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Damon had appeared in an interview an hour later with an explanation that his dragon sometimes needed to eat ashes to stay sated. He’d said it with such a poker face, as if he hadn’t devoured two bodies in the woods today.
She was safe.
She was safe, and these stupid tears wouldn’t stop coming.
Made no sense. She was glad Derek was gone. He would never hunt her again thanks to Gunner, and the Warlanders, and Damon Daye.
But she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.
She took a sip of her wine, set the glass back down, and rested her cheek on her hand.
Corey pulled up and came to a stop. She got out and stared at her. “Was it you?”
“Was what me?” she asked innocently.
“The news footage. The fires. The dragon?”
“I don’t even know the dragon,” she said. Lucia had told her to keep quiet, so she would.
Corey came and sat beside her, looked at her face, and then reached across and cupped her cheek. “That black eye is going to be rough in the morning.”
She huffed a breath, wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her hoodie again, and looked away. “I’m free.”
Corey was quiet for a while. She leaned her shoulder against Hallie’s and rested her head against her neck, stared at the woods with her. “I don’t want to know, and I don’t care. I’m glad you’re free. You deserve to be happy, Hallie. None of that should’ve ever happened to you.”
Her cousin kissed the side of her head and then stood, went inside, and left Hallie out here waiting for Gunner to show up.
He didn’t.
After another hour, she picked her phone back up and texted him again. Where are you? Send.
****
Where are you?
Gunner saw the notification on his phone from the mount on his motorcycle. He read it three times before he slowed and turned his phone off. He coasted for a couple of minutes, lost in his own head.
He’d never been able to leave the territory until now, and he couldn’t look back.
Hallie was safe from Derek, but he couldn’t go falling for a woman who had been in it for a bite.
He couldn’t do it again. He’d barely survived the first time.
Gunner hit the throttle on a straightaway, and his speedometer climbed.
100
125
152
168
192
Around 200 his mind went quiet, and there was the secret. If he went fast enough, if he got close enough to not existing anymore, nothing hurt anymore.
Stupid bear, getting hooked again so fast. All he knew how to do was destroy, and bond to the wrong women. He was best at falling for women who were just looking for a way out.
