Page 46 of Wicked Lord

JEALOUSY IS A *ITCH

Lorelei

A tangle of fear coursed through my veins, freezing me to the spot as the footsteps grew closer. Not faint footsteps either. Heavy ones.

The study door handle rattled.

My breath lodged somewhere behind my ribs.

It was bad enough we were on the edge of financial ruin, and now I was about to get caught breaking and entering. Would my father even waste our precious remaining funds on bail? Or would he let me rot in a holding cell just to prove one final point?

Axel’s hand closed around mine, hard and warm, jerking me out of the spiral before it could drag me under. “Come on,” he hissed.

He yanked me away from the sofa just as a key scraped into the lock.

Panic detonated in my chest.

Axel hauled me toward the window, moving fast but silent despite my heels, while the knob turned behind us. A thin sliverof space beneath the sill let in the warm summer breeze, but the damn thing was barely cracked. Releasing me, he shoved his fingers under the frame and pulled.

It didn’t budge.

“Axel,” I whispered, my voice strangled.

The lock clicked.

With a muttered curse, he wrenched the window again. This time, the old wood shrieked as it shot up.

The study door began to open.

“Go,” he snapped as he reached for the laptop on the desk.

“Are you serious?” I choked, staring down at the drop. We were on the second floor, for God’s sake.

“There’s a trellis. Just shimmy down and don’t look down.”

Light spilled across the carpet behind us. “Who’s in there?” a man barked.

Axel shoved me toward the opening. “Now.”

I scrambled through the small window, my hip catching on the frame as panic made me clumsy. For one horrible second, I got stuck halfway out, dangling over the side of the house with my legs kicking at empty air and my heart clawing up my throat.

Then Axel’s hands were on my waist, forcing me through.

I grabbed the white lattice, vines scratching at my arms as bougainvillea snagged in my hair. The trellis groaned under my weight. Below me, the flower bed looked impossibly far away.

Behind me, the window slammed into Axel’s shoulder.

“Hey!” the man shouted from inside. “Stop!”

I didn’t dare look back. I lowered one foot, then the other, my sandals slipping against the narrow wood slats. Halfway down, a light flooded the side of the house, blinding me.

A motion sensor. Motherfucker.

“Move!” Axel hissed from above.

The trellis shook as he climbed out after me, laptop tucked under one arm like the lunatic actually thought he could scale the side of a mansion one-handed.

A sharp crack split the night.