I looked around. The room was empty. What felt like a bag of rocks dropped in the bottom of my stomach, and I sagged against the doorframe. He left.
PC wiggled in my arms, and I set him down without moving a foot more into my empty apartment. PC, oblivious, pranced across the room and checked his food bowl. A couple of bites of kibble were left in the bottom and he happily—and noisily—chomped away at the early morning snack.
I stood there looking around a moment longer. Then I pushed away from the doorframe and forced my back straight.
So he left. So what? It wasn’t like he hadn’t done it before.
I shoved the door closed harder than needed and dropped my purse by the side of the bed—which Falin had apparently stripped before leaving. I glanced around, but I didn’t spot the bedding anywhere. Great.
I headed for my dresser, pul ing my shirt over my head as I walked. Then the bathroom door opened.
I jumped, whirling around at the sound and pul ing my shirt flat against my chest in one movement. Falin stepped out of the bathroom, his ice blue gaze meeting mine.
“Alexis.” My name, my real name, was a whisper around a smile as he stepped forward. Then his gaze moved down, taking in my half-dressed state. His eyebrows lifted and the smile turned rakish.
I gulped and looked away. “I, uh . . .” I’d thought he’d left, but there real y wasn’t a reason to say that. “The police are on their way,” I final y said, and then turned my back on him so I could dig through my clothes hamper one-handed. The hamper was currently fil ed with clean but unfolded clothes
—the dirty clothes were in the pile beside it.
I felt the heat of his body warm the air behind my bare back before his hands landed on my shoulders. His skin was pleasantly warm against mine, and I felt the urge to was pleasantly warm against mine, and I felt the urge to lean back against his body and take the comfort I’d find in his arms.
But I didn’t.
He’d left without a word and appeared just as suddenly.
On top of that, he was the Winter Queen’s assassin— and her lover. Besides, I didn’t do relationships. I stepped away from him.
“I have to get dressed,” I said, clutching the change of clothes I’d grabbed and heading for the bathroom.
“Alex . . .” But he trailed off, not fol owing my name with anything.
I stopped halfway to the bathroom and turned back around. “What happened to my sheets?”
He glanced at the bed. “Soaking in the tub. They had my blood on them.” He gave me a weak half smile and lifted one shoulder. The movement wasn’t smooth, though, and he wasn’t quite fast enough to cover the wince.
He’s hurt. Wel , of course he was hurt. He’d shown up half dead last night and he’d reopened the wound during the fight. The idea that he could have healed al that damage in the last hour was pure faerie tale, but he did look healed.
His platinum blond hair hung loose and clean around his face and shoulders, and I could see no evidence of wounds on his face or scalp. His clothes were what I’d grown accustomed to when we’d worked together before—dress slacks and a crisp white oxford—but what I saw couldn’t have been real because the clothes he’d worn here were torn and bloodstained, and he didn’t have clothes stashed in my apartment. I almost opened my shields to see what he wore under the glamour, but what if he wasn’t wearing anything?
And speaking of clothes, I was stil only half dressed and I could hear the police sirens in the distance. Crap. I ducked into the bathroom and dressed quickly. When I emerged a minute or two later I found Falin sitting stiff-backed on my stripped bed.
stripped bed.
“Don’t tel them I was here,” he said without standing. I stopped. “Who? The police?”
He nodded.
“I can’t lie to the police for you.”
“I’m not asking you to lie. Just don’t mention me.”
I frowned and studied him. I didn’t real y know Falin. Once I’d thought I did, at least a little, or at least I’d felt like I knew him. But feelings could be deceptive.
“What’s going on?” I asked, leaning against the wal . I could hear the sirens in front of the house now. I needed to get downstairs, but I wanted some answers from Falin first.
“What happened to you?”
Falin pushed away from the bed. He walked across the room and peered through the window before answering.
“It’s complicated.”
“Complicated? Someone tried to kil you.”
He didn’t respond. Maybe I have it wrong? He was the Winter Queen’s assassin. Maybe it wasn’t that someone had tried to kil him. Maybe they were just trying to stop him from kil ing them.
He stil didn’t say anything.
“Falin, why are you here? Why now?” Had he just needed a place to hide while he was injured? Was that why he was here?