Page 112 of Hunted

That’s an answer.

It is also not the answer.

‘Amazing,’ I mutter. ‘You managed to say so many words and still dodge the point.’

His head turns slightly. ‘The point is that this is now active opposition within my territory.’

‘The point,’ I shoot back, hopping off the desk because I can’t sit still while he does that smooth evasion thing, ‘is that people connected even remotely to your Lyra hunt are turning up dead. That’s not random disruption. That’s strategic pruning.’

The word hangs there.

Grim.

Accurate.

His eyes sharpen.

‘And if they’re pruning the edges,’ I continue, because logic has to take over before terror wins, ‘what happens when they get closer to the centre? Is she in danger?’

What happens to the bounty hunter she reinvented herself to be?

The growl that leaves him is low enough to raise every hair on my arms.

‘No.’

Not glacial.

Titanium.

‘She is not,’ he says, stepping towards me with predatory quiet. ‘I will not allow anything to happen to her.’

A chill slips down my spine.

Not because I doubt him.

Because I don’t.

If Lyra Hannigan is what he says she is, I believe he would turn New York inside out and set it on fire before he let anyone touch her.

And because I am Lyra Hannigan, standing right here while he says it, the contradiction almost knocks the breath from me.

I look away first, pretending to consider the room, the desk, the city beyond the glass. Anything but the fact that his promise has hit somewhere deep and ancient in me.

‘And I will not let harm come to you either,’ he says into the thick silence.

The possessiveness in the words, directed at me now, violent and absolute, robs me of breath.

‘I can take care of myself,’ I manage, hating the shameful breathlessness in my voice.

Black swims beneath his eyes. ‘You do not know the forces we are dealing with, little hunter.’

‘Then enlighten me. I know there’s a hell of a lot more you’re not telling me. I can defend myself if I need to⁠—’

‘You will not need to.’ He cuts in instantly. ‘I will keep you safe.’

I almost laugh, except nothing about this is funny and my throat is too tight.

The warmth expanding through my middle is alarming at best and foolishly unsafe at worst, because somewhere deep in me is a girl whose world was ripped apart the night this very vampire decided she was his to claim. A girl whose father tossed her away on his debts. A girl who has been alone for six years, with only an abrasive New Orleans witch offering the questionable comfort of expensive regard.