Stone Guardian(79)

“Terak.” She took a cautious step toward him, holding out her hand like she would to a growling junkyard dog. He stopped circling, and that was a good enough sign to reach out and touch him, to rub his arm up and down, plea and apology mixed together in the gesture. “I tried contacting you several times over two hours. I swear I did. I jumped on the balcony and I used that little silver ball you gave me, but neither worked. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“I never received any message. The ball is foolproof, it should have reached me.” He shook his head. “It does not matter. You should not have gone! It was foolishness to leave this place.” The flatness was now gone, and the walls vibrated with his anger.

“I had to!” Yes, he could be mad, but she wasn’t going to be talked to like she was eight. “They lied and said the meeting was going to be an exchange of information. I never expected to be kidnapped, and I had my brother with me, so I wasn’t alone. I had to take a chance to find out if they knew anything to help.”

He made a sound of dismissal, wiping away her words with the swipe of his arm. “I told you not to trust the Guild, and I told you to never leave without me. You disobeyed my instructions. It is pure luck that I was able to find you as quickly as I did.”

“Excuse me?” Now he was pushing it. “If you were so worried, then you shouldn’t have disappeared on me. I wasn’t the one who ran away after kissing someone senseless!”

“I…” He straightened then, wrapping himself in his usual dignity and lowering his voice. “I did not run away.”

“Sure seemed like that to me. For weeks every time I turned around I tripped over you, and then suddenly we share a kiss and you are nowhere to be found? What would you call that if not running away?”

“It was not running away. I needed to think upon the events of the last few days.”

“Yeah, including how you kissed me.”

“It was… it was…” He looked defeated. “Do you regret it?”

Talk about turning it around. Now she was on the defensive, looking into eyes filled with pain and hope. She pushed her hair back, ducking her head. “I wouldn’t say I regretted it,” and she really shouldn’t mumble like that, because she didn’t want him to ask her to repeat what she said.

“Then what would you say?” he asked, his eyes sharpening.

“I’m… not unhappy it happened.”

“Does that mean you are happy it occurred?”

Wasn’t this leading the witness? Oh right, they weren’t in court. “I would have preferred other circumstances.”

“Such as?”

“Such as you not being engaged.” Ha! There, couldn’t argue with that one.

“Valry and I are no longer Intended.”

Back the truck up. “What? When… How? Really?” Eloquence, thy name is Larissa Miller.

He studied her for several moments, and then he smiled.

He smiled.

A full blown grin such as she had never seen on him. Happiness radiated from him in a way she’d never experienced before, and how was she supposed to respond when the sight was frying the synapses in her brain?

He advanced, walking toward her with a predatory grace he’d never displayed before. “You seem pleased by that news.”

Who was this gargoyle? He had always been reserved, almost courtly in his bearing before, not this magnetic, determined animal stalking his prey. And by the direct stare as he held her gaze, there was no doubt that his prey was her.

Since he was advancing, what else could she do but back up? “I need more details before I decide how I feel.”

“What type of details, little human?”

“The usual – what happened, any chance of reconciliation, are you returning the engagement gifts?” Her back hit the wall and he was leaning over her, not allowing her any more movement.

He studied her, his eyes direct and intense, almost scary in how focused they were on her. “What do you feel, Larissa?” and gods knew, she would admit to about anything if it meant that he kept saying her name in that exact voice.

She didn’t know why he was no longer engaged, whether it was because of her words or some other reason. But it was time to move forward. If these last few weeks – hell, last few hours – taught her anything, it was life was uncertain, and you needed to grab hold of the chances you were given, all the outside forces be damned.

His alien, beautiful face was right by hers, every line and plane as familiar to her as her own. A face she dreamed of belonging to a male she longed for. She reached up, stroking her finger over the grey skin. “I feel that I don’t regret a moment of what’s happened to me, because I found you in the middle of it all.”