“I think you do know more,” she said. “I think this is all about the Seven, but it doesn’t make any sense. Why did you hack into Dage’s schedule?”
Because he hadn’t had a choice, but he couldn’t tell her that. She wouldn’t understand, and he didn’t blame her. “You did a good job with the questioning, sweetheart,” he said, “but it’s time for you to go home.” He looked toward the tree line. “Where’s your escort?”
“Escort? I’m not going anywhere,” she said, smacking him on the arm.
The impact was ineffectual. Yet irritation still ticked within him, not so much at her but at the people who had sent her to talk to him. They knew he was dangerous, and they knew he’d been working against them, and yet they’d sent her in like a sacrificial lamb? Sure, the snipers were good, but he was quicker than anybody knew. He looked slowly around to identify each position and then tuned in his senses to the soldiers in the forest. There were even three behind the house and two inside the home. If he made a wrong move, there’d be a lot of shots fired, but he still had a chance to take her. They never should have allowed her anywhere near him.
“Don’t put yourself in danger like this again, even if the people around you are stupid enough to think you can handle it,” he said curtly. “Do you understand me?”
Her temper was rare, but when it flared, it was glorious. She kicked him hard, right where she’d shot him in the leg earlier.
Residual pain echoed through his muscles, and he growled. “All right, fine.” He yanked his hands free of his pockets and grabbed her good shoulder, pulling her in. She started to protest. “You think you know me. You don’t. Stop treating me like the scared kid who used to hide in your room.”
That sweet little chin firmed. “Or what?”
Oh, she knew it was a colossal mistake to challenge Paxton, especially with so many snipers focused on him, but she just couldn’t help it. She needed to let go of the image of the boy he’d been and face the warrior he’d become while she’d thought he had been studying insects with his uncle.
“You don’t want to fuck with me right now, Hope,” he said, his voice deadly soft with warning.
She shivered at the low tone as awareness cut through her. That was new. She wasn’t sure how to deal with this new Paxton, so she faced him squarely. Her nipples peaked as flames licked through her, even though it was freezing and there were guns trained on them. “You don’t scare me,” she said, not meaning a word of it. At the moment, he was surprisingly terrifying. It was as if she didn’t know him at all. “If you don’t knock it off, I’ll kick your ass in front of everybody watching.” It didn’t hurt to remind him that he would get shot if he made the wrong move.
She hadn’t even realized he was dangerous until she’d seen him fight in Nuremberg. Pax was faster than any other soldier his age, and he had seemed perfectly in control and more than prepared to take down the Kurjan squads. “I don’t want us to be enemies,” she said honestly, her heart turning over. “But if you do, have the balls to say so right now.”
“Or what?” He threw her words back at her quietly. His eyes blazed a glittering green in the harsh glare of the streetlights—which was his tertiary color. Those colors emerged during times of stress or deep emotion.
She gulped.
He looked down at her, creating a huge shadow in the light behind him. When had he gotten so big and so broad? His body looked harder than rock, dense and impenetrable. “It’s time for you to go home,” he said, turning away from her.
Oh no, he didn’t. She kicked him again in the leg—right where she’d shot him earlier.
He didn’t turn quickly as she expected. Instead, he pivoted slowly to face her. She knew instantly she’d made a mistake.
He curled one impossibly strong hand around the nape of her neck and one beneath her knee, pulling her butt forward and tipping her back. She gasped, but he ignored the sound and pressed her down, partially leaning over her but not putting any pressure against her wounded arm.
His jaw looked cut from granite. “I think maybe it’s time you learned I’m not the scared little kid who won’t take what he wants.” His heated palm cradled her neck as his thumb caressed the side of her jawline.
She couldn’t move and she couldn’t think. Flames licked at her skin, and she forgot all about the soldiers surrounding them as his mouth took hers. Her eyelids fluttered closed, and sparks flashed, hot and bright, as desire lit her nipples on fire and landed between her legs in a firestorm. She had never felt like this—so sensitive and so needy. Paxton Phoenix was the only reality in the entire world.
A bullet impacted the back of the truck, but even then, Paxton didn’t stop kissing her. His tongue delved deep, tasting of cinnamon somehow, and his lips moved fierce and firm on hers. She made a soft sound, and she could admit later that it was more of a surrender than a protest.
With his hand still at her nape, he pulled her back into a seated position, and then slowly released her and took a step away. He studied her for one long moment. “Tell Liam he’s fixing this truck since he just put a bullet hole in it.” With that, Paxton turned and strode to the doorway of the house and disappeared inside, not looking back once.
Hope pressed her fingers to her trembling lips. Even at her age, she’d learned that single moments, tiny slices in time, could change everything.
Her world would never be the same.
Chapter Eight
Since it was well after midnight, all of the lights were off in Hope’s house as her protective escort of six left her at her door. Her sprawling ranch house sat in the middle of demon territory, several houses down from her parents’ home in a nice cul-de-sac in front of the quiet lake. She opened the door and walked inside the comfortable home she was temporarily sharing with Libby.
Their Christmas tree twinkled in the corner, and several presents for Hope’s baby brother were already wrapped and wrinkled under the tree after he’d done his best to shake them the other day.
As usual, there were blankets, pillows, books, notes, pens, and more of Libby’s belongings strewn around the living room. Hope was too tired to clean up after her tonight.
Zane Kyllwood clicked on the lamp from his seat on the sofa near the fireplace. The jumble around him was uncharacteristic, and Hope knew her father must have had to struggle to refrain from organizing the chaos.
Hope couldn’t help a small grin, even though her head was still aching. “Libby’s kind of messy.”
“I’m well aware,” Zane said. “She always has been. How are you?”
She couldn’t read his mood, which worried her. “I’m okay. My head still hurts, but the drugs are wearing off, so it should be all right soon. Any word from Emma on the ingredients of whatever they shot into me?”