Page 113 of Hunted

That girl is in grave danger of mistaking this false warmth for something real.

‘I’ll keep myself safe, thank you.’ My tone is brisk enough to make Selphine proud. ‘But I’d like to be armed with the knowledge.’

He says nothing as his face closes tight and he stares at me for an age, then pivots away.

I might think I’ve offended him if I didn’t know better. The silence isn’t empty. It’s full of calculation, old instincts and newer impulses crossing wires behind that impassive face.

He moves from the bar to the windows and back again, jacket discarded, shirt stretched over a body my eyes absolutely do not keep tracking and yet somehow continue to track, because grief and danger have apparently not cured me of noticing him.

As he turns, my gaze catches on his chest.

On the memory beneath the fabric.

The dream. That throbbing something. The thing he refused to answer when I asked.

It slides back into my mind with sudden, sharp relevance.

A hidden mark on the chest of one of the most powerful vampires in New York.

My pulse picks up for an entirely different reason. ‘Why are the people involved on the fringes of the Lyra Hannigan hunt being killed, Valentin?’ I ask again, slower this time. ‘Is it because finding her changes something bigger than just… you getting a mate?’

He stiffens ten feet from me. ‘You are circling things you do not understand.’

‘Then help me understand. You owe me answers.’

He keeps pacing. So I do what I always do when a wall won’t move. I look for cracks.

‘Is this territorial? Political? Bloodline succession? Some vampire high-table nonsense where everyone smiles and pretends not to be at war while they poison each other at galas?’

A flicker in his eyes at ‘poison’.

Tiny.

Gone instantly.

But I note it anyway.

‘Do not trivialise what you do not yet comprehend,’ he says, no heat now, only warning.

‘Then stop treating me like I’m too fragile for context. I think you know me well enough to know I’ll go digging with or without your shovel.’

His head snaps towards me. ‘This has nothing to do with fragility.’

‘Really? Because from where I’m standing, men are dead, I’m a target by association, and every answer I get comes wrapped in a riddle and a threat.’

His nostrils flare once.

Hit.

The silver flickers back into his eyes, that lovely dangerous tell he probably hates me for learning.

At last, he stops pacing. ‘Stay in my suite,’ he says.

I blink. ‘What?’

‘You heard me. I have calls to make. Measures to put in place. We will discuss next steps when I return.’

I laugh. ‘You think I’m going to sit here while you vanish into vampire war-room mode and come back with a plan I’m expected to follow without input?’