Page 95 of The Dragon and the Dove

‘How did you get here?’

‘I walked.’

She reeled. ‘From the Appoline?’ A gruelling trek. ‘So that’s why you look like shit.’

He rolled back on his heels, chuckling. ‘I love it when you flirt with me, kitten.’

‘Call me that again and I’ll claw your eyes out.’ Those searing ice-blue eyes. Rimmed in long black lashes that softened the madness behind them. And now they were just … looking at her.

Didn’t this guy ever blink?

She raked her curls back. ‘What are you doing here, Caruso?’

‘Don’t you know, Saint of Truth?’

Moonlight danced along his heavily inked skin, making his shadow-marks even more prominent. A whorl climbed up the side of his neck and curled behind his ear, like it was reaching for the patchwork of scars there.

Caruso Dantes is not a good man.

Why did she have to remind herself of this?

She squared her shoulders. ‘Maybe you finally lost that last brain cell of yours. I guess it could only hold on for so long.’

He smirked.

‘Spit it out, Caruso.’

‘I want out, Valerie.’ His grin dissolved with remarkable quickness, his face so serious she didn’t need her magic to read the conviction on it.

A tilt of her chin. ‘Why?’

‘You know why.’

She was not about to make it easy for him. ‘Spell it out.’

‘He’s a monster.’ He said it so plainly. ‘You know he’s a monster.’

‘I’ve known that since the day I met him. And so have you.’

He offered no denial, the knot in his throat working as he swallowed.

Anger sparked as hot as coals in her gut. ‘If you had killed him when you were supposed to, we wouldn’t be in this mess.’

‘I know.’

The crackle of her rage shoved her forward. ‘You fucking turncoat.’ She slammed her hands against his chest. When he didn’t react, just looked at her from beneath that dark veil of lashes, she did it again. Harder.

She wanted him to flinch.

She wanted him to hurt.

But he said with irritating smugness, ‘Come on. Put your back into it.’

She gripped his shirt, not sure if she wanted to shove him away or pull him closer.

Caruso Dantes is a bad man, she reminded herself.

Then why are you touching him? whispered the old voice.