Storm and Fury(15)

Several claps startled me, drawing my gaze to the doorway. It was empty. My gaze shifted to the right.

Oh crap.

It was him.

Zayne.





6


Leaning against the wall by the door, ankles crossed, Zayne was too far away for me to make out his expression. He was dressed a lot like he’d been the night before. Black henley paired with dark jeans, a startling contrast to his golden skin and hair.

“You’re really good at that,” he said, crossing his arms. “And I find myself thoroughly grateful that you did not have those daggers with you last night.”

“Thanks,” I said, heart thumping heavily as I glanced around the otherwise empty room and then back to him. “How long have you’ve been standing there?”

“Long enough to wonder if you were trying to memorize every centimeter of the blade before you threw it.”

My cheeks heated. Great. “Do you normally watch people without alerting them to your presence?”

“I figured you saw me,” he said, and I guessed that was true. He would figure that. “I wasn’t exactly hiding behind a curtain or something.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You could’ve said hi instead of watching me in silence.”

“Well, the last time I tried to alert you to my presence, you tried to kill me.”

My brows lifted. “I did not try to kill you.”

“Not how it felt from my perspective.”

“Then your perspective leans toward the overdramatic.”

“You’re hard to talk to,” Zayne said after a moment.

Offended, I glared at him. “No, I’m not.”

“Okay, let me rephrase that. You’re argumentative.”

“No, I’m not.”

Zayne stared at me, as if me arguing with him just then was proof enough of what he claimed.

It was sort of proof of what he claimed, and that irritated me. “Why are you here?”

“Like on Earth, at this place, at this right moment and exact time—”

“That’s not what I meant.” I cut him off, and I swore I heard a smile in his voice. Was he...teasing me? “Why are you in this room, watching me?”

“You make it sound like I’m stalking you.”

“You said it, not me.”

He pushed off the wall but didn’t come forward. “I’m sort of surprised to find you in here,” he said, instead of answering why he was here.

“Why is that?” I started toward the dummy to retrieve the daggers. “Because I’m human?”

“Yeah, well, yes.” There was a pause. “There are a lot of Wardens who can’t hit a target as well as you just did.”

I couldn’t help it. That little compliment, intended or not, brought a smile to my face and a surge of pride.

“You really are trained, aren’t you? That’s why you reacted the way you did last night.”

Stopping in front of the dummy, I pulled the first blade out. “I have some training.” Out came the next blade, and I turned around. He wasn’t by the wall anymore. He was in the center of the room. I drew in a shallow breath. Earlier I had told myself I needed to apologize to him, and now was a better time than ever I’d supposed. “About last night? I...think I owe you an apology.”

“You think?”

“Well, I know I do.”

He moved closer, and I saw that his hair was down, brushing the strong line of his jaw. “Really?” He sounded surprised, which was messed up since he didn’t know me. “You’re going to apologize?”

I walked toward him, shifting the blades to one hand, and as I drew closer, the striking details of his face became clearer. I sort of wished they’d stayed blurry. I dropped my gaze to his throat.

It was a nice throat.

Thinking his throat was nice was really weird.

“Now I feel like I shouldn’t, because you’re irritating me again.”

“Don’t let that get in the way.”

“It’s already in the way,” I replied dryly. “But I...I overreacted. You didn’t grab me.” When I lifted my gaze to his, he was staring back at me, and I was finally close enough to see his eyes. They were... They were the palest shade of blue framed by the thickest lashes I’d ever seen on a guy. The color was odd, because all Wardens had bright blue eyes, but his were wolf eyes, cool as winter frost. Curiosity piqued.

I cleared my throat. “So, that was...wrong of me and stuff.”

“And stuff?” A grin played over his full lips. “I accept your apology.”

“Good.” I shifted my gaze over his shoulder. If Misha returned and found Zayne here, he would have a minor stroke and never leave my side again.

“Actually, I was looking for you.”

Surprise flickered through me and I took a small step back. The grin faded from his lips. “Why?”

“Because we got off on the wrong foot,” he explained. “I’m a guest here, and usually I’m more...amicable than I was last night.”

Some of the tension seeped out of my shoulders. “Well, I did swing at you, and that kind of set the tone.”

“It did, but it was mostly on me. I was just so surprised to see a human at the regional seat.” Thick lashes lowered, shielding those strange eyes. “May I?”

It took me a moment to realize he was talking about the daggers. “Sure.”

His fingers brushed mine as he took one, causing that strange little jolt to travel up my arm. A sense of...familiarity swept over me, a feeling of rightness, of many moving pieces finally clicking into place.

I jerked my hand back.

I lifted my gaze to his and sucked in a sharp breath.

His eyes were wide, and his head was cocked slightly, like... Like he felt something he didn’t understand.

Or he could just be looking at me because I was acting bizarrely.

Probably that.

Zayne cleared his throat. The dagger was so much smaller in his hand. “I didn’t say anything to the Duke about you being in the Great Hall last night.”

“Thanks.” I watched him turn and walk toward where I’d been standing when I threw the blade. “Misha did, anyway, so...”

“The guy who was with you last night?” Zayne glanced over his shoulder. “He seems...uptight.”

I snickered at that as I moved out of the path of the dummy. “It’s kind of his job.”

Facing the dummy, Zayne looked over at me. “His job is being uptight?”

Hell.

Why did I say that? I wanted to punch myself. “I meant, it’s more like his personality. He meant no harm by it.”

Except Misha did mean harm by it. He’d said Zayne was a bad guy, but Zayne really didn’t need to know that.

Zayne stared down at the dagger, looking like he wanted to say something but was refraining.

“Are you going to throw it?” I asked.

Sending me a grin, he lifted a shoulder. “Maybe I just like holding it?”

My lips twitched. “Maybe.” I thought about what I’d overheard last night. This was my chance to find out what the heck was going on. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Do you really think it’s not a demon killing the Wardens and other demons?”

“You were there.” He paused. “Hiding behind the curtain, so you heard what I thought.”

I ignored the curtain statement. “But what else could it be?”

Zayne was silent for a long moment. “I don’t know. None of us do, and all of us have seen some strange stuff—not as strange as a fully trained human living at the regional seat—but very strange stuff. That’s what concerns us.”

Me living here was strange, but not that strange. “I...think I’d be concerned, too.”

“You’d think the Duke would be also.”

“I’m sure he is. Thierry hides what he’s thinking pretty well.” I shifted my weight from one foot to the next. “Did you know that two days before you all showed up, there were Ravers in the woods outside our walls?”

His features sharpened. “No, I didn’t know that. No one mentioned it to us.”

I opened my mouth to respond, and then realized that if they hadn’t been told yet, I probably should’ve kept my mouth shut. “Oh. Well, I’m sure it’ll come up.”

“Why in Hell would Ravers come all the way out here?”

“Good question,” I murmured. “There wasn’t an Upper Level demon with them. Just a horde of Ravers, sort of like what you said about DC.”

He was quiet for a moment. “You know a lot about demons.”

It wasn’t poised as a question, so I shrugged. “Picked up quite a bit living here.”

“Have you heard about the raids on other communities?”

“Yes, but Thierry doesn’t know I’ve heard that.”

“Snooping behind curtains again?”

I fought a grin. “More like standing outside closed doors.”

“You do that a lot?”

“Enough to know better.”

He inclined his head. “Doesn’t make sense for any demon to try to invade this place, with the number of Wardens in various stages of training.”

I agreed. The only way it made sense was if the demons knew what else was inside these walls. “Maybe they were lost. Or bored.”

“Yeah.” He didn’t remotely sound like he agreed with that, and I really hoped he wouldn’t mention to anyone else what I’d told him. “Besides the blade throwing and what I saw last night, what else are you trained in?”