piss me off. “I can take an order.”

Kalon nodded once.

The woman’s mouth curved.

I turned back to her with a smile that felt stapled on. “What can I get you?” I asked.

She opened her mouth. Kalon set one hand on the counter. Hard. The cups beside him rattled.

The woman shut her mouth.

I smiled wider. “That’s what I thought,” I said.

Kalon’s mouth twitched as he held back a laugh. Mine did too and for half a second, I felt powerful.

Not because he saved me.

But because he let me choose when he didn’t.

Chapter 7

Lux

The camera Vale had on cut to the guy’s hand touching her shoulder.

I felt something in my jaw crack. Pop.

“Vale,” I said. My patience was hanging on by a single, frayed thread. “Move your hand.”

On screen the view jolted a little. Vale’s gloved fingers slid out of the corner of the frame where he’d stepped close, clearly ready to intervene.

He did as I asked, though not quickly.

The big one behind the bar leaned in toward Liv. Deathdrinker, my brain supplied. Kalon. I’d seen his file in passing once. Too much power for a coffee apron.

Liv smiled up at him and something ugly twisted in my chest. “I don’t remember a boyfriend being in your report,” I said, tapping my fingers on the desk.

On the feed the entitled bitch was still at the counter, staring Kalon down. The entire shop had gone quiet.

“Lux,” Vale said quietly in my ear. “He doesn’t know. Hell, she doesn’t even know.”

I groaned, leaning back in my chair. That was Vale-speak for “don’t off someone who has no clue what they just stepped in.”

Kalon’s shoulders were loose, but his aura was not. It coiled tight around him, lethal and focused. “Don’t talk to her like that,” he said, and the way he said it told me exactly how fast he’d kill if she kept going. I liked him immediately.

Liv stood there with a stack of lids in her hands like a shield, eyes wide, cheeks flushed.

“You heard her,” the bitch sneered. “What are you going to do about it, Deathdrinker? Bite me.”